First you need to take heed of all of the advice about not being a Gamma yourself. You need to set the example first, but don’t take time off to straighten yourself out. If you are behaving like a Gamma around your son stop it immediately the best you can and work on improving. This list is not ordered by importance.
- Support your son in healthy activities even if it’s not something you would do or even particularly like. Don’t belittle his choices simply because it’s not something you would do.
- Allow him to fail and be wrong about things and then help him understand his mistakes and learn from failure. If you encourage him to lie about his failures you will make him scared to fail so he won’t try and a liar as well.
- Don’t publicly ridicule him, embarrass him, or compare him to other boys because you are angry at his behavior. If he embarrassed himself publicly he will know and already feel shame. Take him aside to discipline him and make it very clear why he is being punished. His punishment should be appropriate to the offense and not revenge for making you look bad or angry. If punishment is seen as revenge you will fill him with wroth.
- If he has a physical or minor character flaw don’t regularly point it out and mock him about it. He knows about it and has likely already been picked on about it. You don’t need to pile on, but rather need to encourage him through it.
- Allow him to see you be wrong about something and take responsibility for it.
- If he’s knows more about a subject, is right and you are wrong don’t use your position of power to take away his success but rather celebrate his knowledge or admit he’s right and you were mistaken depending on the situation.
- If he wants quit an activity he needs to take up a similar activity. For instance if he doesn’t like one sport he can try another, but he can’t just quit and play X-box.
- Teach him how to fight and defend himself, but that it’s always the last option and not the first.
- Spend time with him in traditionally masculine hobbies and activities, and chose a few which are particularly difficult and physical in nature.
21 comments:
From personal experience, these two are very important:
Take him aside to discipline him and make it very clear why he is being punished. His punishment should be appropriate to the offense and not revenge for making you look bad or angry. If punishment is seen as revenge you will fill him with wroth.
If you don't you're basically instilling a sense of relativism in the kid.
Allow him to see you be wrong about something and take responsibility for it.
If you handle being wrong in a wretchedly Gamma way... he's going to learn to do it the same way.
Unplug the fucking TV. Let him get dirty. Let him get hurt a little. I have three boys. At least one of them is going or doing something with me, whether it's lifting, working in the garden, helping a neighbor, etc., even if they sometimes don't want to go and do with Daddy. This weekend my two older boys are going to help me build a little playhouse and slide for the 2yr old. We'll have more fun building it than the 2yr old will probably have playing with it. Teach them how to be a man by bringing them along when you do man stuff.
This post is just parenting 101.
Having raised three sons to adulthood and watched others, it's astonishing to see how few get it right.
Two tips: live as you teach them to live, and explain the Why, not just the What.
Thank you. I will send this post to all my friend and male family members. I don’t know anyone of them who would like their sons to become gammas.
From http://freedompowerandwealth.com
Excellent thread, I began a crash course in parenting 7 years ago @38 yrs of age. My wife's husband of 10 yrs died in an accident on his way to the ship for redeployment to the gulf, leaving my wife with a girl and two boys, age 9,7,6.
My wife and the kids were struggling emotional, spiritually, and behaviorally. We were introduced a year to the day after he died, by another Navy wife from the bad, who went to my church. fast forward 7 years. My Now 15 yr old son Emilio, who was totally a basket case behaviorally, and doing really poorly academically, is now an accomplished jazz drummer in our churches "worship them" (hate the term) along with his 14 yr old brother (cellist) and me (drums). He is also highly sought after by the Christian school that is part of our church's soccer team (last years state champion) for their goalie position (he is an exceptional keeper) , so much that the school changed their hair standards, to accommodate his hair, which is just past his shoulders.
But the kicker, is recently, my wife and I were arguing, and my 5 yr old daughter kept getting involved after repeated warnings. I finally lost my patience and told her to "shut up", and walked way. On my way out the door, Emilio says to me, "that wasn't nice". so, I called him outside to talk about it. He was nervous at first, but I assured him he could be honest. His answer was "I you don't talk to people you love like that". I knew he was right, and told him he was, and that I was proud of him for defending his little sister. So, I went in and called my daughter in, and told her that it was wrong, and asked for her forgiveness. I'm really proud of all those kids. I've been called a lot of shit, but Dad is my favorite.
Sorry for being long winded, but it was a very good thread.
I'm sure you at least meant to imply this in the above, but perhaps the most important thing is this:
limit his mother's input to and influence on his development, especially after he reaches puberty.
This, I believe, is where even men of strong alpha persuasion often fall short for fear of offending wifey. Still, it is essential that you spend more QT than ever with him once he hits puberty and hormones begin raging. If you give him no other advice at this stage of his lofe, make it this: "never EVER listen to your mother, or any other woman who tries to give you advice about girls and women or who tries to lecture you on being a man!"
"Still, it is essential that you spend more QT than ever with him once he hits puberty and hormones begin raging."
This. Prevailing thought among moms now are that they need to be involved and open in discussions about sex with their sons so that they "know how to treat women". Frankly, I can't thing of a single worse thing psychologically they could do to them. That isn't something boys want to discuss with their moms, one, and two, it'd be about as useful as dads discussing menstrual cycles with their daughters.
If you can get your son involved in traditional scouting, not the Boy Scouts of America, I'd really recommend it. That program really emphasizes outdoor skills and youth leadership. There's nothing like planning and taking part in a multi-day hike with just a couple of other teens (No Adults), eating only what you can kill or carry and sleeping in a bivvy to teach self reliance.
Funny how the above is also standard management advice.
Praise in public, punish in private.
Ban Xbox and similar video games from your house; limit TV to an hour a day and monitor what is watched; read to him, encourage him to read great books by those nasty old dead white European males, including Tolkien and Lewis; and take him to museums with great traditional art.
Encourage him to participate in grown-up conversations and talk with him frequently about all manner of things, current events, history, cars, scientific stuff; generally just be available.
Lifting weights throughout puberty seems to increase the body's set-point for testosterone. (Don't overdo it, obviously.) Between this, martial arts, and firearms, your son will acquire a sense of physical dominance over others which translates easily to a feeling of social dominance.
First you need to take heed of all of the advice about not being a Gamma yourself.
This can't be overemphasized. I believe fathers imprint masculinity on their sons during puberty.
I'm astounded that Game hasn't come up yet. Heartiste and Mystery Method should be required reading for any young man. It's as important as learning to read.
Ban Xbox and similar video games from your house
I disagree with all the knee-jerk reactions to video games. They are extremely important for developing fluid intelligence (IMO) and a strong affinity for computers and electronics. These are necessary skills and vidya is by far the best way to build them.
Establish limits if you must but if the kid's life is balanced out by school demands, social life, exercise, a job, etc., limits won't be necessary.
Actually Rollo's book is probably a better intro for the, ah, "neurodiverse" childe.
This is sound advice. Teach him some basic self defense (how to use lateral movement to dodge punches, how to throw leg kicks, when to run from a fight) so can feel secure in case he gets in a scuffle. Even if he winds up with his face in the dirt, the bullies will not pick on him again. They like weak targets.
Specific issue:
He is 9. He is not "as tough" as other kids his age. He will still burst into tears sometimes if he takes a hit in the "some contact" sports he plays (soccer and lacrosse). He doesn't naturally like to rough-house. But also he's not a timid player; he will aggressively go get the ball, and doesn't give up if he loses it.
Does that count as a "minor character flaw" that I shouldn't point out? I know he knows about it and has already been picked on about it by other kids. How do I best encourage him through it? I have told him crying in public is not acceptable and he will lose the respect of his team - an he gets it intellectually but still can't help himself sometimes. (It is all the worse because he is big for his age and is one of the most skillful players.)
Unsure about signing him up for martial arts. Was planning on waiting a few years.
He'll almost certainly grow out of the crying thing.
For the fathers here and on VP, Vox, have you considered a book or short treatment on how to raise a kid when you aren't on the upper end of the Socio-sexual hierarchy? I'd like my sons to be better than me.
liberranter said...
I'm sure you at least meant to imply this in the above, but perhaps the most important thing is this:
limit his mother's input to and influence on his development, especially after he reaches puberty.
This, I believe, is where even men of strong alpha persuasion often fall short for fear of offending wifey. Still, it is essential that you spend more QT than ever with him once he hits puberty and hormones begin raging. If you give him no other advice at this stage of his lofe, make it this: "never EVER listen to your mother, or any other woman who tries to give you advice about girls and women or who tries to lecture you on being a man!"
March 11, 2016 at 7:35 AM
Funny... my mom told me some years back that some older relative took my uncles aside as teenagers and told them pretty much exactly that. She related this derisively. She also gets stunned sometimes at my Red Pill approach to life, since she thinks she "taught me better than that".
My parents and grandparents related more "anti-examples" than anything else. They all provided good reasons why it was so easy to see the Red Pill's truths.
I disagree with all the knee-jerk reactions to video games. They are extremely important for developing fluid intelligence (IMO) and a strong affinity for computers and electronics. These are necessary skills and vidya is by far the best way to build them.
Well have to agree to disagree. The problem with video games is they become addictive and a substitute for physical activity and social interaction. Kids are exposed to computers from the time they are two years old: I've watched little kids of that age handle iPhone functions (iPhone is just a small computer with a telephone feature)with a dexterity I cannot hope to match. Vid games aren't necessary for a strong affinity for computers! I'd rather have a kid exposed to making tough decision in a real life situations such as sports that the amped up, faked situations presented in vid games. Sure, a kid can play the occasional game and if he has any computer from iPhone on up, he will have the chance, but a dedicated platform for gaming will present the opportunity for development of only bad habits.
Sounds like the opposite of what my dad did. I went Omega instead of Gamma, my brother is a low-Delta.
As bad as that is, I have to wonder what it was that saved us from the even-worse fate of eternal Gammadom. I think growing up on a farm was a big part of it; the very nature of our geography forced us to take some responsibility for ourselves, and we had to do lots of physical, masculine activities in between TV and video games. You can't live on a farm and be a complete sissy; the tractor would kill you and the pigs would eat you.
For all the advice about limiting the mother's influence, it probably also helped that our mom made us go to church (dad was an athiest). That gave us at least some social interactions when we might have otherwise had none at all outside of our terrible, meth-infested public schools.
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