Raising Boys

Essay by Bob2daMarleyHigh School, 12th gradeB, August 2005

download word file, 7 pages 4.0

text: Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph

Texts should have social relevance and also entertain. The best-selling non-fiction book, Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph, is an example of a text, which does this. It presents issues, which affect the people of today's society, such as boys failing at school, domestic violence, communication difficulties, delinquency, homosexuality and sexual abuse. In order to encourage parents to read his text and accept his ideas on these issues, Biddulph has used humour, user-friendly language, everyday examples and "In a nutshell" additions, to make his text entertaining and thus enjoyable to read.

An issue, which Biddulph presents in his text, is boys failing at school. He states that 'Girls outperform boys in almost every subject area' and explains that the reason for this is because of the slow development of a boys brain. The testosterone in boys slows down growth while the oestrogen in girls actually speeds up the growth of brain cells.

For that reason a baby boy's brain develops much slower than the brains of baby girls. 'At the age of six when children start serious schooling, boys are six to twelve months less developed mentally than girls'. They are delayed in 'fine-motor coordination', language and 'cognitive' skills, making them unprepared for learning additional skills taught in grade 1, such as writing and handling scissors. 'The boys feel themselves to be failures, they miss out on key skills because they are just not ready and so get turned off from learning'.

Having presented the reader with his idea that the slow development of a boy's brain is the main cause of boys failing at school, Biddulph also provides the reader, most likely parents and teachers, with ways of how parents and schools can improve to help boys overcome this issue. He...