The previous post reminded me of something important and I wanted to share it with you.  It’s all to do with raising boys and using practical diversion as an enabler for communication about something emotional.

In the late 1990’s I became a single mother.  My son was 3 and a half. I felt I could cope pretty well with raising my son on my own but when I tried to do the things dads do so naturally – things like rough-housing and the way guys set different exploration standards (no, no, you can’t let him do that it’s too dangerous, or he’s too young, or he’s not big enough, cry the Moms), I knew I was going to fall short. I tried, but I’m a woman not a man.  I let that part go but it made me really think about what was going to be important for our relationship thru the years ahead.  What we were going to need was to be able to communicate really well with each other and I realized I didn’t exactly know how to do this.  I am one of three girls, raised by Mum who was an only child.  I’m talking all girls, all the time.  My father had left us early on and was non-communicative.  So what I’m saying here is I had no experience with boys in a direct family context.

I did my research and came upon this book.

The element that I was reminded of today being:  if you need to talk to your young sons about something on a more emotional level, start working on a practical project together and then bring the subject you need to discuss into the conversation.  Keeping some focus on the project seems to reduce or take the stressors out of talking about a more emotional or anxiety-ridden subject (i.e., is something bothering you, or I heard something happened at school today let’s talk about it, etc.).  Women know talking about stuff is important, this is a mechanism to make it happen with your sons that works.

So any mothers of boys out there, particularly if you’re on the single parent path like I was, please read this book.  It’s important.  More so today than ever before I think.