This book is big on showing understanding and patience to your child, but it doesn't help much with a child who is already having trouble in school and is defiant.

I bought this book a few years ago when my first son was on the way, but never got around to reading it until now when he's five with a little brother padding around behind him. It's only now that 'my eldest' is expressing his independence in more sophisticated ways that have my wife and I wondering whether we've got this parenting thing working all right. What I found most helpful in this book is the structure and perspective it provides for raising a son at various stages of his development. One of the hardest things I've found as a parent is deciding just how much to expect from a child. Is my son being clever and manipulative or is he being sincere when he offers up his alibis and excuses? How strict should we be without undermining his self-confidence? In this area, 'Raising a Son' helps by reviewing the major phases in a boy's psychological and physical growth and offering counsel on how parents can help the boy face the challenges of growing up. The book also provides some interesting insight into how our own (parents') childhood carries into our parenting of children. All in all, these sections of the book are concise and rewarding.

The book runs through a section on 'cultural influences', which, if you read behind the over-simplification (and some statements that, for me at least, sounded a bit too much like liberal social mantras), makes some valid points. I disagree that previous societies (hunter-gatherer, agricultural, etc.) were generally better for raising a son in than ours. Nonetheless, in our technological age, we do have to come to grips with changing roles, aspirations, and expectations among men and women and with massive competition for our children's attention from all sorts of media. In dealing with this dilemma, 'Raising a Son' again provides some perspective for gradually strengthening a son's ability to deal with this world (which naturally helps him deal with us when he hits his teens).

One particular note for single parents, divorced couples, or couples with 'problem children', since this book is written by family counselors, it does a very nice job of covering our modern variations on the family. This isn't just a 'how Ozzie and Harriett did it' kind of book. It covers a lot of real world challenges with numerous quotes from single moms, dads, divorcees and other who love their children, but face especially difficult circumstances.

So I recommend 'Raising a Son' as a good introduction and as a book you can turn to as your son grows older. For more detailed information, 'Raising a Son' also provides a helpful bibliography of other sources of information.

This is a must for parents of a busy boy. I found the book not only insightful in raising our son, but also in understanding my husband better. I especially liked the fact that it starts at the begining and helps one recognize the role our physical and chemical make up play in our personalities and corresponding actions. It is one of the books I will highly recommend to my friends and family.

I bought the book of the same title when my daughter was 1 and my stepdaughters were 13 and 16. I re-read it each year (for the last 4!) and come away with something useful for a new stage of growth the girls are in! Excellent reference with all of the basics we sometimes forget to heed!

I was given this book as a gift after my daughter was born last summer. Previously, I had two boys which I could relate to since I am a male and was raised in a family of all boys! Wow, this book was very eye-opening for me. How easily we forget how we see the world and unconciously perform actions which may have an undesired outcome on our child's development. Although still an infant, this book helped me realize that I already treat my daughter differently than my older boys. I will definitely re-read the Elium's book in a year or so, and will likely revisit it time and again. I would not advise this to be the 'one' book on how to raise a daughter. I also don't necessarily agree with every point. Overall, though, this is a useful guide full of interesting and thought-provoking material.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it most enlightening. As a father of two young girls, ages 2 and 5, and already encountering some interesting parenting dilemnas, I was quite happy to discover that the techniques described in this book work quite well. I find that I am more patient and understanding of my daughters behavior. There is also a considerable amount of discussion about how our society tends to suppress the female psyche - I'm in agreement with this and feel that the discussions are necessary to make us more mindful of the unconscious pressures placed on our daughters. Definitely recommend adding this book to your parenting library.

On the positive side, this book is a checklist of fairly obvious parenting issues with boys. It also offers a long list of bromides. Examples from the 200 recommendations in this list are: Be yourself [as a parent, I suppose]; Don't tease [mixed messages are hard to decode]. Some recommendations are better than others, e.g., Stop the glorification of violence. Some of the "quotes" from men look so canned that they seem to have been made up.

On the negative side, this book addresses only peripherally emotional intelligence, which is something it said it would help you raise. For instance, the authors say very little about boys regulating and coping with emotions, their expressive behavior, or relationship building. In addition, the authors say nothing about ethical values which are meant to be part of emotional intelligence. After all, con men have emotional intelligence: they read their mark carefully. The difference is that their behavior is divorced from ethics.

Too bad.

This is a companion book from the same publisher about girls' self-esteem. Parents might find that book relatively more helpful.

"200 Ways to Raise a Boy's Emotional Intelligence: An Indispensible Guide for Parents, Teachers & Other Concerned Caregivers" is a very advisable guide for those who are daily dealing with the challenges in raising and educating boys. Its authors have sucessfully achieved to write a book that contains practical suggestions for those interested in growing boys' skills and avoiding future deficiencies. In a world where it is becoming each time more difficult to prepare kids towards the outside challenges, this is a helpful guide that can, if followed its suggestions, bring additional advantages than those who relate to boys' traditional education. A real must-have for parents and teachers!