“Raising boys is not an easy task, but the Youngs talk about practical aspects of doing so and include a biblical worldview to face the challenges presented. Each chapter includes notes. The content includes financial training, culture, being polite in a masculine manner, work, Christian male role models, and even choosing a college.

The Youngs are parents of six boys and two girls. They speak and write on parenting and homeschooling, education, and family policies.  Some readers will take issue with their stance to raise boys to be leaders and allow them to participate in gun safety, weapons, and missions at a young age (Hal was military trained). However, their insight into cultural views of raising confident, strong, godly men is sound and biblical. As a mom of four boys, I highly recommend this book.”

Church Libraries Journal, Fall 2010, p. 24

If your church library needs a copy, simply place your order here with discount code CHURCH. 

Ask about special pricing for church bookstores and Sunday School classes, too!

Hal and Melanie Young have six sons and two daughters—the six boys came first. Their children range from 2 years old to out of high school. They speak on parenting, educating your children and family policy issues among other subjects. You can read more about their ministry at RaisingRealMen.com.

Summary

Divided into two parts, the Young’s first offer biblical foundations for how they parent their boys (and, yes, sometimes even their girls). The introduction to part one looks at the virtues of being a man and how God intended for men to be, well, men. Chapter one is an apologetic for our boys having the right set of heroes to look up to. First and foremost must always be Jesus Christ, then dad. After that, you, as the parent must help your son to be discerning as to who they look up to.

Chapter two looks at the biblical foundations for a boys sense of adventure and boldness while chapter three offers tips on how to teach your sons to stand for something while learning how to be responsible. A helpful chapter is the chapter on boys and guns and what the Bible says about the subject.

This section concludes with chapters on what it means to be a servant leader and how to train your boys to be citizens with a proper understanding of their role as a citizen both here and in Heaven.

After having laid the biblical foundation for their parenting, Hal and Melanie offer practical tips on how to actually parent your sons. The first chapter in this section looks at how you should teach your boys diligently and without ceasing. The second chapter in this section looks to how to teach the boys to use money.

An extremely helpful chapter is the one entitled “Your Own School for Boys.” In this chapter, the authors detail major key differences in the development of boys when it comes to education. Basically, this chapter helps to keep parents from sounding the “freak out” alarm when little Johnny doesn’t learn as well as little Timmy.

In two practical chapters, they look at the misconception that chivalry is a thing of the past and that working in the kitchen is for women. No, you will not scar your boys for life if you make them work in the kitchen! They conclude the book with how to guard your son’s mind from the spiritual battles that will take place in their lives. The last chapter is the guide on how to set your boy free to become a man. Mom’s will definitely want to read this.

Review/Recommendation

The only real issue I had with anything in this book was their section on stewardship and how to teach your sons to use a credit card. They act as though a credit card is inevitable and therefore every child must be taught how to use one. I have not used a credit card in six years. I don’t plan on using a credit card ever again. Anything you can do with a credit card can now be done with a debit card.

Outside of that one issue (and it is really a non-issue), I highly recommend this book to any parent who has a son (or three). I cannot tell you how many times my wife and I, the parents of three boys so far, would say, “Man, I wish we knew someone with similar convictions as us that would allow us to pick their brain on raising our boys.” Well, we now have that brain to be picked.

Hal and Melanie write as though they are sitting at your kitchen table discussing what they have experienced in their 20 years of raising boys and offer their experience to you. They make it a point to declare that “this is what we do” and not that it is the only way to do it. They maintain a humility (boys will do that to you) throughout the whole book.

To read this book once is to plant many seeds in the mind of the parent. To own it and have it at your disposal is to have a watering can with an infinite amount of water to water that seed. This will be a book my wife and I reference again and again.

Terry Delaney

Christian Book Notes

Buy Raising Real Men Now

When I carried my baby son, Flash Boy, for the first time, the very first thing that I noticed about him were his hands. His hands were much larger than the hands of his baby sisters. Next I noticed that his arms were larger, so were his legs and feet. Oh! Even as babies, girls and boys are very different. The weeks after giving birth and on proved more differences. He was very, very active, turning around much earlier than his sisters. It’s as if he couldn’t wait to get moving around and exploring the world around him.

Having raised three girls, I thought my experience with them would be a big help with him. Most of it were but some of my mothering styles were not working with Flash Boy. I had so many questions because he was very different from his three sisters. Second daughter Artsy Princess is a very excitable child, but hubby and I always say, that Flash Boy is 100 times more excitable and active than Artsy Princess.

A lot of my questions about raising up boys have been answered in Raising Real Men – Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys, a very handy book written by parents of six boys and two girls, Hal and Melanie Young. I cannot help but appreciate the way that Hal and Melanie shared their experiences in raising up their boys. Their methods are biblical, practical and full of love. As I read through the book, their love for God, for each other and for their children are fully evident. Some of the topics they spoke of are boys’ need for heroes, handling guns and violent weapons, work, leadership, sports and competition, teaching responsibility, teaching them at home, handling money and bullying.

When the writers first contacted me, they asked me to review and see if their book is applicable to Filipino families. I can say that this book is not only applicable to Filipinos, but it is applicable to each and every family who are raising up boys to become Godly men. Kudos to Hal and Melanie Young for writing this very delightful and insightful book!

Here’s a short anecdote about Flash Boy, now 2 years old. I learned from the Youngs that boys must be allowed to help around the house, that they should be trained early on to help their moms and sisters. One day, I came home from the market with a few bags of goods and a boxful of eggs. When Flash Boy saw me, he immediately came and wanted to help with the box of eggs. I didn’t want to give it to him but he was so insistent that I finally let him have it. He was so proud of himself carrying the box of eggs into the house. I was following closely behind him trying to make sure that he doesn’t drop it. When he saw our helper, he called her and said, “Catch!” and promptly threw the box at her. Both the helper and I screamed that the eggs would break. Seeing that the helper was not able to ‘catch’ the box, he picked it up again and said “Catch!” , once again throwing the box at her. Well, we ended up with half the eggs I bought all cracked open. But to see the value of Flash Boy being allowed to help, I’d gladly buy more boxes of eggs for him to help me carry!

Thanks to the authors, Hal and Melanie Young, for sending me an autographed and free copy of Raising Real Men – Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys.

You can buy this book here.

Watch out for my blog interview with Hal and Melanie Young!

Michelle Padrelanan

Beyond the Silver and the Gold-

A Filipino Family’s Homeschool Journey

Raising Real Men should be a regular bed-side read.  It’s practical advice on raising godly young men was such a great reminder!  Mothers, particularly, need to read this book.  There is so much we need to understand about our boys’ differences, and understanding those differences is crucial to their growth and character development.

I loved what married-team authors Hal and Melanie Young emphasized regarding the importance of our training to evoke positive character growth:

I was given this book, Raising Real Men, by the authors Hal & Melanie Young in exchange for my honest review. As I have been reading this book, I have been so very encouraged to allow my boys to take risks and adventures and not be over “motherly” in protecting them. As I was reading chapter 3, I was asking myself, “Do my boys even try to be adventurous or have I sqashed that tendency in them?” Well, I got to thinking. Yes. They do! Wes immediately came to mind. He is 11 and he likes to ride his skateboard outside, even without me being there. HA! He loves going to the checkout lanes and paying for his own items while I am in another lane and not necessarily in the lane next to him. He loves to climb trees, too. As for Nathanael, my 13 year old, he has a beautiful voice but refuses to sing out loud at church. I now understand that I need to encourage him to use his gift for God and even if he doesn’t want to sing in public, that his singing around the house encourages me in the Lord. Nate shows that he wants to be a conquerer by  taking most of the grocery bags (which are usually overfilled) from my vehicle to the kitchen cabinet in as little trips as possible. He will load up those bags on his arms until it has taken either most of his strength or all of his space (fingers, hands, arms). What a great book to help me see these qualities in my sons. Now, back to reading. . . .

Today is one week later and I have completed reading the book. I highly recommend you get this book if you have sons. One phrase really struck me. It was “Our job is to shape and prepare the arrows so when they are released, they fly straight and true on their own.” How true this is. Our children are the arrows and it is our job, not our parent’s, the government’s, or anyone else’s, to shape and prepare our children for when they leave home.

I have learned quite a bit on raising boys and how to encourage them to be “chivalrous.” I wish I had this book when my boys were younger, but since I didn’t, I will work extra hard to encourage my boys (now 11 & 13) to be more attentive to the needs of those around them.

Tina Brown

Mom of 7 Kids Blog

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been reading Raising Real Men: Surviving, Teaching, and Appreciating Boys by Hal and Melanie Young. I finished it yesterday, and plan to read it again after Larry gets a turn. Put simply, if you only read one book about raising boys, this is the one I would recommend. I ordered my book through their website last year, although I see it is now available elsewhere.

Most authors of books about boys may have been a boy or even raised one, but their books tend to be based on research and/or professional experience. I have found that to be useful in helping me better understand my boys, but Raising Real Men helps put that understanding into practice. The Youngs have six sons (and two daughters); they know what it’s like in the trenches. They cover the real issues based on their own years of experience: responsibility, discipline, competition, chivalry, homeschooling, chores, and more.

As I read, I alternated between two reactions: “Phew, we’re on the right track!” and “Ohhh, that’s a good way to deal with that!” More importantly, it has finally made me thankful for the privilege (and challenge) I have been given with five real boys to raise.

Wendy & her Lost Boys Blog

Raising Real Men is so HOT OFF THE PRESS that the copyright on the book is 2010!  We have just brough in a whole case of this book because it was such a good read and we are currently the only bookshop in Asia selling it!

Last week, I had a typical exchange with Timothy about his Swiss army knife.  He had taken out the penknife and the scissors and left it open on the stairs!  Of course I threw the book at him, telling him this was unacceptable handling of the Victorinox, what would happen if someone stepped on it … blah, blah, blah.  Then I told him to put it back in the toolbox and said he would not be allowed to use it again unless I gave him EXPRESS permission (I love using that phrase) to do so.

Of course he was upset.  But the next day (and after I had read a few chapters of the book), he came to ask me if he could use it.  Ordinarily I would have said no, just to make a point.  But realising that he was A BOY (an “ah-ha” moment) and that I would never really understand boys’ obsession with tools, I said yes, but set the rule that the Victorinox had to either be in his hand when in use, in his pocket when not in use or back in the toolbox at the end of the day.  I have so much more to learn about raising boys.  After all, I have never been one! 

So it has been a treat and an eye-opener and conversation starter with TC, to read Raising Real Men.  One of the most down-to-earth, practical, well-balanced books on raising children I have personally ever read!  No textbook answers, no preachy-ness, no my-way-or-the-highway talk.  Just straight-shooting, from the heart sharing of one family’s mistakes (yes they share those too), struggles and joys as they seek to raise six sons for the Lord.

The Youngs are a Christian family and make no bones about it.  They are a homeschooling family, but their book does not say homeschooling is the only way.  Their philosophy sounds so much like ours, that I could see myself writing this book in 15 years from now.  Except they write SO MUCH BETTER than I do! 

They offer a good mix of Christian principles on the one hand and good-old common sense (which is getting less common) on the other.  I thought this line from Chapter 11, “Chivalry is not dead”, on the need for good manners, summarised their position well:

“The true path, like so much in life, is a balance that acknowledges the need for guidance to help sinful people get along, but does not make a destructive tyrant out of the resulting rules.”

I have read books which say there is only one way to raise children and if you do otherwise, you and your children are doomed (okay, not THAT extreme, but you get the general idea?).  So this was a truly refreshing read!

By the time I finished the book, I was thanking God for the PRIVILEGE of raising two boys!  So if you have sons (especially if you’re a mother), and have people raise their eyebrows when they see you with your bouncing boys in tow, and if you feel that no one understands what you’re going through, and doubt that the madness will ever end, this is the book for you!

May we all be encouraged to raise godly and very real sons!

Angie Maniam-Ng