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I have posted this question and have not received a lot of feedback. Maybe youse guys can help.
What age do you think is most important for a boy to have an adult male in his life? I am not talking sexual here (or maybe we can) but as a support system or role model.
I personally feel the ages of nine to fourteen are the time when boys are going through the most change, both physically and emotionally, and need that support.
Your thoughts?
Hugs, Charlie
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Provided the boy has fairly decent parents, those parents will teach the boy what he needs until school age. Usually school teachers and friends' parents, coaches and stuff will do the rest.
Are you asking when is it best for a boy to have male mentors other than that? Puberty is when lots of boys start to declare independence, regarding their beliefs and values, as opposed to thinking that whatever they were taught by others is correct. So mentors are particularly valuable then, when he's learning to think for himself. Being taught HOW to think is much more important than being taught WHAT to think.
Example...religious families usually don't have trouble making their kids go to Church,until adolescence sets in, and the teen starts thinking for himself.
Unless I mis-understood the question?
The Australian shrink and author Steve Biddolph (possible spelling error) has two good books out, on the big Net booksellers sites. "Manhood" is a good book, and his "Raising Boys" is also good. An American psychologist has a terrific book called "The Good Son", also about parenting male children. I forget the author's name...the book's at my office.
"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
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But I see that you tend to agree with me. That period when the body and mind undergo the most radical changes is the most important to have that support.
Hugs, Charlie
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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Looking back, my own son (and daughter, for that matter) seemed to find separate compartments for each parent from the age of three or thereabouts. I know we'd LIKE to think that nine or ten to mid-teens are the crucial years, but I suspect that the early years are even more important.
Whilst I have the utmost admiration for the efforts and achievements of a number of single parents of both sexes, I do strongly believe that BOTH parents are integral to the development of most kids - boys or girls. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that however desirable male mentoring may be, I don't see it as being any more essential than female mentoring - however much we might like to think otherwise!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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I had an adult male "in" my life. He was no use at all. he was a loving father, yet a selfish man. And I was unable to ask him the questions I needed to ask.
I feared him, you see.
Instead I would have wished for an anonymous resource such as th einternet where I could find a mentor and ask questions. But this would have been supervised by my mother or father, so would have been useless.
I needed a big brother, one that I could talk to and who would not judge me.
Like minded people started the "Big Brother Big Sister" organisation, but found thatthoer vehicle could become used by abusers, and thus they discriminate against anyone theleast bit unusual, or so it seems to me. But I needed one.
Hmm. Not a very useful answer, really.
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trevor
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Really getting into it |
Registered: November 2002
Messages: 732
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A whopper of a topic, me thinks.
I can relate with Tim - my father loved me, but wasn't a mentor in early years and we didn't have a relationship where I trusted him or considered him a friend at all. Unfortunately, my brother was a similar situation, partly my fault for hating him most of the time for being the "ideal" child and also having special privileges for being the oldest etc. Okay, enough whining.
But, I think someone with no significant male influence until about age 9 is almost "too late" to form a trusting relationship with an adult male mentor. My father suddenly decided to become an active father late in my teen years, too late for second chances in many regards. Maybe it wouldn't be too late (at 9ish) if there hadn't already be a "negative" influence to bias the boy?
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Not too late at all!! The human spirit and psyche is tremendously resilient and strong. At any age, even severe damage or neglect CAN be repaired thru loving them to pieces. (And Charlie, that doesn't generally mean sex, necessarily). Just loving them, and allowing them to become important to you, and listening to them, and being homest with them, at whatever age, can provide what we shrinks call a, "significant emotional corrective experience" which can last a life-time.
Harry Guntrip, a Brit psychotherapist and writer back a few years wrote, "A child knows in its bones what it needs and what's wrong in it's environment..." and will blossom like a flower in the frozen tundra when a mentor begins to work his hard-work miracle.
"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
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