Wild Things

As a general rule, boys are more difficult to rear than girls. They are tougher to parent. They are tougher to teach. They are tougher to relate with. They are tougher to mentor and coach.

It’s important to understand male development in these flexible and fluid terms, because what’s present and needed in a boy’s life at age two doesn’t disappear by the time he’s five or twelve; rather, it becomes part of a bigger whole. It’s not uncommon to find toddler-typical behavior present in adolescents (or forty-year-old men, for that matter). Equally so, there are several identity-forming stages within the span of boyhood that are similar to one another.