Masterminds & wingmen

Here is a landmark book that reveals how boys think, showing parents, educators, and coaches how to reach out and help boys overcome their most common yet difficult challenges. Do you constantly struggle to pull information from your son, student, or athlete, only to encounter evasive assurances like "It's nothing"? Do you sense that the boy you care about is being bullied, but that he'll do anything to avoid your "help?" Have you watched with frustration as your boy flounders with girls? Welcome to Boy World: a place where asking for help or showing emotional pain often feels impossible. Where sports and video games can mean everything, but working hard in school frequently earns ridicule. Where hiding problems from adults is the ironclad rule. Boy World is governed by social hierarchies and a powerful set of unwritten rules that have huge implications for your boy's relationships, his interactions with you, and the man he'll become. If you want what's best for him, you need to know what these rules are and how to work with them effectively.--From publisher description.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Self-Help, Mental Health. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.