BOYS

Do you have a plan? 

·        High school graduation rates for boys is 50.1%, 56.4% for girls.

·        Boys are twice as apt to repeat a grade as a girl.

·        Boys are twice as likely to be suspended from school as a girl.

·        Boys are three more times as likely to be expelled as a girl.

·        By 8^th grade only 20-25% of boys are proficient in reading. 

·        One in three children lives in a home with no father.

·        Forty percent of children in the US are born out of wedlock.

·        There is now as much as a two year gap in maturity between thirteen year old boys and thirteen year old girls.

·        Boys spend more time playing video games.

·        Boys spend more time watching pornography.

·        Boys who get hooked on pornography and gaming stop having healthy relationships or playing real games.

·        Boys without role models assume from culture than men are violent and have sex indiscriminately.

·        Schools teach to girls and most often treat boys as if they are missing the standard.

·        Rough and tumble play is discouraged as violent, even when no one is hurt.

·        Boys have higher suicide rates.

·        Boys are more likely to be administered drugs for ADHD.

It may, or may not, be intentional, but America is waging war on boys.  This will not change when the federal government intervenes.  It is not the States responsibility to teach boys to be men.  This will only change when fathers are back in the home AND modeling manly behavior. 

Notice that I didn’t just say the father was present.  It is not sufficient to just be there.  You’d better have a plan.

We started our when I invited my two sons to a meeting of a Rectangular Table.  We would have liked to make it a Round Table with knights and swords and such, but it was too expensive.  So we settled for a round tent called a yurt high in the Idaho Mountains.  We went and spent three days together discussing how we could be an influence in our son’s and grandson’s lives. 

The specifics of our plans would not be pertinent to other individuals because every father, son, and grandfather have different talents and personalities.  But we have continued with annual campouts with the boys, many with great adventures.  Most of these would never be approved, or tolerated, by schools.  But the boys are inordinately proud of their experiences. 

Do you have a plan?