Not sure how I feel about this.

On the one hand, I do think our younger brothers and sisters are a bit too coddled, but the whole gender stereotype thing, I have a problem with.

Adults, not boys, have changed

'Apparently, we're raising a bunch of wimps.

Major American corporations have recently begun hiring consultants to tutor company managers in the art of complimenting employees with public displays of appreciation.

Why? As children, it seems, these young employees were over-praised and coddled, and now they're having trouble adapting to the real (vicious and unforgiving) world.

Some maintain that boys are especially susceptible to this pampering. We're tenderizing boys. Emasculating them. Creating pushovers and crybabies.

Or so the theory goes.

And this notion, no doubt, can partially explain the mini-phenomena surrounding a controversial new book called "The Dangerous Book for Boys."

The book, written by British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden, is a manual of everything a boy, supposedly, needs to know.

It celebrates the wonders of pirate flags, Swiss Army knives, tying knots. It tutors young men on how to make a bow and arrow and a go-cart, use a compass, learn to play Texas Hold 'Em and other lost boyhood delights. It's perfect "for every boy from eight to eighty."

What makes "The Dangerous Book for Boys" somewhat contentious, though, is its implicit assertion that boys and girls are very different. That boys and girls are interested in different things and, gulp, excel at different things as well.

And according to Jim Hamilton, a program coordinator with Colorado 4-H, it's the adults who need help, not the boys.

Hamilton contends that in his 20 years of involvement with Colorado youth development, boys haven't changed very much at all. What's changed, he claims, is the reaction adults have to the activities boys tend to engage in.

"What boys do isn't necessarily what I'd call dangerous, anyway," explains the father of four. "But they have a need to push their own limitation. And it hurts them when we won't allow that to happen. Sometimes it forces them to learn and deal with those limitations on a bigger stage - where it's much more difficult. Then people overreact. Boys are often on the edge. And that's basically what adults react to in a poor way."'