Marsha’s Reviews > Masterminds and Wingmen: Helping Our Boys Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World > Status Update

The complaining started as soon as my sons opened the door. "Mom, there's this kid in our group who's so annoying! He's so bad at everything! He thinks he's one of the smartest people in the world. Right before you got here, we were on the basketball court and he missed a basket, so I gave him the ball and he freaked out that I touched the ball. I'm not going near that kid again."

Good teasing is one of the cornerstones of great friendships. Friends who care about each other, know each other well, and are comfortable together can tease and joke around with each other--"with" (not "at") being the operative word. With good teasing, there's no intention to put the other person down, and everyone knows what's off-limits to tease about.

I know that if you want to see those pictures, you're going to figure out how to do it. Here's why I don't want you to watch porn. It brings you into a really complicated world where you're being exposed to really messed-up images and messages about how men and women interact sexually. It's also all fake. Porn is to sex like the WWE is to fighting. It's a performance where women are supposed to look a certain way.

We're now in really tricky territory--especially if your child is socially intelligent, highly verbal, and persistent and has a good memory. Obviously, having these attributes is helpful for anyone's future success, but when you're dealing with a boy who has them, it's understandable if sometimes you wish he weren't so smart and determined.