It's a Boy!: Your Son's Development from Birth to Age 18

It’s a Boy! provides expert advice on the developmental, psychological, social, emotional, and academic life of boys from infancy through the teen years. Exploring the many ways in which boys strive for masculinity and attempt to define themselves, psychologist Michael Thompson, Ph.D., a leading international expert on boys’ development, and journalist Teresa H. Barker identify the key developmental transitions that mark a boy’s psychological growth and emotional health, and the challenges both boys and parents face at each age.

• Baby Boys (birth to 18 months): falling in love with your son, healthy attachment, trust, and temperament
• Toddler Years (18 months to 3 years): boys on the go, bold steps, blankies, budding language, and rambunctious physicality
• Powerful Little Boys (ages 3 and 4): superhero ambitions, learning to manage the force of his anger, and celebrating the power of the boy group
• Starting School (ages 5 through 7): developmental cues for school readiness, transitional challenges, tough talk, tender hearts, and first friends
• Boys on a Mission (ages 8 through 10): striving for mastery in sports, organizing the boy brain for school success, and glaring academic gender gaps
• The Preteen (ages 11 through 13): puberty, posturing, and popularity, the culture of cruelty, and stoic silence in the middle school years
• Early High School (ages 14 and 15): powerful peer groups, sexuality, the shift away from Mom, and yearning for Dad’s respect and attention
• On the Brink of Manhood (ages 16 through 18): the quest for independence, sex, love, driving, drinking, and other challenges of life

Practical, insightful, and engaging, It’s a Boy! is the definitive guide to raising boys in today’s world, revealing with humor, compassion, and joy all the infinite varieties of boys and the profound ways in which we love them.

Michael Thompson, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, lecturer, consultant, and former seventh-grade teacher. He conducts workshops across the United States and internationally on social cruelty, children’s friendships, and boys’ development. With Dan Kindlon, Ph.D., he co-authored the New York Times bestseller Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, which was adapted into an acclaimed documentary shown on PBS. With Teresa H. Barker he co-authored The Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life and Speaking of Boys: Answers to the Most-Asked Questions About Raising Sons. With Catherine O’Neill Grace and Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., he co-authored Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children and Mom, They’re Teasing Me: Helping Your Child Solve Social Problems. Dr. Thompson is married and the father of two. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts, and can be reached at www.michaelthompson-phd.com.

Teresa Barker, who collaborated with Michael Thompson on Raising Cain, Speaking of Boys, and The Pressured Child, is a journalist whose other book collaborations include Girls Will Be Girls, The Soul of Money, and In the Moment. Barker is married and the mother of a son and two daughters. She lives in Portland, Oregon.