- SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Sit still. Don't cry. Stop hitting your sister.
Turn off the TV. It's not easy being a boy -- especially when America's
adolescent males are in crisis, says author Michael Gurian.
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- The most dramatic and visible symptom
is the recent series of deadly school shootings, all committed by boys.
But Gurian, a leader of the emerging boys movement, says millions of young
males are missing out on the nurturing they need.
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- Gurian, now 40 and a psychotherapist,
knows about tough boyhoods. When he was 10 he was sexually abused by a
physician. And his family moved so frequently that he had trouble bonding
with other children.
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- "Every kid has sufferings,"
Gurian says, speaking from his Spokane home. "I wanted to do something
in my adult life to make sense of what happened to me as a kid."
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- His best-selling 1996 book, "The
Wonder of Boys," clearly struck a nerve with its insights into a boy's
early years. Now, he has followed with "A Fine Young Man," which
examines ages 9 to 21 and suggests the violence they commit is predictable
and avoidable.
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- Statistics from recent federal studies
of boys and girls make it clear that boys are in trouble, Gurian says.
A sampling:
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- Boys are four times as likely to commit
suicide as girls.
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- Boys are 15 times more likely to be victims
of crimes, and they commit more crimes than men.
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- Boys are twice as likely to be diagnosed
with a learning disability and and four times as likely to drop out of
school.
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- Though the reasons are complicated, Gurian
believes many parents fail to provide boys with proper emotional support,
role models and supervision.
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- He cites a range of factors, including
divorce, lack of extended families, and time pressures on dual-income households.
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- Boys, he says, need more male mentoring,
especially after age 10 and especially if their parents have divorced.
Divorce often isolates boys from the only male mentor they have, Gurian
says. Divorced fathers, he says, must work to stay in their sons' lives.
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- He also sees problems with court battles
to allow girls in formerly all-male institutions. "Boys need to bond
with other boys," Gurian says. "We're wasting a lot of our cultural
time trying to integrate everything."
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- The boys' movement arose after a flurry
of attention to the the problems of girls prompted by Mary Pipher's 1994
book "Reviving Ophelia." That work detailed forces in society,
including media pressure to be beautiful and sophisticated, that can transform
lively pre-teen girls into unhappy, unhealthy adolescents.
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- Boys also are under pressure to conform
to society's expectations -- pressure, Gurian says, that can create confusion
and, in extreme cases, clinical depression.
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- Trouble can arise when boys are left
to sort out those expectations on their own, often relying on media or
video games for their ideas about manhood with little input from fathers
or other male mentors, the author says. Many hide that struggle behind
bluster, aggression or sullen silence.
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- And boys who are emotionally hurt tend
to respond by lashing out, he says. Several of the boys involved in the
recent school shootings were struggling with family problems or peer-group
humiliations.
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- "One-third of adolescent male students
nationwide carry a gun or other weapons to school," Gurian notes.
"We'll have more guys doing it."
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- It's no surprise to him that boys are
the primary consumers of video games, most of which concern a quest or
hunt. But playing such games for long periods exacerbates boys' tendencies
to isolate themselves and tune out the rest of the world, he says.
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- "Video games are dangerous,"
says Gurian, noting that graphic violence can desensitize boys. "We
are training this generation to be better killers than we've ever had before,"
he says.
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- But boys also can be damaged by efforts
to curb natural rough-and-tumble play, Gurian says. Millions of years of
evolution as hunters are behind their love of games involving balls and
other moving objects, but some boys are punished or medicated because their
high energy conflicts with parents' longing for order and quiet.
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- Grim statistics aside, Gurian's books
are upbeat, hailing the joys of boyhood while offering practical advice.
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- He says that boys are driven by biology
-- that roiling testosterone -- to be more physical, more solitary and
more aggressive than girls.
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- Gurian's emphasis on biological factors
puts him at odds with several other authors of recent books on boys.
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- It's the old debate: nature vs. nurture.
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- Squarely on the side of nurture is William
Pollack, author of "Real Boys."
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- It's too easy to blame testosterone,
says Pollack, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard University.
Hormone overload "doesn't make them more dominant and want to kill.
Society does that. If we don't let boys cry tears and listen to their pain,
they're going to shoot bullets."
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- He says society disconnects boys from
their mothers too soon, largely because of fears that sons will be labeled
sissies. But that, Pollack says, leaves many boys with no one to talk to
about their feelings.
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- Also disputing Gurian's emphasis on biology
is Dan Kindlon, who wrote the upcoming "Raising Cain, Protecting the
Emotional Life of Boys" with Michael Thompson.
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- "Societies can raise men who aren't
very violent at all," says Kindlon, also a Harvard professor, who
cites the Amish and some Eskimo tribes as examples.
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- He considers sexual abuse and excessive
discipline more likely causes of young male violence than hormones.
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- Gurian has no problem with the disagreements.
He's pleased the topic is drawing attention. "The Wonder of Boys,"
his fourth book, was rejected by 24 publishers who were more interested
in books about girls. Tarcher-Putnam eventually published it.
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- Gurian has two more books due early next
year, both aimed at young people. "From Boy to Man" is for boys
ages 10-14, and "Understanding Guys" for girls ages 14-18.
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- "We are saying you can't do better
for girls and women than improve the life of boys," says Gurian, the
father of two daughters.
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- Indeed, he and Pipher conduct joint seminars
and she wrote a cover blurb praising Gurian's book as "filled with
stories and practical advice."
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- By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press
Writer
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