“Boys Should Be Boys” Book Notes on Raising Boys

These book notes give the main takeaways from Dr. Meg Meeker’s book, “Boys Should Be Boys.” In it, she gives readers tips on raising boys.

The book begins by giving away the 7 secrets Dr. Meeker thinks all parents should know. Beyond that, there is a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, followed by the big takeaways and solutions all parents should know about raising boys. Watch review here.

7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons

1) Know how to encourage your sons. You must strike the balance between not babying and not being so harsh that communication shuts down.

2) Understand that he needs more time with his parents.

3) God made boys to be outside.

4) Boys need rules.

5) Boys need virtues like integrity and self-control. According to Meeker, “boys who drink, take drugs, and have sex outside of marriage aren’t normal teenagers, they have been abnormally socialized by our unfortunately toxic culture.”

6) Teach your sons the big questions in life or someone else will. Young men need to learn from their parents good and bad behavior, right from wrong, and ideas on life.

7) The most important person in your son’s life is you.

Chapter 1 – Boyhood Under Siege

– Troubles with boys stem from 3 sources – no men, no religion, and toxic media that just promotes sex. We can turn things around by helping him develop a relationship with his parents, God, and his siblings. Boys need time with parents and family.

• Meeker writes, “Every son is his father’s apprentice, studying not his dad’s profession but his way of living, thinking, and behaving.”
• She goes on, “Boys need to see fathers who behave as good men so that they can mimic that behavior. They need to see men at work. They need men who set standards – and if you don’t give them standards to live by, they’ll pick them up where they find them.” Which means social media, TV, and school.

– Teach him about God.

– Teach him how to be frustrated and work through problems.

Chapter 2 – Bucking Peer Pressure

– Dr. Meeker isn’t talking about the child’s peer pressure, but the pressure on parents to compete with other parents. Parents too often keep him busy, want him to make this baseball team, want academic success, and all sorts of things to impress the parent’s friends.  

– Boys need discipline, but they need five-parts love for every one-part discipline.

• Boys will do what their fathers want.
• “Sons listen to people who they respect, like, admire…They reject words from adults who only criticize, deride, or push them. If you are a parent who compulsory criticizes and rides your son, stop. “

– “Time, attention, affection, and approval: they are what every boy needs in abundance from his parents. I can guarantee that if the majority of parent-son interactions are focused around these four things, then correction and discipline will work when they are required. Sons try to please their parents when they know they can please their parents. Without balancing love and discipline, boys are lost.”

– Boys are not rebellions. The media makes them out that way – boys’ rebel against stupid, incompetent dads, but really boys look up to dads and want to please parents.

– “Every statistic we have affirms that no one is more important in a son’s life and the decisions he makes about drinking, drugs, and sex, than his father. Don’t abdicate your authority.”

Chapters 3 – Bullfrogs and Racecars

– Nature and being outside is very important to boys.

– Let the boys run wild, make forts, create outside games.

– Boys need places where they set the rules, negotiate with each other, and have control outside the influence of parents.

– Just playing is important for boys – and boredom is great because it encourages creativity.

– Teen boys take risk because they have a distorted sense that they can solve any problem.

Chapter 4 – Electronics Matter

– TV and electronics, such as phones, tablets, and computers all bring new levels of violence, vulgarness, and sexual content to young men.

– It is a parent’s job to monitor these things closely because it keeps getting worse.

– Porn is damaging to boys and young men – keep it away.

– Don’t let someone else on TV, the internet, YouTube, or social media educate your son about sex.

– “If a young boy watches sex or violence before he can handle either he can be traumatized. Furthermore, if he is traumatized with his parents’ approval, the boy becomes confuse. He associates his parents with giving him good things, and now they have given him something that makes him feel unsettled, uneasy, depressed, or even angry. Young boys, because they are developmentally self-centered, blame themselves when they feel discomfort rather than blaming another person – particularly a parent.”

– Video games can also be a negative source of entertainment.  

Chapter 5 – Does Testosterone Drive Cars?

– Boys brains are not fully developed until the early to mid 20s.

– Teen depression is on the rise.

– Hormone changes occur during adolescence, which is totally normal. Teen boys need a man to show them how to harness the power and energy that come along with testosterone.

Chapter 6 – Encouragement, Mastery, and Competition

– Let them compete and play war games. Sports, wrestling, and all the typical boy stuff is normal and good.

– War games teach boys to figure out good guys and bad guys, which helps them understand they need a moral code.

– Part of the problem facing society is that TV dads are always idiots which sets a bad example for men and women.  

– Many boys grow up fatherless. Meeker says “This is a national tragedy, because boys need healthy encouragement from their fathers more than they need it from anyone else. In a boy’s eyes, his fathers’ words are sacred. They hold enormous power. His words can crush a boy or piece him back together after a fall. If a father is not there at all, it is a huge void in a boy’s life – and as the depressing statistics remind us, boys who grow up without fathers are at a dramatically greater risk of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, sexually transmitted disease, and ending up in prison. “

– Dad’s words matter and only dads can understand certain aspects of boys.

– Self-mastery and self-control are necessary to harness male energy.

– Sports are great for all kids, especially boys.

Chapter 7 – A Mother’s Son

– Boys grow up and move onto another women. Moms know this. They have limited time with sons, and they have a responsibility to impress up them essential traits while they can.

– Boys need mom to show true love.

– Moms keep an eye on your sons – no one goes to jail or ends up in a halfway house because their parents were too strict, they end up there because their parents did not discipline.

– Don’t trivialize a boy’s mischief when it comes to sex or violence – stay on them and teach them right from wrong.

– Watch sons like a hawk, then protect them.

– Moms show love, grace, forgiveness when your sons fail – teach him love.

– Your son needs more time with you, not more activities

– Don’t buy into the mom peer pressure. As she writes,:

“And one lesson we should all learn is that while mothers want more for their sons, the truth is that sons need less. Boys need fewer toys and fewer clothes. They need more time with their mothers and fathers, less time in structured events, and more time being bored – yes, bored – so that they can use their imagination and creativity and figure out what to do. Young men need less time face-to-face with electronic life and more time face-to-face with people. Less television, video games, clothes, telephone bills, sports events, and preschool hours mean less stress for mothers and more time for boys to figure out who they are and what they want out of life.”

Chapter 8 – The Difference a Dad Makes

– It takes a man to raise a man.

– Dads need to spend time with sons.

– Fatherlessness is a major issue. Dr. Meeker writes:

“As fatherless homes have risen dramatically, life has changed dramatically for our boys and for our society…A boy living in a home with his mother and father is less likely to experience physical, emotional, or educational neglect. He is less likely to commit violent crimes. He is less likely to commit violence at school. A boy growing up with a father and a mother is at decreased risk for behavior problems, educational, problems, hyperactivity, and withdrawal. He is better able to develop deferred gratification skills, less likely to drop out of school, less likely to smoke, drink, have early or frequent sex, use drugs, commit suicide, or commit vandalism or violence of any other type of criminal act.”

– Dr. Meeker shows how devastating fatherlessness is to boys – statistically fatherless boys are high risk for all the things we don’t want our boys doing. “We can blame many things for this terrible situation: the sexual revolution, feminism, the idea of a gender-neutral society, toxic media culture, and so on. What I can say as a pediatrician is that the science is clear that boys thrive in stable, two-parent families. Both mother and father are irreplaceable, but for different reasons.”

– Every son needs three things:

• A father’s blessing – all boys need affirmation from his dad.
• A father’s love – love is shown by giving time, affection, and never giving up on your son.
• The lesson of self-control – a demonstration of self-control is invaluable. Dads need to show boys how to tame his energy and power.

Chapter 9 – The Forgotten Step

– Some men never grow up.

– “Boys who leave childhood must have a picture in their minds of what lies ahead, they must know that it is safe to leave boyhood, and they must have the confidence of knowing they have what it takes to mature into a man.”

– Boys must transition to manhood by learning to control impulsive instincts.

– They must take responsibility.

– They must learn tenacity – never quit, keep moving forward.

– Every boy needs a man to show them how to be one.

Chapter 10 – The God Factor

– Some shy away from traditional religion, but traditional religion holds great value. According to Meeker, “Traditional religion is not only more challenging and rigorous, it is more comforting because it is more certain; and it is certain because it spends more time on definitions, rules, and theology (or trying to understand the truth about God) then on self-exploration.” 

– Make sure your son has a relationship with God before he leaves your home.

Chapter 11 – How Then Shall We Teach Them to Live? 

– Everyone has a vision for their sons, and it usually looks like raising him to be a man of high character – kind, truthful, and courageous. You have to show him strong character and practice building these traits. 

– He needs to set his own code of conduct, his own virtues. When he does, he’ll measure himself by how well he follows his rules. As you help him craft his virtues, some of the areas of focuses should be integrity, courage, humility, meekness, kindness.

Chapter 12 – Ten Tips on Raising Sons

These ten tips to raising boys will help parents focus on tangible ways to parent their sons.

1) Know that you change his world.

2) Raise him from the inside out – character matters. 

3) Help his masculinity explode. 

4) Help him find purpose and passion. 

5) Teach him to serve.

6) Insist on self-respect. 

7) Preserve.

8) Be his hero.

9) Watch and then watch again.

10) Give him the best of yourself.

Big Takeaways

Depression, suicide, anxiety, obesity, violence, sexually transmitted disease, and sexual assaults are all at alarming highs – with no end in sight. How do we shield our children from these things? Raising boys can be challenging, but the answers to many problems are hiding in plan site. Three underlining themes in her book standout:

1. Our culture has become increasingly unhealthy. Allowing kids to watch TV, YouTube or engage in social media, is exposing them to the most unhealth aspects of our culture. The commercials are mostly centered on selling sex, junk food, and booze. The shows are focused on violence, promiscuity, raunchy humor, and silly caricatures of dads. Much of the music, video games, and other cultural influences are not better. Parents must intervene.
2. Fatherlessness is a problem. Out of wedlock children and divorce rates have ravished family life, leaving boys lost.  
3. Religion is no longer a staple of many homes. Many boys lack a fundamental understanding of God. Boys want to know and understand life, but that is impossible without knowing and understanding God.

The solution – a) Reduce the cultural influence on you sons by limiting social media and entertainment, b) bring back dads, and c) welcome God back into our homes.  

There are many books out there on raising sons, but this one stands out. Be sure to watch our review here. You can also read and watch our review of Dr. Meeker’s book, “Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters.” No one addresses the parent child relationship better than Dr. Meeker. You can also read our review of “The War Against Boys” or watch it here.

Purchase the book here.

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