Boy Mom

Monica Swanson’s intention for Boy Mom is that it is a handbook for growing an honorable, kind and confident son. Filled with real-world advice, each chapter offers insights from the author’s personal experience blended with biblical wisdom and compelling research to help you nurture your son’s physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being. Topics include connection, boundaries, freedom, discipline, affirming significance and identity, influences and role models, emotional health, physical health, and learning and discovering passions…and so much more. Each chapter is filled with her personal experiences of raising boys, references to other books related to parenting, and reflections on outside research conducted on raising boys. 

At the end of each chapter she has a section called Make it Personal. There are two components to Make it Personal. First is a set of reflection questions related to the topics within the respective chapters. All give you the space to reflect on how you parent your son, and offer recommendations in the form of a question so you can be thoughtful about how you will implement the recommendation. For example, in the chapter on connection this is the first set of reflection questions:

What are some ways you have established a loving environment for your son to grow up in? What additional steps could you take to work on that? What is your son’s love language, and how might you communicate love to him in a way that really speaks to his heart? 

The second component within the Make it Personal section that gives recommendations of applicable tools to intentionally grow your relationship with your son. Examples include “Twenty Ways to Make Your Son Feel Love,” “Coaching Your Son for a Growth Mindset,” and “Qualities of Noble Character as Conversations Starters.” 

As a mom with a boy, I (Laura) found it helpful to read the book and write about the reflection questions in my journal. From there, I identified certain things I wanted to talk with my son about, certain ways I wanted to intentionally spend time with him, and certain traditions I wanted to incorporate into our daily or weekly routine. For example, my son is on his high school golf team and would like to receive a golf scholarship for college. If you have kids involved in sports, you know that the car ride home can be great…or one wrong move and it goes up in flames. On our car ride home after a match I regularly refer back to the list of questions provided by the author on coaching your son for a growth mindset. I’ve found these questions support him through the process of reflecting on his match, identifying what he could and could not control, and moving forward in a healthy, positive way.   

Additionally, we encourage you to share your reflections and the recommended tools with your partner. This creates the space for connection with your partner through meaningful conversations around parenting. It allows you to share ideas and implement parenting strategies as a team.

If you are the mother of a boy…this book is worth your time. The reflection questions are insightful, and the recommendations for growing your relationship with your son are a wonderful combination of heartfelt and practical. It gives you the tools you need to love your son well, and to parent each day with his future in mind.