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1. Buy your son a teddy and encourage him to keep it all his life.
2. Don’t enter him in baby shows or let him go in movies or on TV.
3. Don’t tell him that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny are true.
4. Do all you can to improve his gross and fine motor skills.
5. Play like a child, but be an adult.
6. Don’t let him bully or nag you.
7. Let him play with toy guns.
8. Let him play in mud.
9. Teach him to cook.
10. Have him learn first aid.
11. Teach him to swim.
12. Teach him not to be afraid of falling.
13. Teach him chess.
14. Encourage him to start a collection.
15. Get him a vegetable patch.
16. Enrol him in a dancing class.
17. Give him a Leatherman multipurpose tool or a Swiss Army knife.
18. Let him camp in the backyard.
19. Rent lots of comedy videos.
20. Make sure that he has activities where he can express himself creatively.
21. Don’t be afraid of boredom.
22. Let him drop activities if he’s not interested in them.
23. Make sure that he has a secret place.
24. Don’t ask him to share his precious toys with strange kids.
25. Get him clothes with lots of little pockets.
26. Let him choose his own clothes.
27. Read to him every night.
28. If you want him to read more, think laterally.
29. Don’t laugh at him when he makes mistakes — especially mistakes with language.
30. Don’t stress if he doesn’t like reading
31. Play language games.
32. Ask him open-ended questions instead of yes/no questions.
33. Use sentences of fewer than eight words with children who are not fluent with language.
34. Teach him restaurant etiquette.
35. Have one day a year when he gets to choose everything.
36. Give him a holiday from the rules from time to time.
37. Help him find a sport he’s good at.
38. Give him an occasional surprise present, on a day that isn’t his birthday or Christmas.
39. Give him huge amounts of skin-to-skin contact when he’s young.
40. Have him spend time with babies.
41. Don’t pick up your son and move him physically when you want to go somewhere.
42. Don’t sleep with him regularly after ages eight or nine.
43. Control the environment.
44. Don’t tell him more than once.
45. Don’t use recipes or formulae when you talk to him.
46. Every day you have to say ‘No’ to your son.
47. Feel free to let him know your standards and that you expect him to honour them.
48. Don’t nag.
49. Accept that if he wants to keep his room as a pigsty, it’s his problem.
50. Don’t let the bath and shower thing become too big an issue.
51. Give him a book on the good things about being a man.
52. Don’t ever search his room.
53. Don’t catastrophise.
54. Don’t be forever running after him.
55. Don’t seek to adjudicate every argument he has with other children.
56. When people ask your son his name, let him answer the question.
57. Put him in charge of something important.
58. Pay him for gigs he does for you.
59. Have him do the shopping.
60. Have him do regular work experience with men.
61. Make sure that he has good contacts with your ex-partner’s parents.
62. Have him make telephone calls every week to members of the extended family.
63. Don’t feel obliged to defend his father to him.
64. Don’t keep telling him that he’s the spitting image of … or that he’s just like … or that he’s identical to …
65. Just because you’re in love with your new partner doesn’t mean he has to be.
66. Don’t assume that the children of your friends will be his friends.
67. Don’t overload him with parents.
68. Don’t always be putting pressure on him to include his little brother or sister in his activities.
69. Don’t keep prompting him to say thank you or goodbye or hello in social situations.
70. Make sure he knows you’ll fight for him if it’s justified.
71. Don’t always take his side against his teacher, and don’t always take his teacher’s side against him.
72. Make sure he always accompanies you to parent/teacher interviews.
73. Lobby your school to make it more boy-friendly.
74. Don’t do his homework.
75. Encourage him from the youngest age to treat his body with respect.
76. Don’t let anyone put him on behaviour-altering medication.
77. Teach him from the start that there are always a lot of choices.
78. Don’t kid yourself that greedy, angry, lustful, selfish and lazy feelings can be overcome if he just tries a little bit harder.
79. Don’t hit him, ever.
80. Don’t hide death from him.
81. Don’t expect him to be naked in front of you or other members of the family, and don’t go naked in front of him, if he makes it clear he’s not comfortable with it.
82. Celebrate his puberty.
83. Don’t take it for granted that his teenage years will be difficult.
84. Buy him a basic ‘How-to’ sex book.
85. Tell him what girls like.
86. Don’t take a prurient interest in his sex life.
87. Laugh at his jokes (when they’re funny).
88. Let him finish his own sentences.
89. Have him do a car maintenance course.
90. Buy him a punching bag.
91. Don’t try to be his psychologist, teacher, or probation or police officer.
92. Give him a suitcase or backpack.
93. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
94. Don’t assume that people will judge you by his conduct.
95. Think long and hard, and tread very carefully, before you criticise his friends or his girlfriend.
96. When a girl – or another boy – breaks his heart, just be around.
97. Don’t stress about boys wrestling and fighting.
98. Enjoy his company.
99. Don’t worry that he has to take on extra responsibilities because he’s in a one-parent family.
100. Don’t say ‘All I want is for you to be happy’.
101. Enjoy your parenthood and celebrate your achievement.
Also by John Marsden
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