He'll Be Ok

Do you think you'll ever have a life plan?
No.
So how will your life sort itself out?
Oh, that's easy. I'll be about 25 and some gorgeous-looking chick will walk past. She'll have a great plan, so I'll just hook onto her.

'Celia doesn't tell men how to raise their boys . instead she provides tools for parents who want their sons to become good men. She is a significant asset to this country and a personal inspiration.'
- Norm Hewitt

Adolescent boys - they seem to disappear into another world where they barely communicate, and where fast cars, alcohol and drugs are constant temptations. Will they survive to become good men? How can parents and schools understand them and help them through this difficult and dangerous time?

Celia Lashlie has some of the answers. After years working in the prison service she knows what can happen when boys make the wrong choices. She also knows what it's like to be a parent - she raised a son on her own and feared for his survival. During the recent Good Man Project she talked to 180 classes of boys throughout New Zealand, and what she found was surprising, amusing and, in some cases, frightening.

In this funny, honest, no-nonsense book Celia Lashlie reveals what goes on inside the world of boys, and that it is an entirely different world from that of girls. With clarity and insight she offers parents - especially mothers - practical and reassuring advice on raising their boys to become good, loving, articulate men.

Researcher and social commentator Celia Lashlie is the author of the bestselling The Journey to Prison: who goes and why. The first woman prison officer in a male prison, she became manager of Christchurch Women's Prison in 1997 and has since worked in a number of areas linked to at-risk children. Celia, who has a degree in anthropology and Maori, is the mother of two adult children. She lives in Wellington.