The best of boys - Claire Gillman

There is a common consensus, particularly in the media but often also among worried parents, that when it comes to raising male adolescents we have lost the plot. Depression and suicide rates among this group are rising, girls are outstripping boys at school, and the pressures both to be cool but also to do well in exams grow all the time. It can be easy to lose communication with large, clumping and monosyllabic teenage sons, and sometimes hard to give them the right support and guidance in these years. This book sets out to give parents the information they need on the enormous physical and emotional changes in boys from 11-18, the different stages they go through, problems they'll hit, school issues, encouraging positive behaviour, warning signs and how to cope as parents. Covering the more extreme problems - drugs, teenage pregnancy, being expelled from school - as well as the more everyday ones, and full of anecdotes and advice from other British parents, this is a down-to-earth, often humorous, but above all positive book that will be essential reading for all parents of sons.