I would not recommend this book to any parents who are dealing with teenagers with severe mental health issues or substance abuse. It is so simple but oh so real and raw and sincere and compassionate that I already know I will read it more than once. Additionally, what about our LGBTQ boys that approach their transformation into sexual beings in perhaps a different way? But this book didn't address what to do if the child fails, and fails, and fails, and doesn't change his ways. This is especially true for boys who are known to be very smart -- instead of dealing with the anxiety and potential of failure, he takes the "opt-out" route.

Having had this conversation with parents several times I became intrigued, and so wanted to delve a little deeper into this concept of ‘laziness’. Parents, college students, teachers, and psychologists will gain a better understanding of the problem and know how to help teen boys who are going through it have a successful school career. Full of easy-to-understand explanations of scientific and developmental information that is absolutely necessary to understand, the second half of the book offers some really practical ideas and applications. It has been dog eared, highlighted, written in and parts have been reread as I reflect on my kid, my beliefs, my parenting.There are clear explanations of teenage brain development, the role of male hormones, the impact of burgeoning sexuality, and teenagers’ need to find their feet as independent social and emotional beings. Who refuses to take responsibility for his schoolwork unless you trawl through his bag to make sure it gets done. Rather than reacting to pressure by shunning academic responsibilities altogether or propping up fear-based rebellion with justifications like “I am not going to be one of those nerds who have no life,” or “Tests don’t measure intelligence or help you learn, so what’s the point of studying for them?

Good advice about taking a step back and giving your son room to fail as a means of growing toward independence. He may be an otherwise capable young man but seems apathetic and unmotivated, to the point you think he’s not excelling simply because he’s lazy.It has given me some strategies to employ when dealing with my kids, and ways to give them more independence in their lives. I found this book to be an incredibly useful tool for me as I LEARNED how to navigate my flawed interpretation of my son's inaction. This is a book for parents of teenage boys that aren’t in 100 AP classes, getting straight A’s, motivated to score 1500 on the SATs, or otherwise school uninterested.

There’s nothing quite as irritating as being the parent of a “lazy” teenager— nagging, micromanaging and all. This book was great at giving perspective and creating empathy for the “opt outs”, which was refreshing.Frankly, I hadn't realized that a book like this needed to be written, but I guess that's my privilege speaking. And if you fall into what I perceive to be a very narrow strip of the population, you will probably find this a very helpful book. Boys may seem like they're impervious to school pressures and demands, but in fact they often fear failure so much that they simply opt out of academic competition altogether. For me, personally, one of the best things about this book was all the charts - whether it was about learning organizational skills, or giving you an arsenal of words to help your son learn about/describe himself, they were a great resource.

It was also painfully apparent that this book is written for parents with financial and other privilege, whose kids are unquestionably college bound. I may be interpreting certain actions incorrectly as well as taking things personally when they don’t have anything to do with me as a parent. There are some really wonderful and wonderfully presented strategies that I will use with students and likely the 16yo in my house.

Appearing like he's "too cool for school" means he doesn't need to face all this pressure, or have people find out he really isn't that smart.