Book review: 21st Century Boys, by Sue Palmer

Published on Friday 22 May 2009 17:17

£14.99, Orion Books Review: Janet Christie

WHEN Richard Branson was four, his mother drove him to a spot a mile away from home, dropped him off and left him to find his way back over the fields. Any mother attempting this today would be lucky not to find herself cautioned by police and her child placed on the at-risk register. Mrs Branson, however, was attempting to encourage young Richard's initiative and risk-assessment skills, and it seems she succeeded, although whether most mothers watching their offspring being plucked from shark-infested waters no less than five times after various record-breaking schemes plummeted from the skies would be as happy is open to question.

This tale is related by Sue Palmer, whose latest book – subtitled How modern life is driving them off the rails and how we can get them back on track – sets out to discuss her theory that our modern lifestyle is bad for boys. Not that she thinks a diet of junk food and computer games is good for girls, but she reckons they are less damaged by it because they don't embrace it with quite the same boyish enthusiasm.

In a hugely informative and interesting book, packed with readable research, Palmer suggests how we can raise balanced, bright boys. Each chapter ends with practical suggestions for how this might be achieved; parents are told how to rebuff demands for bedroom TVs ("I love you too much"); and politicians to stop the marketing to under-eights.

Palmer describes how boys' disadvantage starts in the womb and how the way we live now is more oppressive for them. From birth, girls make more eye contact and communicate better, while boys are more fretful and sensitive, and three times more likely to suffer from a speech and language disorder, but actually get less love and attention, according to research. This might produce strong, silent types, but in a world of crowded urban environments where people skills are key, that's not going to get them very far.

Computers allow those burdened with what she calls an "extreme male brain" to retreat into a virtual world of technology controlled by the media and marketing men with unsupervised access to their minds. She links TV in the bedroom to exposure to adverts, poor eating habits and the fact that if current trends continue, half of all six-year-old boys will be obese by 2050.

Palmer cites studies of other primates that show that young males deprived of the opportunity to fight grow up more violent, not less. That play-fighting defuses aggression, teaching them how to restrain and manage their behaviour so no-one gets hurt. They learn to empathise. So the next time your boys are knocking lumps out of each other, take heart from the words of that great risk-taker and unsung child expert Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott, who sang, "If the boys want to fight you better let 'em."

Boys might lag in communication skills, but they are born to test boundaries whatever their parents say. Parents' desire to wrap them in cotton wool and keep them "safe" in their rooms encourages them to express themselves through consumption rather than relationships, with boys more influenced by branding than girls.

Another area where 21st-century living damages boys in particular is childcare. Institutionalised, regimented and limiting in terms of the physical, outdoors, unstructured play boys need, Palmer argues that it stresses them more and their brains are virtually stewed in cortisol, the stress hormone, storing up problems for the future.

She also argues that female domination of schools, especially at primary level, might disadvantage boys, just as the male domination of society has disadvantaged women. If women like talk more than action, those who display more boisterous behaviour won't be tolerated in our text and target-biased education system. Is that why way more boys are diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin?

Palmer argues that boys need love, time, language, discipline and play. What they don't need is consumer items or a virtual world financed by commerce and marketing.

Much of the book touches on what this generation of parents instinctively knows; that we've gone too far with our rubber-surfaced playgrounds and schoolyards where kids aren't allowed to play aggressive games like conkers, never mind British Bulldog; where the old are frightened of the young and everyone mistrusts men.

Palmer concludes that if we want boys to develop emotional resilience, confidence, and curiosity, we have to let them go, and set about developing the skills and common sense they need now. We need to help them become streetwise, turn off their computers and tune into their aspirations.

As for the young Branson, he was eventually found by a neighbour – happily chasing butterflies. A few years later his mother dropped him 50 miles from home with his bike. "I'm sure you'll find water along the way," she told him, waving goodbye." That could be taking things too far.