Maggie Dent - From Boys to Men: Guiding our teen boys to grow into happy, healthy men

About From Boys to Men

One of Australias favourite boy experts on how to help teen boys to develop into good men.

For boys, adolescence can be a confusing minefield and parents are often bewildered as to how to best guide their precious sons.

Many parents wake one day to find that their beautiful little boys have grown into silent, withdrawn, sometimes angry and often unmotivated tweens and teens.

Well-known Australian author, parenting and resilience educator, and one of Australias favourite boy experts Maggie Dent, offers parents and guardians a compassionate and practical guidebook, packed with advice and ground-breaking techniques on how to stay calm and:

Communicate effectively to defuse conflict

Unstick an unmotivated son

Teach them to cope with loss and failure, and how to recover

Help them foster healthy friendships and intimate relationships

Navigate technology and the digital world.

From Boys to Men empowers parents with insights, tips and a common-sense approach to help all boys and their families thrive as they progress through adolescence, offering hope for a future of adventure, stability, engagement and connection.

Featuring a Foreword by Michael Gurian

In the authors note, I write about Matthew a boy whom I had the honour of teaching in 1977.

I dedicate this book to Matthew and all the other Matthews in our world who find themselves in middle school or high school with a wounded heart or a broken spirit, low literacy and/or learning challenges or special needs, and who struggle every single day. Also, to all the Matthews whom we have missed and who have slipped through the cracks.

May we strive to stop punishing them by still using outdated behaviour management programs. Instead, may we find them the caring adult allies they need to thrive. May we offer these boys support to identify their needs and meet those needs while also recognising and celebrating their unique strengths.

Every boy matters.

I wish to acknowledge and pay my respects to Australias first peoples and to the traditional custodians of this amazing land. I especially pay my humble respects to the Noongar peoples of South West Australia, the custodians of my homeland, the country of my childhood, which I carry deeply within my heart every day of my life.

The ancient knowledge and wisdom that our Indigenous elders have known and shared for thousands of years still has value for our modern world. May we all find ways to walk gently and compassionately on these ancient lands, and come to a place where every child ever born is respected, valued and has a strong sense of belonging.

Keep an eye out for the following breakout boxes throughout this book. They each mean something different:

MENS SURVEY

This box contains a quote from a survey of adult men reflecting on their teen and tween years, conducted online in 2019.

TEENS SURVEY

This box contains a quote from a survey of current teen boys, conducted online in 2019.

MAGGIE TIP

This box contains a relevant tip from the Queen of Common Sense.

INFO BOX

This box contains scientific or other information relevant to the topic at hand.

by Dr Michael Gurian

Our boys need us now more than ever. While some boys succeed and thrive, many do not, and every parent of a boy is on the front lines of a collective distress in modern culture around how to be a healthy boy and loving, wise and successful man.

Maggie Dent knows a lot about boys! She has raised boys herself, and her research and teaching is popular and profound. To raise boys the Maggie Dent way is to advocate for and raise girls well, too. The lives of boys and girls, and women and men, and everyone across every spectrum are vastly interconnected. What we do for one, we do for all.

As a child advocate and author in the United States, Ive long admired Maggies work not just for her unmistakable wit but also her insights and practical strategies that resonate with both brain science and common sense. Maggie understands the spontaneity of the parentchild relationship, which is the mark of a good writer and communicator. When Maggie speaks, I love to listen!

In this book you will learn how to:

raise healthy boys in a complex and challenging digital age

manage adolescent brain and social changes that impact choices and behaviours

build resilience in boys, no matter the obstacles they will face

best communicate with your sons (and even your husbands!)

navigate under-motivation and potential high school disengagement among boys

help your sons build networks of good people to guide them.

Boys have always been raised by many people women, men, elders, peers, siblings, mentors, coaches, teachers. The only requirement we need have for one another is that all of us understand boys. Maggie understands boys and I join her in congratulating all of you in what you have done already in son-raising. We are in this journey together.

Dr Michael Gurian, New York Times bestselling author, including Saving Our Sons and The Stone Boys

It was important to me to have the voices and views of both teen boys and men in this book. I am enormously grateful to the 1672 men over 30 and the 957 boys aged 1218 years who took the time to complete our 2019 online surveys. I have included many of their authentic responses (unedited out of respect for their voices).

The survey for men received responses from around the world, not just Australia but from the US, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, South Africa, India, Thailand and several countries in Europe. I asked these questions:

Looking back, who helped you most as a teen?

What did you most enjoy doing for fun as a teen?

What was your most challenging experience when you were a teen?

What advice do you have for teen boys today?

If you had your teen years over again, what would you change?

What do you wish your parents had done differently when you were a teenager?

In a way these voices, looking back across the bridge, validated many of my own views about supporting teen boys and they also changed the shape of my intended book.

This is how I will display the mens responses throughout the book.

IF YOU HAD YOUR TEEN YEARS OVER AGAIN, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?

Show more respect to my parents. They are there to help you and will always do what they can to protect you even if I didnt realise it at the time.

I was blown away by the teen boys honesty. Being anonymous can allow for such expressions of truth without fear of judgement. Their responses really show the wide range of concerns they have and what they believe can help them.

The questions I asked the boys were the following: