Raising Boys with Purpose

I have a son. He's my joy and delight. And I don't know about you, but having a plan, a long term view, an end vision of what I hope to instill in him is part of how I raise him. I want to raise a boy who knows how to think, to reason, to work, to care for those around him, to be called after God's own heart. That's what I want in my son when he's grown up and not needing his mother so much. BUT how do I plan for that? What types of things should I be considering? To that end, I read two books. Raising Real Men by Hal and Melanie Young, and Raising Boys by Design by Gregory L Jantz and Michael Gurian.

The approach is this, how do you use God's word and God's principles to raise up your boys to be men?

 Raising Real Men by the Young's is a book with a ton of personal examples from life, showing how a principle could be put into action.

14 chapters, divided into two parts.   Talking about the joys and the challenges of raising boys, and the way we need to talk to them, shape them, work with who they are.   Boys are meant to be leaders in their households, to hold down a job, to learn to how cherish their loved ones and to rely on the strength of God.

When talking about how to deal with temptation, we were told of the fist principle.





Dealing with temptation
1. Leave the situation
2. Pray, ask the Lord's forgiveness and help
3. Read your bible
4. Sing praises or Hymns to God
5. Go to your authority and ask for help

These are five ways to make a fist to knock away temptation.

Doesn't that sound so doable?   Easy lessons to teach your son and to apply to your own life!

At 255 pages it is not an overly long book, the text is easy to read and quite personable.   
Recommended reading.  :)

Raising boys by Design.
This is a more scholarly type book, with the science behind how men and boys think explained.     12 chapters, divided into two sections.

The first section is mostly the brain stuff.   The science behind the workings of the male brain and body. In this section you will find chapters such as "what a boy learns from mom", "what a boy learns from dad" "how boys develop differently than girls" etc.

The second section deals with helping boys develop good heroes, to do their best in work and school, to the building of character and self-discipline.    We also learn the importance of marking off stages in a lad's life... giving them good markers to show that they are maturing and not a young child any more.  To the importance of giving a vision of what a strong Christian man looks like.

I appreciated this section "Making Faith Work for Boys"
1. faith must be individual, not merely institutional
2. faith must be flexible
3. faith must be interactive
4. faith must be relevant
5. faith must be muscular
6. faith must include room for questions
7. faith must include room for doubt
8. faith must be active
9. faith must be intergenerational
10. faith must cost something
11. faith must be relational.

It's a meaty book with a less personal touch, but a very good book none-the-less.   It has good examples and stories of how to help a boy become a man scattered throughout it's pages.

I Love the combination of these two books.

The end result they have is the same, the turning of boys into men called after God's own heart.
The approach is different, but the result the same.  They compliment each other very nicely.

I am so pleased that I chose to read them and be able to take the truths contained within it's pages to help me in the raising of my son.

I hope that you will find them useful to you as well.  :)