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

Examining the Problem of Unmotivated Boys to Men

'The children now live in luxury and love chatter instead of exercise.' Sound familiar? Describes youth today? The quote is from Socrates! It serves as an excellent springboard for this lively discussion by Leonard Sax BOYS ADRIFT: THE FIVE FACTORS DRIVING THE GROWING EPIDEMIC OF UNMOTIVATED BOYS AND UNDERACHIEVING YOUNG MEN, a book that may be directed to health care workers, but one that deserves attention from the general public. The five factors Sax entertains are 1) feminization of education 2) video games 3) increased prescription of psychotropic drugs that affect the motivational systems of the brain 4) exposure to endocrine disrupters and 5) lack of heroic role models. The factors are quite straightforward and Sax succeeds in carefully explaining his research and opinions in terms easily understandable. While many parents bemoan the current trend of video game couch potato children and the falling away of physical education requirements in our schools agendas, few are activists in encouraging change: part of the problem, Sax discusses, is the passivity of parents who are themselves acting on the personal permutations of this 'too fast, too technological' lifestyle imposed on them by the cancer described here. Sax strongly objects to the growing importance of pugilistic video games for boys that serve as secondary means of learning how to deal with anger and aggression. He presents details outlining the non-competitive environment of our classrooms where every student is encouraged to meet the 'average' (read 'not-so-golden mean') rather than being encouraged to be creative and experimental. Drivers are in place for testing practice, yet very little creative writing or individual attention to personality traits in need of recognition to produce a group of boys to men who actually become 'community' on the local and global sense. The passive parent is also put on the stand for the current and growing status of 'failure to launch' - or not leaving the home to take the risks and rewards of self-discipline and motivation. Sax writing style is comfortable and immensely readable. This is a fine book for parents to read and then to share with the subjects of the book - boys adrift in an impersonal world. Recommended. Grady Harp

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Boys Adrift was a very useful book for me regarding my son.

Boys Adrift had a lot of pertinent information to help me better understand what may have happened with my son, who is now 20 years old and unmotivated. However, it was not quite as useful with helping me to determine what I can do now that I have this information for a 20 year old. I am a college graduate and sometimes the information was confusing, or too deep, and I'd have to read it twice. I would highly recommend this book for parents with unmotivated boys, especially boys who have not yet finished high school.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

A Must Read for parents and/or teachers

If you have children, especially boys or are a grandparent of boys or a teacher of boys, You must read this book. It answers a lot of questions on how to BEST deal with boys, especially as a teacher and why they ' boys' act the way they do, some suggestions & solutions to many of their 'mis-behaving' actions.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Boys Adrift - A must read for parents, educators and support staff.

I was so impressed with Boys Adrift that I purchased 12 additional copies to give to members of our middle school professional learning community at Grand Meadow ISD 495 in Minnesota. I then purchased another 10 copies to give to selected parents and a number of elementary teachers that heard about our book study. As we complete our school year by reading Boys Adrift, we are motivated to conduct some deep reflection on how we are serving boys at Grand Meadow schools. I am convinced that this will promote significant transformational change in how we serve boys and girls in our school next year.

I encourage every school teacher, school administrator, school support staff and parent or guardian of boys to read this book as soon as possible.

Joseph E. Brown, Sr.
Grand Meadow ISD 495 Superintendent
jbrown@gm.k12.mn.us
(507) 438-9083 Cell

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Phenominal - and Scary

After reading this book I finally understood why my older son did so well in a boys military school - yet crashed and burned when he returned to public school. We had an idea that he was taught differently in the boys school, but Dr Sax explained the how and why, and backed it with extensive research.

We are experiencing similar issues with our youngest. My hope is that with help from this book, we may be able to make informed choices. We have already placed limitations on access to video games, and see an improvment.

Strongly recommend this to all parents of boys. We are, as a society, facing a "lost generation". Dr Sax provides a road map to avoid that outcome.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Very interesting

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Very insightful. As the mother of 3 boys, it was very relevant to me and my family. I have an eleven year old with ADHD who I am particularly concerned about. I am taking this book with me to his doctor appointment today to talk to him about it...especially the part about ADHD medications. I haven't found any information to back up the author's assertions about long term effect of medication on boys. Wondering if the doctor has.

Eye opening!

I loved the book. Having a 10 year old son it was nice to see an expert refer to getting back to traditional basics. The chapters on video games was empowering because it can be a battle at times, and being able to share professional information rather than my opinion made a huge difference. A must read for anyone with sons.

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