Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys - Raising Cain

What an amazing, thoughtful, well written book. I have 2 little boys and I feel so grateful that I'm reading this book just in time to prepare me for the years to come.
Having boys is absolutely the most amazing experience ever but it can also be challenging, tiring, overwhelming!
Thank you for writing this book and reaffirming that love, gentleness, respect and understanding for each other feelings can never go wrong!

Loved this book - very insightful, informative, easy to follow and remember. Great stories and examples, lived through many of those both as a growing up young man and a father. Recommend to any mother or father of a boy, age one to twenty.

This book has given me insight into my own upbringing so as not to repeat the same missteps as the teachers and other adults did when I was growing up. It has allowed me to truly hear my son rather than just assuming that he'll 'figure it out'.

Very good and usefull for parents that are confronted with dificult situations. It is always good to find answers to your questions and this book is excellent in provinding valuable guidelines for parents.

This fine book gives food for thought in raising boys. It reminds you of things you probably already know, such as that being yelled at hurts, and that even boys have rich inner emotional lives. Reading this book should make you more mindful of how your actions (or lack thereof) affect the boys in your life.

I am so thankful I found this book.Emotional literacy!!!How logical!!!How horrific that we still don't know this is the most important literacy we have to master first and for most and than we can go about other achievements.I recommend this book to everyone!Not just parents,not just fathers...Thank you Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson.I am learning to understand myself and my boys!

If I were a college psychology teacher again, I would use this as required reading. We need to understand how us boys grow up. The boys' journey is not simple and their growth drama deserves respect, patience, understanding, and care from all of us. This book has opened my eyes to a world that I forgot. Many thanks to the authors for capturing my attention and appreciation for growing up as a "guy".

Raising Cain both allowed me to form opinions about raising a son and teaching boys in school, but also affirmed some notions I had developed on my own. This should be required reading for all teachers.

This book gave me a relief from my worries, pointed on basic mistakes parents do and explained many questions with sound reasoning. I am glad I came across it and definitely will recommend to friends.

My wife and I started reading several books on boys as we have 4 boys. This book had high rating so we bought it. I forced my way through just over 1/2 of the book and couldn't take any more.

My issues are two fold.

1) Almost ALL of the ideas presented are based on circumstantial evidence. Psychological research shows clearly that therapists subjective experiences are poorly suited for scientific conclusions. They cite all kinds of resources in the back of the book but never really show the statistics or how it supports their conclusions. They hope you will assume that their stories all conform to the sources they threw in the back.

For example, they compare the "respect" of the John Wayne character with gang "respect" as one of their examples of male machismo and how it is bad. It is simply a circumstantial example and a poor one at that. Can you really say that John Wayne and a ruthless gang member have the same definition of "respect"? Even if you don't like John Wayne's style, the two are nothing alike!

If they had stuck to statistics and research it would greatly help their writing. (That's even with psychological research being some of the least respected research in academia for it's serious lack of objectivity.)

2) While they have some good ideas, there is no real order or progression to the book. They have compiled chapters of ideas that bounce around with no real end in mind. The chapters are the same. For example, the chapter on harsh discipline tells some sad stories but they NEVER explain how a person would know when they had crossed from firm to harsh. They never really outline exactly how harsh discipline is harmful. Worst of all, they don't explain what good discipline looks like. I can understand that harsh discipline is a bad idea, but I need more than just a couple of sad stories to tell me what I already knew!! Give me steps, ways to act, additional educational resources -- ANYTHING but a bunch of stories telling how you were a great therapist and then that's the end of the book.

I needed more than this book could provide.

My favorite book on boys so far is "Boys Adrift." It has given me some concrete ideas supported by loads of research. In addition, there are practical suggestions as to how I can help my boys become "men" in good and healthy ways.

Imagine if you will, a surly teenage boy being dragged into a school he doesn’t want to attend to take a state test he doesn’t want to take in order to earn a diploma that he doesn’t see the point in anyway. You can certainly imagine that he would not necessarily be pleasant to the adults in this scenario. He might even have some choice words or gestures. Well, just the other day I was an adult in this scenario and I learned so much in my 30 minute interaction with him. It got me thinking about how important it is to learn to read “read between the lines” when interpreting the words and behavior of boys & young men.

In their compelling book, Raising Cain, Dan Kindlon & Michael Thompson explain what I saw in the young man on testing day.

“Emotional isolation has become virtually a reflex by the time a boy reaches adolescence. He has learned to deny his emotional neediness and routinely disguise his feelings. Intimidated by the constant threat of humiliation presented by the culture of cruelty and the ensuing erosion of trust, boys strike a psychological bargain – a bad one – namely, that they’d rather hide out than take any more hits. The more pressure a boys feels the more deeply he withdraws.”

Before I read him the directions for the test, we sat and talked for a while. I knew there was no point in pressing on unless we lightened the mood a bit. As I have been reading through great books like Raising Cain I have come to understand that for young men apathy is often a cry for help. So I tried some of the approaches in the book and really connected with him. The secret was simple – I was able to take the time to sit with him, acknowledge how he was feeling and give him a challenge.

We both walked away from our first meeting smiling and he was in a good space to take the test – which he is smart enough to pass without much effort. Also common with boys who have no interest in school.

But, I didn’t know how well we connected until a couple of days later when he came into my office, closed the door and proceeded to tell me that from the time he was a little boy it has been his responsibility to keep his dad alive. The young man went on to explain that his dad has a major drinking problem and that on many occasions he has kept his dad from killing himself in one way or another. The heaviness of that responsibility has just paralyzed him. He also told me that he has never told anyone else about this – and I believe him.

The good news is, he is looking for help. He is willingly talking to me and I think we can get him through this. Using the understanding and tools I have gained from books like Raising Cain and Real Boys by William Pollack I hope to make real progress with him and many other young men at the high school where I work. Highly recommend these books if you are a parent, teacher or other significant adult in the lives of young men. For more ideas check out two great websites: www.SaveTheXY.com & BuildingBoys.net

In Raising Cain:Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, child psychologists Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson discuss the emotional education of boys. Through case studies, many facts and citations, this book suggests that schools, parents, and society overall do not foster the emotional growth of boys which causes long lasting issues such as anger, aggression, or depression. They describe a society that expects both too much and too little of boys. For instance, their actions are dismissed too easily by parents and teachers as "Well, that's just boys being boys." On the other hand, boys are held to the impossible and unfair standards of masculinity in which they are not allowed to express emotional vulnerability such as sadness or hurt.

I agree with the concept that there is a lack of emotional development for children in society, but not just with boys. There are many parents who do not foster their children's emotional growth and development, be it sons or daughters. There is often a greater value placed on academic achievement over emotional development. Some parents, for example, may care that the child reads for 45 minutes a night or does exceptionally well at school. However, what they miss is the fact that school does not teach the child how to manage his or her emotions, and this is where all parents must become teachers.

The book does not give the reader specific instructions. Instead of being a "how to" book, I found it to be more conceptual in nature. It is more of an eye opener to the way society acts and reacts to boys and shows how we must rise above cultural stereotypes for the sake of our children. I think if the readers understand the message, they will in fact be better equipped to understand boys and help them to become emotionally stable men.

If you are a parent of a boy or a teacher, that you keep this on your bookshelf. Kindlon and Thompson go through the different stages of a boy's life and the different emotions they can experience and how you can best support them. I do think if you are looking into this book to begin with, you must already be a pretty good parent or teacher and this can only enhance your relationship with that special boy in your life. For further reading about parenting and managing your child's emotions, I would recommend What Do You Really Want For Your Children? by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

"Raising Cain" by the psychologists Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson is very controversial because it's very right or it's very wrong. Its main contention is precise and powerful: the family structure of competitive career-oriented fathers and obsessive fastidious mothers, a school system that is too happily ready to harshly discipline boys without providing them emotional support, and a society which has a narrow mindset of what manliness entails and thus imprisons boys in a "culture of cruelty" are conspiring to wreck the emotional lives of boys. The hell-raising and risk-taking testosterone-driven stereotype of boys has some basis in nature, but it's mainly created by nurture.

To understand the inner world of boys today consider what they read and what they're exposed to in popular culture. Frank Miller's graphic novels -- "Sin City" and "300" -- are extremely popular among boys, and these novels are brimming with violence, fear, hatred, disgust, and contempt. Or how about sports such as football where sports commentators don't emphasize intelligence and teamwork but raw instinctive brutality and violence? Then there is the hip hop music of black gangsters that resonate so powerfully with white middle-class boys.

There's a striking anecdote that the authors use to illustrate this "culture of cruelty" : a school's lacrosse team gathers two young ninth-graders after school, and forces them to fight. That really is a metaphor for how society develops boys, and to counterbalance this the authors propose another metaphor. In a park, a mother sits on a bench and watches her young three-year old ward learn to explore the world around him. He takes a few steps before scattering back to his mother's embrace, and confident that she will be his anchor he musters the courage to explore the world a bit further. The mother knows that the world will only offer dangers and challenges for her young son, and deep inside is afraid of losing him to the world -- but strengthened and armored by her love she lets him go so that he may become a man.

This is an affecting and effective metaphor for how we should raise boys. Some boys are shackled in their mother's strong embrace, and that only forces them to rebel in anger and frustration. Many more boys are simply abandoned emotionally -- they're forced to defend for themselves, and confused and alone they often turn to anger and violence, because that's the socially acceptable path.

"Raising Cain" implores parents and teachers to equip young boys with an emotional language that they can use to be more aware of themselves and to confront their mixed feelings. Teachers should be just as nurturing and as sensitive towards boys as they are towards girls, and parents ought to give each boy room to discover his own individuality while always setting strong guidelines to ensure that he also develops socially. Above all, boys should be encouraged to communicate, and while it's true that boys aren't as verbally gifted as girls it's even more true that adults don't make any effort to see the world from the perspective of boys.

"Raising Cain" is an extremely liberal tract in an increasingly conservative America, and will provoke parents and educators into questioning the status quo of a sports-dominated culture, test-oriented schools, and a very competitive goal-oriented workplace.

Raising Cain is an excellent book that will provide much insight for parents, especially women, into the painful world of boyhood. The authors both worked at boys' schools for a period of time and developed the book out of their practices'.
The book depicts the emotionally stunting messages that boys receive about being told to 'grow up' 'toughen up' 'get over it' and 'don't be a sissy'. The authors provide real evidence and example about how caustic these messages are to the souls of boys.
One of my favorite parts of the books deals with the tough time that boys have in school, just for being little boys. The authors speak about the fact that boys do not develop an attention span as early as girls, and that they should not be punished for it. Also mentioned is that little boys are high energy creatures who need to have more effort placed into directing their energies, rather than being punished for fidgeting. I especially like the depictions of classes that start with recess, allowing boys to work off some energy so they can sit and concentrate.
One thing that I did miss in this book was a full discussion of the fact that so many boys are suffering with no father in their home, many with no father in their life, leaving only what they see around them and on television to be their male role models. Because research has proven that the most important influence in a child's life is the same-sex parent, I think this was a bit of a strong omission. Perhaps, though, the authors felt that the subject was too complicated or intense to fit into the whole of the book. At any rate, what the book does contain is excellent and should be read by everyone, because everyone (even those who are single and/or childless) will be affected by the way that boys are brought up in our culture, whether you like it or not.

Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys
Raising Cain is one of a number of books that address the challenges of raising boys, but it stands out among them by eschewing both the glib Gender War rhetoric and the underlying political or theological agendas that often characterize other books on this topic. Instead, it is both deeply insightful and full of compassion for the emotional lives of boys and men. Rather than offering a point-by-point program, the authors focus on various goals for raising boys, and make some suggestions on how we can accomplish them. It devotes an entire chapter to the relationship between fathers and sons, and a recurrent theme of the book is finding ways to effectively close the emotional distance between ourselves and our sons.

This book addresses issues for boys of all ages, and also discusses difficult topics such as depression, drug use and violence among boys. Finally, all fathers were sons at one time, and Raising Cain is a book that can help us better understand not only our sons but ourselves as well.

Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys co-authored by Teresa Barker. Two of the country's leading child psychologists share their experiences of working with boys & their families. They reveal a nation of boys who are hurting - sad, afraid, angry & silent. Statistics point to an alarming number of boys at risk for suicide, alcohol & drug abuse, violence & loneliness.
Kindlon & Thompson set out to answer this crucial question: What do boys need that they're not getting? Through moving case studies & up-to-date research, Raising Cain portrays generations of boys systematically herded away from their emotional life by adults & the peer "culture of cruelty"; receiving little encouragement to examine their emotions & develop qualities like compassion, sensitivity & affection.
In Fathers and Sons: A Legacy of Desire and Distance, Kindlon & Thompson open up the sad, sad wound of unrequited love. When a grown man cries in therapy, it is almost always about his father & his yearning for his father's love. Into that yearning has been fed decades of anger, sadness & shame.
Why is it that fathers describe their sons as never listening, not understanding while their sons describe their fathers in similar terms of discontent? Why do sons rub their fathers the wrong way? Can fathers & sons have a close, loving relationship? How can they close the emotional gulf? Kindlon & Thompson have some good ideas, read'em & weep!
Kindlon & Thompson identify the social & emotional challenges boys must encounter in school & the streets & show us how we can help boys cultivate emotional awareness, empathy & health. They offer us seven foundations of parenting, teaching & creating communities that respect & cultivate the inner life of boys. Read'em & weep, then practise them!
Raising Cain is aptly titled for it is one tough book to read! There were portions I dreaded! I do, however, recommend it heartily even if you have no boys in your life - you must have brothers, husbands, co-workers, employees & bosses & this book goes a long, long way to explaining why modern people of the male gender behave the way they do. Do check out our Boy's Week of reviews & others on the inner life of boys & men.

Upon hearing the fantastic news that my good friend was having a baby and, later, that it will be a boy, I carefully chose which gifts to offer in celebration. Alongside two bath bombs and a stuffed toy sloth, I tucked my personal copy of Kindlon's "Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys". I consider it a sort of prayer that the baby soon-to-be's will have a greater sense of peace with themselves than the boys and girls and genderqueer(z) have in generations past. I hope the babies of parents who read and comprehend and apply this book will know the beauties of complex human emotion, the defeat and the thrill and the warmth and the grief. If you know a boy who identifies as a boy, it is imperative that you read this book.

I had high, high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, I wound up not liking it at all. I give it two stars for talking about a difficult subject, but the stars are for the attempt, not for the execution.

The premise of this book - that boys get emotionally shut down during childhood, until many adult males just don't have the basic emotional tools you need to cope as a human being - seems like a very worthwhile public conversation to have. But unfortunately, I felt like this book was really light on exactly how you could protect the emotional lives of boys, but very heavy on vague, often contradictory statements (often kind of mom-blamey) about how you shouldn't let boys think they are the best, but you should also not criticize boys, because men are more sensitive than women. That kind of thing.

While thinking about why I disliked this so much, it occurred to me that maybe I am just not the target audience for this book. If responding to your child's "Why is that boy crying?" query with "Maybe he's sad. Sometimes all of us feel sad, but I bet his mom and dad are going to help him feel better soon." is an idea so radical that it literally blows your mind, maybe you will find the stuff in here useful. If you are coming from a place where you tell your sobbing toddler to toughen up because boys don't cry, maybe this book will help you be a better parent.

If you already know that boys are just plain old human beings who have feelings just like girls do, skip it.

Let's start with the title. "Raising," to me, implies that one would nurture, support and guide. I expected insight into the life of boys, and advice on how to "raise" them better. The insight provided by the authors is indeed very helpful: Boys don't understand their emotions. Men live their lives in pain and ignorance.

However, the stories stop just when the "raising" would start, such as the first story involving three boys, two who tease and one who suffers. the story gets to the point that the teasers think teasing may have gone too far if the teased boy cries. Then the story stops. O.K., we are just at the beginning of the book, and maybe later the authors will talk about what to do next. The very first story in which that happens is on page 134, and it is not a story in which the process this mother used would be repeatable in many cases. then the book goes on, showing that boys cannot name their emotions, so have no tools to deal with them (O.K., I get that. Can we move on???) No, we don't. If the book had had a different title, such as "250 pages repeating that boys don't understand their emotions," I would have looked for a different book.

Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson have written a crucial book that is pivotal for the emotional well being for boys, especially teen age boys. Their prescription of emotional freedom over emotional tyranny and boys having to cover up their emotions which leads far too many into isolation and even suicide, makes this book beyond crucial.

Anyone who is raising a male needs to really understand the emotions that males have, and they need to be taught how to un-do old stereotypical cultural views that trap boys in an isolated emotional prison. Males must receive equal value placed on how they feel, much more so than acting tough to prove that they are strong.

Inner strength comes from honesty. When boys know they can be honest with their feelings, emotional and mental strength are the result.

I avidly urge parents, grand parents, teachers and all caregivers of males to read this book. What you learn, and your approach to raising the boy in your life can very well wind up saving his life as a result. This book is THAT crucial!

Barbara Rose, Ph.D. author of Know Yourself: A Woman's Guide to Wholeness, Radiance & Supreme Confidence and Stop Being the String Along: A Relationship Guide to Being THE ONE

After reading this book, I came to the conclusion that every hospital in the country ought to have a supply on hand to give out to new parents/caregivers upon the birth of a son, much like car dealers give you an owner's manual when you buy a car.
Continuing on with the metaphor, after reading this book, I came to the conclusion that we know more about cars than we do about children! This book should be read by...
*Anyone who has a son, regardless of whether your relationship with him is good or bad. This book will help you understand the dynamics of father/son, and mother/son relationships; insight that will be vital during the turbulent adolescent years.
*Teachers, and administrators. Our educational system is so female dominated, that many of the well-intentioned ladies who come in contact with boys on a daily basis, have no clue what they are all about, and consequently, you see a disproportionate number of boys who are identified as having learning disabilities, get suspended, and/or otherwise in trouble at school.
*Every father, since fathers typically and traditionally, yet tragically, leave all "emotional issues" for mom to address. No more slacking dads! It is time to start pulling your weight!!
My heart ached after reading this book. It ached because with a little understanding, we would not see so many boys messed up. The authors of this book have made a wonderful contribution to the literature on child development and child rearing. Kindlon and Thompson make a compelling case that if we do not start doing better as parents, teachers, coaches, etc. etc. in helping our boys attain emotional literacy, the price in human terms will be incalculable.
I can honestly say that after reading this book, I will never be able to look at boys the same way again. A truly outstanding book.

I bought this book because a friend recommended it; they told me that it would give great insight into how a boy thinks and feels. He was right! I now understand much more about why boys feel the way they do, and do the things they do. It also helped me understand why I feel and react the way I do sometimes.
The reasoning behind why I read this book is that I am a single guy that is embarking on journey to adopt a son very soon. I feel all the insight I can get on how a young boys mind "works" is going to be a great advantage when trying to help my child enter a new chapter in his life. I feel this book helped me and will help him.
If you are a parent of a boy, a caregiver to a boy, someone that interacts with a boy, or just a guy that wants to know why you react the way you do to situations, get this book. I think it is well worth the cost to be able to help make a boy feel like it is ok to have emotions. To help a boy become a more emotionally literate man could be the greatest thing you can teach a boy. This book can you give you insight on how to do that and some understanding on how to recognize when a boy needs the support and emotional literacy to express his feelings. To just hear, "It is ok to have feelings" means a great deal to a boy.

Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, by Dan Kindlon, Ph.D. and Michael Thompson, Ph.D., is a book that captures the emotional struggles of adolescent boys in this day and age. It was fascinating in many regards to learn of the issues that boys deal with throughout the second decade of their lives, and how they deal with them. Raising Cain describes how boys desperately need a "clan" throughout their adolescence to help them grow and mature into emotionally healthy men. The book greatly emphasizes the importance of both a boy's father and mother, why these relationships are so extremely significant, and how parents can and should go about maintaining the strongest possible relationships with their sons. The book also explains boys' tendencies to keep things bottled up inside instead of talking about them, this being due to a lack of emotional vocabulary and the inability to express feelings. Boys, therefore, tend to suffer in silence or release negative feelings through anger or violence. Raising Cain does a great job of explaining how and why such behaviors exist in adolescent boys and how parents, educators, and mentors can help them through these challenging times in their lives. Although the book is very insightful, Raising Cain tends to over-emphasize the differences between the struggles and obstacles of adolescent boys and girls, and at many times, seems to pit them against one another in terms of which gender has it harder. This implicit competition makes the book frustrating to read at times. Overall, though, Raising Cain is a tremendously educational book, both from a professional perspective and a personal perspective.

This book is valuable for everyone who has ever been or known a boy or man (okay, everyone). It addresses the needs and experiences of boys and men and how they relate to emotional literacy. It includes many real-life examples from the authors' practices. It discusses how societal stereotypes (and their enforcement in various social settings) hinder boys in their ability to be happy, humane members of society and their capacity for intimacy in all its forms. It also explains how this information relates to various topics, such as friends, mothers and sons, fathers and sons, drug and alcohol use, depression, violence, sexuality and relationships.
I bought it a few months after my son was born and I have read it 3 times now. I plan on reading it every year, just to remind myself of the important principles outlined in it. Not only is it helping me understand and better respond to my son, it has helped me understand my husband, father, brothers, in-laws, etc. I find I can accept and respect male differences and needs better now that I understand what it means to grow up male in American society.

Raising Cain is about the emotional life of boys written by two psychologists with a background in counseling boys who appeared to be troubled, angry, etc. This book can be used by about everybody whether it's home, school, the playground, park, family gatherings, etc.

But I was surprised when I was reading about a 48 year old man who had such terrible school memories that he didn't want to attend parents' school at his sons' school. He felt 8 and not 48. I was never a good student in school and I was bored most of the time by redundancy and the lack of creativity in the classroom. My mind dozed off most of the time out of sheer boredom.

This book can also appeal to the emotional life of girls as well. As a child, I dreaded the school experience because it was repetitive, boring, and simply uninspiring. I was better at writing stories or using my imagination. My problem was that I was limited. The test scores placed me in average setting so I believed that I was just going to be only average. I didn't know that it didn't always have to be that way.

But children are easily scarred, male or female, I know I was. This book makes me realize that yes the teachers may not have understood at the time about the effects of being scolded, lectured, or humiliated to a young child's mind. As somebody in education, I am a lot more aware of this and I am careful in the classroom regarding situations.

I am thankful to the two authors who compiled a book about boys to help us educators understand and practice some sensitivity regarding their behavior. A teacher might not realize their power until it's too late.

I wished that there was a book about the emotional life of girls. This book has helped explain the male gender better than I could have imagined about their ties to parents and other children. Now a book about the girls.

My sister is a licensed day-care provider. This year she is doing something a little different. She only has little boys.... seven little boys! When I told this to a friend, a child psychologist, he became quite animated and excited about this book and that my sister should read it. I watched him as he explained different issues of how we are given our "life" lessons and how different the boys lessons were in comparison to the girls.
Having no children myself, yet believing we all stay children, but get more experiences as we grow, the books sounded great.
Wow... my eyes are opened... ! Yes, boys and girls are different, but the majority of the difference is not put there by nature, it is placed there by the messages we get as little girls and little boys. This book will tell you about yourself.. will help you with your children, boy and girl children.. It is extremely well written. It is written in the form of short stories. Very similar to the way we learn as really young children.
This book is a must for all, and especially our educators.