Books / Articles - Book Reviews: About Our BoysAbout Our Boys - a Practical Guide to Bringing out the Best in BoysThis unique book avoids the emotionally hobbled, beige type of advice books that flood the market. Lucinda Neall’s heart for boys- and her advocacy for them- comes across clearly and honestly. The importance of viewing boys and their behaviour through the filter of context and their wiring is at the heart of the work. The book is friendly and readable, without being lightweight or whimsical. You get the impression this was written more as field manual rather than for a Kensington coffee table. Laden with powerful points such as “values are caught not taught” interesting asides about what makes them laugh at which age, and the excellent chapter on giving boys an emotional vocabulary, Lucinda Neall has an intuitive grasp of what parents need to know- perhaps even if they don’t know it themselves yet. The references throughout the book are excellent. They alone could form the reading list for a seminal research project. The illustrations are topical and funny, and case studies are on most pages, which serve to flesh out the points being made. In an age where some parents can either live in fear of what their male children experience, or have become so estranged they are unable to relate, this work is timely. “About Our Boys” is important for parents and professionals in a society where men and boys are increasingly marginalised and their role confused and negated- or often supplanted by paternalistic, macho, or nihilistic versions of what is to be male. If you only buy one non fiction book this year, get this one Simon Langley, Community Social Worker Lucinda Neall presents a great deal of information about handling boys in an easy to read and digestible format, and this book should be useful to anyone whose personal or professional life requires them to interact with boys. This includes the police, whose professional life requires them to blend authority and persuasion in the subtle mix of behaviour needed to police by consent. About Our Boys appears to derive from the psychology of transactional analysis, once popularised by Eric Berne. 'Parent-child' interactions do not usually provide the appropriate level of exchange, even between real parents and children. Girls are in general more aware than boys and are more adept at avoiding outright confrontation. Boys thrive on a firm, fair and friendly level of exchange in which they are encouraged to complete rational tasks in a competitive way. They need the company of men whom they can admire and wish to emulate. Mrs Neall does not address current controversies, such as one-parent families and their possible disadvantages, or the comparative lack of progress by boys from Afro-Caribbean backgrounds in our schools. Is it all a little too bland? I do not think so. This book is a fund of common sense: and that is an uncommon commodity. Peter Villiers – The Police Review |
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