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38 Tools for
Raising Boys
Who Become Men

A practical shortlist from the chapter. The full framework lives in the book.

Explore the tools
38 research-informed tools from the book chapter.

Practical actions you can start today.

Organised by themes for easier application.

Start with 3 Build from there.

Explore by Category
Foundation of parenting
Raising Healthy Boys
Emotional Intelligence
Education & Development
Fatherhood & Family
Health & Discipline
Foundation of parenting
Raising Healthy Boys
Emotional Intelligence
Education & Development
Fatherhood & Family
Health & Discipline

Foundation of parenting

16

Free Parenting – Sunlight, Time, Conversation

The most powerful developmental inputs cost nothing. Eat together with devices off. Go outside daily. Take your child to your hobbies. Talk in the car. These become the memories that last a lifetime.
17

Buy Experiences Over Things

Children remember what they felt, not what they owned. Research at Cornell confirms that experiential spending produces more lasting happiness than material spending, at every income level.
18

Enrol Your Son in Clubs

Karate. Scouts. Football. Chess. Art. A boy’s idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Structured clubs with adult mentors reduce delinquency and build character.
19

Promote Physical Play Over Digital Play

Rough-and-tumble physical play shapes the prefrontal cortex. Boys who play physically daily have better impulse control, emotional regulation, and peer relationships. Let them run. Let them wrestle. Let them get dirty.
20

Family Digital Governance

The algorithm is parenting your son if you are not. Establish a family digital charter. Install Google Family Link or Bark. Delay the smartphone. Have honest conversations about what he encounters online.
21

Give Chores – Without Always Paying

Chores build self-efficacy, accountability, and empathy for others’ labour. A 25-year longitudinal study shows children with consistent chores succeed more in adulthood across every domain.
Raising Healthy Boys
22

End Alexithymia – Build Emotional Vocabulary

Boys are emotionally stunted not by biology, but by socialisation. Use an emotion wheel. Play naming games. Emotion-coach your son. The boy who can name what he feels is less likely to act it out violently.
23

Hug Your Boys – Tell Them You Love Them

Physical affection releases oxytocin and builds secure attachment. Do not stop because he is a teenager. Do not stop because he has become a man. He still needs to hear it. Say it.
24

Mother Tongue Matters

Do not sacrifice home language for English. Bilingual and multilingual children outperform monolinguals on cognitive flexibility. Speak isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho at home. Acquire English in addition, not instead.
25

Sweat – Boys Must Come Home Tired

Testosterone is energy, not a problem. Channel it. Sixty minutes of vigorous physical activity daily improves concentration, reduces behavioural problems, and protects mental health.
28

Full Health Checks – Make It a Ritual

SA men die a decade earlier than women, from largely preventable conditions. The boy who sees his father go to the doctor grows up to go to the doctor. Make annual health checks a family ritual.
31

More Vocational Training for NEET Boys

Millions of South African boys are not in education, employment, or training. Vocational pathways can restore dignity, purpose, and economic participation.
36

Engage Faith Communities on Masculinity

Churches, mosques, and traditional structures have unparalleled reach into the lives of men and boys. Engage your faith community on its explicit theology of masculinity. Good scriptures, well-taught, build whole men.

Emotional Intelligence

26

Review Education Pedagogy for Boys

Boys are underperforming girls in literacy, numeracy, and science. Not because they are less capable, but because the classroom was not designed for their developmental profile. Advocate for change.
27

Do Not Be Quick to Diagnose or Medicate

Up to 20% of ADHD diagnoses in children are developmental differences misread as disorders. Before the prescription, try movement, sleep, nutrition, and environmental review.
29

Demystify Misinformation

Your son is navigating an information ecosystem designed to manipulate him. Teach him to distinguish misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Watch content together. Ask questions.
30

Take Your Child to Work – Including Your Son

Workplace exposure is one of the strongest predictors of career aspiration and academic motivation. Include your son. Show him what purpose looks like.
32

Suicide Intervention

SA males complete suicide at five times the rate of females. Talk to your son about mental health directly, without euphemism. Know the warning signs. Know the resources. Normalise help-seeking through your own example.
35

Explore Masculinity Beyond the Binary

The rigid, brittle script of capitalist masculinity is failing boys. Create space for your son to define his own version of manhood, generous, expressive, internally derived. Ask him: “What kind of man do you want to be?”
37

Teach Delayed Gratification and Financial Wisdom

Try the Five Jar World: teenagers Earn, Save, Invest, Give (10%), Spend (50%), and Invest (20%). Make it physical and visible. Teach that income must be earned, that patience is productive, and that giving is not loss.

Education and Development

33

Set Age Limits for Staying Home

Boys are more likely than girls to remain in the parental home past 30. Independence is developmental. Set loving, clear expectations. Help him prepare to launch, then trust him to fly.
34

End “It Is Because of Patriarchy” – use context

A Black SA man raised without a father, in poverty, under apartheid is not a beneficiary of patriarchy. He is, in most senses, its victim. Accurate analysis produces better interventions. Context is not excuse; it is necessary truth.
38

Remember – When One Sex Loses, Both Lose

The development of boys and the flourishing of girls are not competing projects. They are complementary ones. Build the country. We need everyone.

Fatherhood and Family

18

Enrol Your Son in Clubs

Karate. Scouts. Football. Chess. Art. A boy’s idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Structured clubs with adult mentors reduce delinquency and build character.
20

Family Digital Governance

The algorithm is parenting your son if you are not. Establish a family digital charter. Install Google Family Link or Bark. Delay the smartphone. Have honest conversations about what he encounters online.
28

Full Health Checks – Make It a Ritual

SA men die a decade earlier than women, from largely preventable conditions. The boy who sees his father go to the doctor grows up to go to the doctor. Make annual health checks a family ritual.
33

Set Age Limits for Staying Home

Boys are more likely than girls to remain in the parental home past 30. Independence is developmental. Set loving, clear expectations. Help him prepare to launch, then trust him to fly.

Health and Discipline

1

The Masito Conversations — African Men Care

Hosted by Dr. Mzamo Masito. Conversations at the intersection of African masculinity, behavioural science, and social entrepreneurship. Available on major podcast platforms.
1

The Boy Crisis Podcast

Companion to the book. Farrell interviews researchers, practitioners, and parents on the specific challenges facing boys — from education to fatherhood to mental health. Clear, data-grounded, and compassionate.
1

The Art of Manliness Podcast

One of the longest-running and most substantive podcasts on masculinity. Covers everything from the history of male rites of passage to practical skills, philosophy, physical fitness, and emotional resilience. Recommended from adolescence onwards.
1

The Good Men Project Podcast

A platform that takes seriously the complexity of modern masculinity — neither dismissing male struggle nor excusing harmful behaviour. Good for fathers, educators, and practitioners.
4

Hidden Brain

Behavioural science stories told with precision and narrative flair. Multiple episodes directly relevant to this book: on self-control, social norms, identity, group behaviour, and the psychology of belonging.
5

The Diary of a CEO

While not exclusively focused on men, Bartlett's interviews with leading scientists, psychologists, and entrepreneurs regularly address male identity, mental health, and success. Popular with young men. Useful bridge content.
6

Andrew Huberman Lab

Neuroscience and physiology for everyday life. Huberman's episodes on testosterone, sleep, exercise, stress, and adolescent brain development are directly relevant to the toolbox. Enormous popularity with young adult males — a trusted entry point into health science.
7

Dare to Lead

Brown's research on vulnerability, shame, and courage is applicable to the work of parenting boys and rethinking masculinity. Her episode "Men, Women, and Worthiness" is a direct entry point.
8

The Adam Grant Podcast (WorkLife)

Organisational psychologist Grant covers identity, grit, self-concept, and social norms with research precision and storytelling skill. His episodes on gender norms and identity are relevant to Tools 35 and 36.

All Tools

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