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Development Topics
Stay Close to Your Child
If Your Child Is Struggling Emotionally
Children who “play by the rules” can still struggle quietly with personal identity, meaning in life, and other issues.
1. According to Dr. William Pollock, Harvard psychologist and author of Real Boys, fathers are especially crucial in helping boys to manage their emotions. This is especially true from ages 15 months to 5 years of age — and again at puberty. Mothers are vital, too!
2. As they’re growing up, many children (especially boys) experience extremely unhealthy emotional pressures. Those pressures contribute to violence, drug abuse, early sexual activity and other forms of rebellious, antisocial
behavior. Perhaps the most devastating pressure of all, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty: boys without fathers. Other forces that create an exceptionally unhealthy environment for children include:
3. According to Dr. James Dobson, best-selling author of Bringing Up Boys (Tyndale House): “Nations that are populated largely by immature, immoral, weak-willed, cowardly, and self-indulgent men cannot and will not long endure. These types of men include those who sire and abandon their children; who cheat on their wives; who lie, steal, and covet; who hate their countrymen; and who serve no god but money. That is the direction culture is taking today’s boys.”
4. Thankfully, there is hope! Dr. Dobson says: “We must make the necessary investment to counter these influences and to build within our boys lasting qualities of character, self-discipline, respect for authority, commitment to the truth, a belief in the work ethic, and an unshakable love for Jesus
Christ.”
Do you have thoughts, questions, advice on this topic? Post your stories and comments in the forum for other parents to respond to. Enter the forum now.
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