Boy Talk: How You Can Help Your Son Express His Emotions
At last, a book about boys that doesn't rely on the testosterone theory  of sex differences. Instead, psychologist Mary Polce-Lynch offers gender glasses  to view the different ways that boys and girls learn to understand and express  their feelings.Boy Talkis a powerful manifesto that urges readers to  stop governing boy's inner lives by social norms. The heart of this resistance  involves families and communities in breaking the "pack rules"--the cultural  imperatives that restrict boys' access to and expression of their emotions.Polce-Lynch is equally adept at detailing the big picture of our culture's  discomfort with boys' emotions and a frame of strategy that supports their  emotional development. Well-written chapters explore the cost of unexpressed  emotion, the link between emotions and temperament, the development of empathy,  alternatives to aggression, and a curriculum for critiquing media. The book  counsels parents to become "emotional detectives" and describes high-impact  techniques, including mirroring, blending, naming, and modeling. Engaging in its  scope and detail,Boy Talkwill change your conversations with young men.--Barbara Mackoff