Raising Boys in the 21st Century

Completely Updated and Revised

By: Steve Biddulph

Narrated by: Damien Warren-Smith

Length: 7 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

A word-of-mouth best seller which has become one of the best loved and most successful books in the parenting field. With around 20 percent new material, Steve Biddulph’s Raising Boys is to be rereleased this month with some startling new research on what helps - and what harms - boys.

In this expanded and updated edition, Steve Biddulph shares and gives practical and honest advice to parents so they can recognise the different stages of boyhood and learn how to raise happy, confident and kind young men.

Boys need to be parented in a different way from girls, with their own very special psychological and physical makeup. Home, society and education have failed boys badly - and these failures lead to unhappy men who cannot fully become happy, responsible, emotionally confident adults.

While it is essential that boys spend more time learning about manhood from their fathers, Biddulph updates his classic to include helpful information for mothers and single mothers with baby boys.

This extended edition explores some important topics:

• How ADHD may be caused by stress in the first year of life.
• Whether boys should start school later than girls.
• How important it is to let boys cry, and how crying helps avoid violence, suicide, and risky behaviour.

Two completely new stages of boyhood we didn’t know about:

• The Full on Fours and the Emotional Eights.
• Help for single mothers raising sons.
• How to choose a sport that does more good than harm.
• What we can do about boys and binge drinking.
• What science can tell us about teenage boys and driving - and how we can keep our sons safe.

Raising Boys offers parents real-life situations, thought-provoking insights, humour and help.

©2018 Steve Biddulph (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"A mix of Billy Connelly and Dr Spock...Steve Biddulph is a publishing phenomenon." (The Times)

"Steve’s advice is easy to follow - and more importantly, it works." (BBC Family Life Magazine)

"Biddulph...has a built-in feel good factor. Parenting books too often make one fell inadequate, but Biddulph’s left me refreshed and optimistic." (The Express)

A quick worthy listen

In general I enjoyed listening to this book. Even though sometimes it reads like a collection of truisms, it has its moments. Sometimes it is really biased towards one opinion and does not leave you with enough food for thought to make your own. Many parts of the book are very weak on the evidence and do not present any alternative arguments to the author's opinion, so your critical thinking will hurt a little when reading to this book. However, I think it is meant to be like this, so can't really complain.
Having said all that, some things were really useful, so I can't really say the book was bad. A last paragraph or two at the end was really great, and redeemed a lot of drawbacks of this book.
The narrator's performance is near perfect, well paced, excellent diction and intonation. Just for this, this book get's an extra point.