Friday, September 2, 2011

Book Review: Secure Daughters Confident Sons

I just finished reading Secure Daughters Confident Sons by Glenn T. Stanton and I thought the book was fantastic. In this book, Stanton address the issue of gender differences and how those shape us, our kids, and our families. Everyone is different, but when you boil it down, you are either a boy or a girl.He then jumps into the topics of what makes a good man and woman. Granted the list is not all inclusive, but he hits on major issues.
For me, as I am preparing to become a father, the section on what makes a good man was very good. Stanton reminds us that good men seldom develop naturally, we must intentionally teach boys to become good men. One way we can do this, as father's, is to invite our boys into manhood. Stanton explains that for boys, mom should be the "corrector," the one who says, "No, boys don't act like that." Dad should be the "inviter," the one who says, "Hey, buddy, when I was a boy, I loved to dress up like a safari hunter," and then lead him in that direction. Let the boy have the opportunity to be welcomed and invited into his father's world of manhood by his father.
Stanton then goes into the topic of what boys need most followed with what girls need most. He talks about the journey to manhood and how parents must recognize the journey and encourage our boys through the various stages, struggles and successes. Similarly, parents need to be aware of the metamorphosis to womanhood.
In part two of the book, he turns from what the kids need and look at the differences in parents. Stanton looks at the difference between mom and dad and how those differences influence development in children.
All in all, this was a great book, I ended up taking 9 pages of notes while reading this book, too much to fit into a book review! I would highly recommend it to parents with kids at any age. Stanton covers a lot of material spanning childhood development into adulthood.

2 comments:

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Ron said...

Well, as I've said before, raised as an only child to absent parents and now raising six daughters...I am completely clueless to this parenting thing sometimes.

Sounds like this book may be of some help. Thanks for the recommend. And thanks for putting a Dad's perspective out there that's not riddled with cursing and other destructive attributes.