28 Quotes by Leonard Sax

If we fail to provide boys with pro-social models of the transition to adulthood, they may construct their own. In some cases, gang initiation rituals, street racing, and random violence may be the result.

By exempting your child from all chores, as many affluent American families now do, you are sending the message, "Your time is too valuable to be spent on menial tasks," which easily morphs into the unintended message "You are too important to do menial tasks." And that unintended message puffs up the bloated self-esteem that now characterizes many American kids.

Turn off the device and take your child for a walk through the woods or on a hike up a mountain. Go on a camping trip. Late at night, when it's absolutely dark, take your child's hand and ask her to look up at the stars. Talk with her about the vastness of space and the tininess of our planet in the universe. That's reality. That's perspective.

Quoting an experienced school counselor: "You can't change a bully into a flower child, but you can change him into a knight.

Defining yourself in terms of how you rank is always dangerous and ultimately immature. It doesn't matter whether the rank has to do with your grades, your weight or where you finished in the 800 meter race. Becoming a mature adult means, among other things, that you define yourself relative to your own potential, not relative somebody else's standard.

The destructive effects of video games are not on boys' cognitive abilities or their reaction times, but on their motivation and their connectedness with the real world.

Celebration of the new over the old easily translates into a celebration of young over the old, of young people over old people. The cult of youth, the celebration of youth for youth's sake s more pervasive in the United States than any other culture I have visited . . . When the culture values youth over maturity, the authority of parents is undermined.

You don't teach virtue by preaching virtue. You teach virtue by requiring virtuous behavior, so that virtuous behavior becomes a habit.

There's no such thing as a child; there are only boys and girls. Even if you present a 6-month-old male baby with a choice between a truck and doll, he's going to choose the truck.