Raising Cain

Raising Cain is the product of nearly four decades of combined experience by two of the country's top child psychologists, Dan Kindlon, Ph.D., and Michael Thompson, Ph.D.. In the book, the authors expose the emotional illiteracy of teenage boys from ten to twenty, an emotional inability to express which often results in depression, violence, anger, silence, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. The book is light on complex medical and psychological theories and heavy on case studies that are both poignant and revealing of what it is boys need but are not getting. The authors argue that socialization is a much bigger causative factor than biology in creating emotional isolation and its manifestations of violence, loneliness and cruelty in and among boys in their second decade of life. The authors argue caregivers have a lack of understanding of the needs of the male psyche at this age. This, coupled with other unmet needs such as a clan that serves as a source of role models of maturity and emotional health, creates emotional ignorance and isolation in young males:

Every troubled boy has a different story, but their stories share a disturbing theme of emotional ignorance and isolation. Each day we try to connect with boys�who are unversed in the subtleties of emotional language and expression and threatened by emotional complexity. When we ask them to open up, most respond with the same fight-or-flight response we all hav

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sible to achieve "Performance-based masculine identity is virtually impossible to achieve in any lasting way. Boys understand this message on a personal level. In the boys' world, you can never, ever be satisfied with your performance. You have to prove yourself anew, continuously. This unending quest to fit in, to be cool, inevitably pits boys against one another�and against the men in their lives as well. In this psychologically competitive male environment, part of proving yourself is to belittle others" (Kindlon, et al. 79). There are many other factors that contribute to the emotional ignorance and isolation of young males. The authors argue that boys are not trained to read or express emotions and that their early educational experiences are often met with ostracism and rejection and lack of academic success. When it comes to parents, the authors demonstrate that mothers face an enormous difficulty in staying connected to their sons in the face of enormous socialization pressure on boys to separate from them. When it comes to fathers, the authors argue they are absent from the lives of their sons all too often, especially when it comes to emotions. Many fathers had fathers of their own who were absent from them emo

Category: Psychology - R