The Complete Parenting Collection. Steve Biddulph

music. Tell your kids how great, beautiful, creative and intelligent they are (often, and with feeling). If your parents were not demonstrative, you will just have to learn.

      Some dads fear that cuddling their son will turn him into a ‘sissy’. In fact, the reverse is probably true. Sons whose dads are affectionate and playful with them will be closer to their fathers, want to emulate them more, and be comfortable in the company of men. For both sons and daughters, a dad’s affection is vital. A child can’t understand that you work long hours, worry over tax forms or scrimp and save for his future, because that’s not something he can see or touch. Kids know they are loved through touch and eye contact and laughter and fun. Affection is reassuring – it conveys love in a way that words cannot. Children who are hugged and kissed feel safer in the world, and when Dad does it too, they are doubly secure.

      4. Lighten up. Enjoy your kids. Being with them out of guilt or obligation is second-rate – they sense you are not really there in spirit. Experiment to find those activities that you both enjoy. Take the ‘pressure to achieve’ off your kids: when you play a sport or game, don’t get into too much heavy coaching or competition. Remember to laugh and muck about. Only enrol them in one, or at most two organised sports or activities, so they have time to just ‘be’. Reduce ‘racing-around’ time, and devote it instead to walks, games and conversations. Avoid over-competitiveness in any activity beyond what is good fun. Teach your kids, continuously, everything you know.

      5. Heavy down. Some fathers today are lightweight ‘good-time’ dads who leave all the hard stuff to their partners. After a while of this, these partners start to say, ‘I have three kids, and one of them is my husband’. There is an unmistakable indicator for this – when your sex life declines badly!

      Get involved in the decisions and discussions in the kitchen, help to supervise homework and housework. Develop ways of discipline that are calm but definite. Don’t hit – although with young children you may have to gently hold and restrain them from time to time. Don’t shout if you can help it. Aim to be the person who stays calm, keeps things on track, and pushes the discussion on about how to solve behaviour problems. You are in charge through your clarity, focus and experience, not through being bigger and meaner. Do listen to your kids, and take their feelings into account. You are on a gradient, from being totally in charge of a baby or toddler, through to being on an equal footing with a 21-year-old who pays for dinner.

      Talk with your partner about the big picture: ‘How are we going overall? What changes are needed?’ Parenting as a team can add a new bond between you and your partner. Check with your partner if you are stuck or don’t know how to react. You don’t have to have all the answers – no-one does. Parenthood is about making mistakes, fixing them, and moving right along.

      In short

      All through the primary school years and into early secondary school, boys should spend a lot of time with their fathers and mothers, gaining their help, learning how to do things, and enjoying their company. From an emotional viewpoint, the father is now more significant. The boy is ready to learn from his dad, and listens to what he has to say. Often he will take more notice of his father. It’s enough to drive a mother wild!

      This window of time – from about age six to the fourteenth birthday – is the major opportunity for a father to have an influence on (and build the foundations of masculinity in) his son. Now is the time to ‘make time’. Little things count: playing in the backyard on summer evenings; going for walks and talking about life and telling him about your own childhood; working on hobbies or sports together, just for the enjoyment of doing it. This is when good memories are laid down, which will nourish your son, and you, for decades to come.

      Don’t be deterred if your son acts ‘cool’, as he has learnt to do this from his schoolmates. Persist and you will find a laughing, playful boy just under the surface. Enjoy this time when he really is wanting to be with you. By mid-adolescence his interests will pull him more and more into the wider world beyond. All I can do here is plead with you – don’t leave it too late!

       PRACTICAL HELP

      WHEN BOYS ARE SHORT

      Parents sometimes worry if their son is not growing as tall as other boys. Indications are that this worry is needless. A study of 180 boys aged eight to fourteen found that short children are no more likely to be maladjusted than taller children.

      Earlier research suggested shorter youngsters were more likely to be shy, anxious or depressed, but times have changed, and more recent studies have not found this to be so. If a child is praised and valued, and has good communication within the family, then being different will cause much less stress.

      In the study, short boys described themselves as less socially active, but did not have more behaviour problems than boys of average height. Girls in the study often had even better mental health than girls of normal height. Children whose parents were short themselves seemed to have far fewer problems, probably because of the good role-modelling being provided by their parents. These parents were less likely to be worried or seek medical help for shortness.

      In the US, 20 000 children have taken human growth hormone to overcome shortness, a treatment costing tens of thousands of dollars. But doctors recommend the hormone treatment only when it is medically necessary, such as when kidney failure or other conditions have caused a deficiency in the growth hormone. Paediatricians do not believe that psychological reasons are sufficient to justify the treatment, which is painful, inconvenient, and can do more harm than good.

      Fourteen and onwards: becoming a man

      At around fourteen years of age a new stage begins. Usually by now a boy is growing fast, and a remarkable thing is happening on the inside – his testosterone levels have increased by almost 800 percent over his pre-puberty amount!

      Although every boy is different, it’s common for boys at this age to get a little argumentative, restless and moody. It’s not that they are turning bad – it’s just that they are being born into a new self, and any type of birth always involves some struggle. They are needing to find answers to big questions, to begin new adventures and challenges, and to learn competencies for living – and their body clock is urging them on.

      I believe this is the age when we fail kids the most. In our society, all we offer the midteens is ‘more of the same’: more school, more of the routines of home. But the adolescent is hungry for something else, something new. He is hormonally and physically ready to break out into an adult role, but we want him to wait another four or five years! It’s little wonder that problems arise.

      What’s needed is something that will engage the spirit of a boy – that will pull him headlong into some creative effort or passion that gives his life wings. All the things that parents have nightmares about (adolescent risk-taking, alcohol, drugs, unsafe sex and criminal activity) happen because we do not find channels for young men’s desire for glory and heroic roles. Boys look at the larger society and see little to believe in or join in with. Even their rebellion is packaged up and sold back to them by advertisers and the music industry.

      They want to jump somewhere better and higher, but that place is nowhere in sight.

       STORIES FROM THE HEART

      A LAKOTA INITIATION

      The Native American people known as the Lakota were a vigorous and successful society, characterised by especially equal relationships between men and women.

      At around the age of fourteen, Lakota boys were sent on a ‘vision quest’, or initiation test. This involved sitting and fasting on a mountain peak to await a vision or hallucination