Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men

An eye opener for parents of boys.

Why this book?This book is recommended in my course: PH 2998 - Seminar in Child and Adolescent Health at UT School of Public Health, Austin Regional Campus, with Dr. Steve Kelder. I am not a parent and I have no son, yet I know nice and smart young men of my age who drop out from college, stay at home all day, sluggish and doing nothing but video games. I was hoping that this book can give me justification about this phenomenon, and what I learned from this book is above my expectation!The authorDr. Sax is a MD, psychologist, and a practicing family physician. For almost 20 years, he has been seeing patients and observing emerging problems among boys, girls, young men and women. He is also a very popular Washington Post Op-ed writer, and he gives talks and leads public events throughout North America and around the world.Content summaryThe book title well summarizes its content.First Factor: School. The difference of brain development between boys and girls has long been recognized, even before the technology of brain imaging. It is just very strange that why our education system is not making corresponding changes. It makes me reflect on my own story: in the early 1990s, my parents sent me to elementary school 2 years ahead of time, because they believe that a girl’s mental and psychological development is about 2 years ahead of a boy’s. I felt perfectly comfortable with those boys who are a little older than me. And I remember most of the boys behave more “gentleman” to me, than towards girls of the same age with them.Second Factor: video game. Video games give boys a wrong perception that they are in charge of the world. Therefore, we should limit the video game time and provide them healthy competition in the real world instead.Third Factor: ADHD medicines. I know nothing about this topic. I feel that this factor, compared to the other four, is completely avoidable, and easiest to make a change. The change can be made jointly by teachers, parents and doctors: first, teachers should think twice upon defining a child as ADHD, and second, medication should never be the first choice when treating ADHD. Dr. Sax mentioned in his book that China has lower rate of ADHD than the US. I guess it is not because we Chinese children are more silent and obedient, but because parents always try to insist that it is not their child’s problem, and are extremely reluctant to accept that their child has ADHD, therefore, fewer kids get diagnosed.Fourth Factor: endocrine disruptors, namely, increasing exposure to plastics. This is something that I have always concerned about, and it can be avoided by relatively simple behavior change: no bottled water, no soda, no plastic container in microwave, etc.Fifth Factor: cultural influence and lack of role model. I am very impressed about how an appropriate role model is necessary for a boy, and that becoming a man is not equal to becoming a gentleman. Then I realized that for girls, it is a similar case. However, it is true that more often than not, a morbid character would look more attractive and “cooler” to a teenager than those healthy main stream role models. It is easier to understand considering that for teenagers, emotions are more dominant than cognition in decision making.HighlightsPlenty of vivid examples make the book fun and easy to read. Anecdotes and real patient cases interspersed through the book. As a single woman, I can especially relate myself to the email questions in Chapter 6 “Failure to Launch”. For example, if finding a partner means doing extra house work and having lower life expectations, then why bother? I hope Dr. Sax could write more feedbacks to these problems, instead of just posting the original email.Dr. Sax provides practical advice that parents can follow and make a difference. Although some of them, such as picking a good school for the kids, are hard to achieve for some families, parents can always start with restricting video games, avoiding plastic bottles, and most importantly, coalesce with other parents to advocate for better school environment and positive policy change.Dr. Sax gives us informative references as his evidences, which is another asset of this book. It covers from scientific articles to mass media reports, making this book not only conveys practical message to the public, but also helpful for researchers who want to investigate further.ConclusionOverall, this book is eye-opening and very well written. It offers well-reasoned evidence, and may change a boy’s future. I would recommend this book to parents, teachers, and anyone who concerns about child and adolescent development. However, I am still skeptical about single-gender education. I ask myself a question: “would I prefer sending my child to a single-gender school or a co-ed?” I cannot answer it. And I feel it necessary to read Dr. Sax’s other two books “Why Gender Matters” and “Girls on the Edge” to have a comprehensive and unbiased vision about how boys and girls should be nurtured differently.

As a medical doctor myself , but in the UK, I am testament to the emerging trends that Dr Sax has described in his book, and then researched, to understand the phenomenon that is happening with our young boys and men today. His research which has taken place across a number of countries in the developed world has been thoroughly done and presented in a balanced way. I would definitely recommend this book to any parent or adult who wants to begin to understand why our societies are at crisis point regarding the upbringing of our children and youth. I practise in a white relatively middle class suburban area close to London and there is a definite crisis with boys having no little to no ambitions/ unrealistic ambitions which centre around making money very quickly to an almost absence of admiration for any job that would require hard work eg a career in medicine and emerging problems with alcohol, drugs and depression. We can continue in denial that any of these things are a problem for us and that it's OK to leave our boys with increasingly violent video games that undeniably affect their mental health ( amongst other things that are affecting boys) - Sax puts this in balanced perspective and begs the question - for how long societies can continue like this... The solutions he offers on how to tackle these problems are practical and that we would have to get together in our communities to support our youth. Let us act now to ( try !) and save our sons - we can do it to some extent if we work together. This book is a proof of what's going on and a wake up call. PS Regarding other reviews - you may disagree with some of his opinions but you can't deny they are evidence based. Also when he may state some anecdotal opinion rather than fact he makes that clear also.

ottimo libro. leonard sax porta avanti una linea di ricerca originale. il libro è diviso in capitoli e si legge facilmente

The book is correctly depicting the problem of unmotivated boys