Boys need strong relationships with their parents. Period. Every boy, without exception, wants a better relationship with his mother and his father because his physical and emotional survival depends on you.

Boys spend far too little time with parents and they suffer because of it. And we all know it. In one survey, 21 percent of kids said that they needed more time with their parents. But when the parents of these kids were polled, only 8 percent responded that they needed more time with their children. We become so absorbed with keeping up with our daily lives that we miss seeing what our boys really need, which is simply more of us: our time and our attention.

In our earnestness to make up for lost time, to help our boys, we give them all the wrong things. But our boys ­don’t need things, they need us, even just being around us, watching how we handle life, how we talk, listen, help others, and make our decisions. Every son is his father’s apprentice, studying not his dad’s profession but his way of living, thinking, and behaving.

Boys need to see fathers who behave as good men so that they can mimic…