BOYS ADRIFT: THE FIVE FACTORS DRIVING THE GROWING EPIDEMIC OF UNMOTIVATED BOYS AND UNDERACHIEVING YOUNG MEN; Leonard Sax; Non-Fiction;New York: Basic Books, 2007; 267pp.
Which of us has not noticed the listlessness of many young men in the rising generation, including a lack of interest in anything much beyond playing video games? In “Boys Adrift: the Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men,” Leonard Sax, a physician and research psychologist, discusses what seems to be wrong and what might be done to repair the damage. The five factors he identifies are 1) Changes in school which make Kindergarten the new First Grade, pushing children, especially boys, into hating school because they are asked to learn things they are not ready to learn. 2) Video games, which satisfy boys’ “will to power” without requiring them to achieve anything, or to learn the most important attributes of adulthood, such as patience. 3) Medications for ADHD which are prescribed to ameliorate many different behaviors which may or may not really be attention deficit disorder. 4) Endocrine disruptors in the environment (this may be news to most of us) that generally come from eating and drinking from plastic receptacles (or sucking on a binky), and which affect boys much more negatively than girls. 5) Loss of the societal rites and rituals of advancing to manhood, and the devaluation of manliness in popular culture. Dr. Sax’s discussion of a subsequent “failure to launch” will ring true for many parents and other concerned adults, and his final chapter on detoxing the modern environment for boys and girls should provoke both thought and action. Though Dr. Sax’s book is written in a conversational tone, his documentation is thorough and impressive. This is an important book, especially for parents and educators, but for anyone who is concerned with the well-being of our society and its young people.
LW
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