They identify the social and emotional challenges that boys encounter in school and show how parents can help boys cultivate emotional awareness and empathy-giving them the vital connections and support they need to navigate the social pressures of youth. Kindlon and Thompson make a compelling case that emotional literacy is the most valuable gift we can offer our sons, urging parents to recognize the price boys pay when we hold them to an impossible standard of manhood. The good news is that this doesn't have to happen. Through moving case studies and cutting-edge research, Raising Cain paints a portrait of boys systematically steered away from their emotional lives by adults and the peer “culture of cruelty”-boys who receive little encouragement to develop qualities such as compassion, sensitivity, and warmth. Cutting through outdated theories of “mother blame,” “boy biology,” and 'testosterone,” Kindlon and Thompson shed light on the destructive emotional training our boys receive-the emotional miseducation of boys. Kindlon and Thompson set out to answer this basic, crucial question: What do boys need that they’re not getting? They illuminate the forces that threaten our boys, teaching them to believe that “cool” equals macho strength and stoicism.

Statistics point to an alarming number of young boys at high risk for suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, violence and loneliness. They reveal a nation of boys who are hurting-sad, afraid, angry, and silent. In Raising Cain, Dan Kindlon, Ph.D., and Michael Thompson, Ph.D., two of the country’s leading child psychologists, share what they have learned in more than thirty-five years of combined experience working with boys and their families.

Now, finally, here is the book that answers our equally timely and critical need to understand our boys.

The stunning success of Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher’s landmark book, showed a true and pressing need to address the emotional lives of girls.

Raising ophelia book