Our contemporary society is experimenting with the diminishment of caregivers for children. Some children are raised through crucial stages of life by only one person. This one person, who strives to give the best, may be overwhelmed, busy, trying to raise many children. And even in homes with two parents, many children are essentially alone.
Michael GurianA lot of women will be sort of 'competitive like a guy' in the workplace, but then when they go home, they realize that's not fully authentic for them. They would like to have a more expansive or more authentic relationship in the workplace around competition.
Michael GurianBoys get unfairly labeled as morally defective, hyperactive, undisciplined, or 'problem children,' when quite often the problem is not with the boys but with the families, extended families, or social environments, which do not understand their specific needs as human beings and as boys
Michael GurianThe quickest way to create a boy or man who lacks compassion is to judge and shame his feelings.
Michael GurianThe culture in which you parent, mentor, or educate boys exhorts them to be individualistic and group-oriented at once, but does not give them a tribal structure in which to accomplish both in balance. It used to be that the tribe formed a boy's character while the peer group existed primarily to test and befriend that character. Nowadays, boys' characters are often formed in the peer group. Mentors and intimate role models rarely exist to show the growing boy in any long-term and consistent way how both to serve a group and flourish as an independent self.
Michael GurianClassrooms keep getting set up more and more around the verbal and less around the kinesthetic and active. They are increasingly becoming environments that favour the girls' brain.
Michael GurianAs our lives speed up more and more, so do our children's. We forget and thus they forget that there is nothing more important than the present moment. We forget and thus they forget to relax, to find spiritual solitude, to let go of the past, to quiet ambition, to fully enjoy the eating of a strawberry, the scent of a rose, the touch of a hand on a cheek...
Michael Gurian