Raising Our Sons: The Ultimate Parenting Guide for Healthy Boys and Strong Families

"...for parents seeking reliable help for raising sons in today’s challenging world." This parenting guide includes over 200 parenting resources from more than 120 authors in 10 easy-to-understand chapters.

Order Raising Our Sons now—and start empowering your son today!

The Resource That Has Helped 1000s of Parents Raise Happy, Healthy, And Compassionate Sons

Managing Your Parenting Concerns Is Easier When You Have The Right Information

Dear Parent or Caring Adult, My name is Kathy Masarie. For nearly three decades, I’ve focused all of my personal and professional energies on the well-being of families. During this time, I have helped 1000s of parents and school professionals raise healthy children and create strong families. I know it’s not easy being a parent who’s trying to raise a healthy, happy and productive son… especially when you’re feeling pulled in many directions with more demands, more pressure and higher expectations than you can handle. And when you worry that you’re not doing enough as a parent or wonder if you’ll ever have a connected relationship with your son, it can be overwhelming. So I want to just take a minute and let you know everything is going to be fine. How can I say this? Because I know how you feel. Raising a healthy, happy, and productive son wasn’t easy for me either, and I certainly had challenges of my own — just like you. Let me explain…

I Know How Embarrassing It Is To Share Parenting Problems With Others

As a parent of two grown children, I know firsthand how embarrassing it can be to share your own parenting struggles with others. In childhood, our son, Jon, was easygoing and fun loving, yet, when he was in high school, we grew apart to the point where it was hard to be in the same room together. Jon focused his energy on friends, popularity, and social success as he understood it. We focused on what was wrong. As he got older, we really got worried. He was taking easy classes, skipping school and being with unhelpful friends 24/7. The more we insisted he go to school, the more he resisted. He even ran away once and, later, had a big party without our permission. We knew something needed to change.

I Was Afraid That I Couldn’t Create A Strong, Connected Relationship With My Son

I went back to something I knew about raising kids, something that got lost in trying to “make” him go to school. What I had forgotten is that by far the most important ingredient in raising resilient, competent, caring kids is having a strong, healthy CONNECTION with them. We started on the road to a better relationship with one simple rule: no talking when either of us was angry. To connect, I found that the best time was right after Jon’s friends left at 10:30 PM—fortunately, I’m a night owl. I would just go and sit in the big blue chair in his room, putting any agenda aside. At first Jon was very suspicious about “what I wanted from him.”

Less Judgment By Me = A Stronger Connection With Him

So I learned the less judgment and “fixing you” agenda I brought with me, the stronger the connection between us. Over time we began to feel a peaceful, comfortable acceptance of each other. He slowly started sharing more about what was going on in his life. The result? We weren’t without our bumps along the way, but he went on to become re-engaged with learning and graduated from college in 3 ½ years with great grades and a career he is passionate about.

As A Pediatrician, I Saw Parents Struggling In Isolation Every Day

As a pediatrician in the 1980s and 1990s, I saw parents, especially parents of teens, struggling alone with big family problems like pregnancy, depression, risky drinking and drug use. You see, I have always been focused on prevention and early action. Families with younger children who came to my practice were networking with each other, and I saw an opportunity to support families as their children grew into adolescents.

I Convened Experts To Review The Best Parenting Resources Available

In 1996, I decided to leave my medical practice to start the non-profit organization, Full Esteem Ahead, and then Family Empowerment Network to “support parents to support kids and one another.” My first task? I put together a team of parents and professionals — industry parenting experts, school teachers and counselors — to identify and read the best parenting resources that were available in the marketplace. We discussed our findings with one another and identified over 120 authors whose perspectives and voices fit our values. From there, we sorted all of the resources into 10 easy-to-understand topic areas that could be explored by parents and school professionals alike.

Parents Are The Best Resource For Helping Their Children Thrive

Next, we had to figure out how best to share this information with the most important person in your child’s life… you! One of the values that guided our work was that parents (both alone and in groups) are the best resource for helping their children thrive in the transition from childhood to adulthood. So you can get a better idea of how it has worked for parents, school professionals and parenting experts who have used my research, here are a few real-world testimonials:

At this point you're beginning to see how powerful the resources we put together are and how it has impacted the lives of parents and school professionals just like you.

I Want To Share My Life’s Experience To Help Other Parents

Once you have all of these resources, you’ll essentially have the map and the compass that will help you navigate to a more connected relationship with your son… and help him become a healthy and productive adult. So that's exactly what I want to give you... all the knowledge, experience and resources I have compiled and tested during the past 14 years. Introducing...

OK, so that’s a broad overview of what the parenting guide includes and how things are organized...
Order Raising Our Sons now—and start empowering your son today!

Here's a more detailed breakdown of what's covered:

Discover The 40 Developmental Assets That Help Every Child Successfully Navigate Childhood And Adolescence

• Explore the 6 keys to asset building. It doesn’t cost a lot of money or require special training to get started.
• Learn why young people with more assets are less likely to engage in high risk-taking behaviors.
• Discover why increasing young people’s assets will result in improved school success and leadership skills.
• Find out which assets decrease between 6th and 12th grade and why you should care.
• Discover the least common asset that could catapult your son to a more successful future.

Unlock The Truth About Today’s Media Culture And How It Influences The Choices Your Son Makes

• Learn how to lessen the grip that the media has over your child so that your family values come first.
• Discover the costs, both real and moral, that advertisers use to prey on your children and how you can avoid them.
• Unlock the critical links between childhood obesity, childhood diabetes and decreased social skills and problem-solving abilities that are promoted through good parenting choices.
• Avoid the common mistakes that will starve your son from developing his creative potential.

Discover How To Pierce Through The Noise Of Daily Living To Create A Healthy And Connected Relationship With Your Son

• Discover why new and old family rituals are essential to communication with your son.
• Unlock the secret of how you can be both kind and firm and, at the same time, get the mutual respect you both deserve and want.
• Learn how and when to teach financial responsibility to your son. Hint: the repercussions of being broke at age 8 are much less serious than those that occur at age 21!
• How to quickly gain insight into your son’s powerful needs resulting in new solutions that meet everyone’s goals.

How To Avoid The Terror Most Parents Experience When Their Sons Awaken Into Young Men

• Remove the “gender straightjacket” in our society that promotes distant, unfeeling and aggressive young men.
• Learn why rescuing your son from conflicts with his friends will only make the problem worse.
• Discover the effects of hormones on boys and the role your son’s environment plays each and every day throughout puberty.

Unlock The Missing Link Most Parents Overlook That Results In Emotionally Secure And Productive Boys

• Discover why most boys lose important abilities to “feel” at age 5 and how you can help your son stay connected to his innate ability to love.
• Understand why the phenomenon of “funneling” will help your son cope with anger and impulsivity.
• Learn how to provide four positive attentions for every negative attention and how this will improve your son’s resiliency and self-esteem.

How To Intervene Effectively In Your Son’s School Community To Promote A Positive Learning Environment

• Learn why 20% of all boys sit in class every day in fear of being bullied and what you can do to remove this barrier to their learning.
• Practice how to help your school community create trustworthiness, respect, fairness and caring citizenship with proven communication tools you can use right now.
• Discover the sad realities of modern schooling that place twice as many boys as girls in the lowest rungs of academic achievement… and how to fight back.

Learn How To Demonstrate Integrity In Your Actions So That You Do The Things That Matter Most To You And To Your Son

• Discover how to take control of the day-to-day chaos in your own life to show your son a life worth living.
• Unlock the tools that will help you manage your stress as a parent — away from the listening ears of your children.
• Learn why shifting your attention from a culture of “doing” to “being” will unlock valuable de-stressing skills that benefit you and your son.

Why Protecting Your Son From Forming His Own Identity Will Only Increase His High Risk-Taking Behavior

• Discover why your son needs to form his own identity during adolescence. Hint: this often involves experimenting with boundaries and risk-taking behavior.
• Unlock the tools that will help you prevent high risk-taking behavior earlier, when it is most effective.
• Learn how to recognize the early warning signs of trouble with substance abuse, sexual activity, depression or violence.

Discover How To Create Safe Havens Where Your Son Can Be His Best Self (And Be Accepted By Both You And His Friends)

• Why creating and strengthening commitments between children and other adults is the cornerstone to successful transitioning from adolescence to adulthood.
• How to create support groups for your son that allow him to bond with others boys and have fun while encouraging positive values and healthy relationships.
• Why reductions in physical education in our schools should concern you and what you can do about it.

…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

So How Much Is This Parenting Guide Going To Cost?

For starters, there's no other parenting guide anywhere that covers the topic of raising your son with this level of depth.

And you will benefit from the countless testing and refinements I have made over the past 14 years helping 1000s of adults improve their relationships with their son-and create healthy adult men in the process.

So your question really shouldn't be, "What's it going to cost?" Instead, it should be, "What is this worth to me?"

Just consider that you will have a resource that will help your son from right now through the time he graduates from high school and enters into adulthood. This truly is why this powerful and easy-to-understand book, Raising Our Sons: The Ultimate Parenting Guide for Healthy Boys and Strong Families, is invaluable.

If you are truly committed to maximizing the precious moments with your children and nurturing them to discover their best selves so that they may become productive citizens of the world… this parenting guide is for you.

You see, my goal is simple. I want you to experience the power that comes when together, we as parents, school communities, and neighborhoods create and support thriving, healthy children.

To your parenting success,

Kathy Masarie, MD Founder of Family Empowerment Network