BOYS, A RESCUE PLAN

Perhaps in no previous time has it become more obvious that boys are struggling.  Their mental health challenges have become severe. Boys are behind girls in education and maturation. Screen time and social media have become an affliction. Many of our sons grow up courting violence. Many others live in quiet desperation.

While arguments about the politics of masculinity abound, there is little help today for parents, schools, and communities to raise, educate, and nurture boys as males. In fact, our post-modern cultures have tried to erase “male” from the conversation. Boys, A Rescue Plan: Moving Beyond the Politics of Masculinity to Healthy Male Development goes against this grain by providing a template for raising our sons into loving, wise, and successful adult males.

Since Michael Gurian’s publication of The Wonder of Boys in 1996, grass roots programs have blossomed to serve as models for what works to help young males. Features of many of these programs join with Sean Kullman’s work on statistics, graphics, and analytic tools to provide readers with practical strategies for social change in communities.

The structure of the book also makes it useful to high school and college classrooms that study child and adult development. An emotional and epic journey  through the issues boys face and the solutions proven to help them, Boys, A Rescue Plan is a powerful and profound read for parents, citizens, legislators, and anyone involved in the care of our sons.

The impact of the politics of masculinity on raising healthy boys is one of the most important issues of our time, and Dr. Michael Gurian (New York Times bestselling author) and Sean Kullman, President, Global Initiative for Boys and Men tackle the issue head on.   

In their empowering new book, Boys, A Rescue Plan: Moving Beyond the Politics of Masculinity to Healthy Male Development Gurian and Kullman examine the consequence of ignoring male nature for over reliance on social constructs of masculinity and gender.  Recognizing sex-differences (particularly brain-sex difference) is critical when it comes to helping our boys and girls thrive.  The authors are unafraid to talk openly about the policies and practices that ignore sex-difference as root causes of poor educational outcomes, addiction, suicide, and overdose deaths for our boys and young men.  Understanding sex-differences, they argue, is the pathway to our greatest solutions.    

“Boys, A Rescue Plan captures the crisis we see among many of our boys and provides solutions proven to work over the last three decades.  This rescue plan is packed with practical neuroscience-based strategies everyone can use immediately.”

–Daniel Amen, M.D., New York Times Bestselling Author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

Exploring data, neuroscience, psychology, genetics, and the politics around us, they provide counter narratives and practical solutions to the current ideologies in academia, media, and government that have largely ignored both sex-differences and the devastating outcomes to our sons for at least four decades.  Readers from all ends of the political spectrum will feel awakened by this refreshing and informative book.  The final section of the book highlights and features programs around the country that are working to help boys thrive.

Educators, policymakers, and journalists will turn to Boys, A Rescue Plan for its insights, and Kullman and Gurian know parents and grandparents need to be involved in politics if we are to rescue our boys from crisis and lead them to healthy adulthood.

Aspects of the Book

Politics: Policies and budgets at all levels of government have largely ignored male outcomes and the 2024 election was partly a referendum on ignoring our nation’s boys and men–not only by men voting against being ignored any longer, but their mothers, grandmothers, and wives voting that way as well.  The authors argue that it is critical to adjust social policies to be boy-friendly.  Both authors have been involved for decades in doing just that while also advocating for girls and women.

Nurture the Nature:  The authors argue that the current problems boys face today–the boy crisis–revolves, in large part, around our society-wide abandonment of male development.  Understanding the neuroscience of the male brain is essential so that we can align nature, nurture, and culture to include citizen science that empowers everyone to be part of the solution.  Kullman and Gurian employ a male development theory approach that is replicable world-wide. 

“As a retired Administrative Coordinator of Instruction (ACI) for the Black Student Achievement Plan in the Los Angeles Unified School District, I find the work in Boys, A Rescue Plan highly relevant to issues facing children of color.”

–Glynetta Fletcher, Ed.D., Retired Principal and ACI, Los Angeles Unified School District

Cultural Constructs: Without a science-based understanding of males, our institutions have relied on social constructs to explain “male problems” and “masculinity.”  By deploying a rescue plan that includes neuroscience and sex-differences, the authors help boys and communities thrive across the racial, ethnic, and socio-economic spectrums.    

Verifiable and Reliable Data: From data gained in various agencies, the numbers tell a very disturbing story. Young males account for 79% of youth suicide deaths and 71% of youth overdose deaths.  Educational outcomes reveal that boys are behind in reading at all grade levels and that boys are far less likely to participate in college than their female counterparts.  

In this insightful and engaging book, Kullman and Gurian take on the politics of masculinity while offering practical solutions and proven programs to empower parents and others to help boys grow, learn, and thrive.  

Press Release for BOYS, A RESCUE PLAN

Michael Gurian is a marriage and family counselor in his thirty-fourth year of private practice (michaelgurian.com) and the New York Times bestselling author of thirty-six books. The Gurian Institute, which he co-founded in 1996, conducts research internationally, launches pilot programs, and trains professionals (gurianinstitute.com).  Michael has been called “the people’s philosopher” for his ability to bring together people’s ordinary lives and scientific ideas. He previously taught at Gonzaga University and Ankara University.

Michael’s work has been featured multiple times in nearly all the major media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, Psychology Today, AARP Magazine, People, Reader’s Digest, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, Parenting, Good Housekeeping, Family Therapy Magazine, Redbook, and many others. Gurian has also made multiple appearances on Today, Good Morning America, CNN, PBS, National Public Radio, Fox News, and many others. 

Sean Kullman is the President of the Global Initiative for Boys and Men and has recently founded The American Institute for Responsible Research (airr.pro) to help parents, policymakers, educators, media, and other groups gather reliable data on education, physical and mental health, the court systems, fatherhood, family and relationships, careers, and the male narrative in the public discourse.  He previously taught middle school, high school, and college English at different points of his teaching career.  

Sean’s research and presentations help policymakers, writers, researchers, media, educators, parents, other non-profits, and advocates to understand the challenges boys face and the steps needed for our boys to thrive. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Kansas City Star, and others as well as the InHisWords.us substack.  Sean has facilitated town halls in California, appeared on television and radio in various cities, and spoken at conferences and

universities, most recently at the University of New Mexico to bring this important information on boys’ development to the public.