"Boys are a handful"

I think it's really hard to unpick the nature/nurture split.

When I was pregnant with my son (and knew I was having a boy), I got comments from the midwife about "he's very active, you can tell he's a boy" and so on before he'd even been born.

As a silly, anecdotal example: I got a baby gym for my baby to lie on the floor and kick/hit at. So he had a toy that strongly encouraged development of gross motor skills. And it was his favourite thing for weeks. None of the parents of girls that I know did this. But when I'm taking him to baby groups, I sometimes see little girls dressed up in cutesy outfits with bows and ribbons and heavy material that restricts their movements and needs to be constantly adjusted to stay neat.

The kind of socialisation that shapes boys into physical, assertive personalities and girls into quiet, compliant ones starts early.

Gotna friend withb3 boys who always says how she would love what l have got (1 dd) as my life seems so calm - but kayseri that is more just having the 1 vs 3 kids. Hers are always very full on though.

The OTs at work mostly work with boys in mainstream. There clearly can be differences in fine motor skills. This is very linked to visual motor skills. Again, not on an individual level but generally.

That obviously has impact on how successful boys feel at school in the early stages. For some I think it's just too soon but we don't take account of that.

I’ve worked with many boys and girls and would say they’re equally challenging but in clearly different ways. They all love pink and sparkle, they all have strong feelings and hormone surges, etc. But they have very obvious differences.

Look for example at fine motor skills where reception age boys are usually at least a year behind the level of reception age girls, while the girls at that age are way behind the boys on running and jumping. That isn’t just socialisation, I’ve seen it in my children and their friends too. It’s evolution: our male ancestors did the majority of the fighting and hunting, and our female ancestors did the majority of foraging, grain-sorting, childcare and other fine motor skills.

That said, when parents say boys are challenging they usually mean they haven’t bothered to teach them good behaviour.

Equal but different.

Biology is amazing.

I think (but am incapable of remembering where I've read stuff) that girl's brains mature slightly quicker in infancy. I often feel social interaction and speech appears to be more advanced in v young girls than boys. Again, not always.

I do however think there are inherent differences.

I teach SEND MLD and we have far more males than females. From my experience I think you're more likely to have learning difficulty if you have autism as a boy. Many have varying difficulties with add and adhd too.

Apparently male babies process things differently visually. Females are supposed to have more sensitive colour receptors.

But agree it's a bell curve. Obviously a colour blind female won't have that ability.

Two boys; first emotionally uncomplicated and exceptionally bouncy / fast / hard to entertain. I was constantly charging after him as a toddler. But a joy to hang out with now he's discovered football and is a bit older. Perfect Peter at school.

Second emotionally complicated (fell in to a mini depression over a used and empty button packet, not for the chocolate but because it was ripped, this morning) and always happily entertained himself, would walk next to me as a toddler holding my hand, I never had to worry where the hell he'd got to. He can sit and make art stuff by himself for ages, from age 3. Eldest likes art but could only do this when he got to age 8. Eldest also insisted on bathing in paint till he was about 7.

Totally different children. Both male. I worry a little that the youngest could be prone to depression when he's older.

there are differences in the probability of different developmental conditions in babies of different sexes - so I’d be surprised if there were no differences. However I think it’s probably greatly out-weighed by socialisation.

I was expecting dd to be talking early and taking longer to be mobile (as I thought girls were supposed to be quicker with communication) - but she’s actually the other way round - much faster at crawling and walking than sons and a bit behind on verbal. It is early days - but she is probably more similar to my younger son than he is to their brother. Small numbers though - so suppose we can’t draw many conclusions

I don’t think in general they’re the same at all. I think there are exceptions on both sides but overall the stereotypes are mostly true. And I am one of the exceptions. I get boys. I get men. I don’t really get girls or a lot of women. It wasnt conditioning either as I was raised with the expectation of being feminine and nice and all the stuff that goes with it but I’m just not.

Anecdotally it’s always the mothers of boys that come out with these cliches about boys being one way and girls another. Have been taken aback by otherwise intelligent feminist women saying this stuff. But I only have girls so …

I honestly do believe there is a particular dynamic to two siblings of the same sex that isn’t there with siblings of different sexes.

I have both and do find them very different. Not really in the way most people do, but I find boys more vulnerable “younger” and less resilient at primary and a switch at secondary with the girls being much more effected by friendship issues etc. my boys are not particularly “lads” and by girls not very girly, so perhaps we’re not a good example.

My 2 are different. (1 of each)

I don't know if DS would be more reserved if he was born 1st. But from early doors he was very boisterous and energetic. He loves the rough and tumble.

But he can also be incredibly sensitive and loving.

Dd has never been stereotypical girl in her play (DS has played with the dolls more) but she was always more girly in her dress (her choice).

I don't think I have really done anything different although I guess outside factors play a part and DS has got the confidence of a 2nd child.

Boys and girls can have the exact same difficulties but will react differently. For example boys with autism are much more obvious because they behave badly, while girls with the exact same autism are more likely to mask it and behave in a socially acceptable manner.

There are plenty of sensitive boys and boisterous girls. I think the most important thing is to let them be themselves and never to describe certain characteristics as girly or boyish. I have one of each and my daughter has always copied her brother in interests as well as having her own, so she loved ninjas and Star Wars etc. when he did. - and she has always hated the idea of playing with dolls!

That's one or two whole solid years of socialisation! I don't mean how the child is socially - it's how adults react to them. As mentioned upthread, there was an interesting programme which demonstrated how people (not all people, I'm sure, but certainly a great deal) instantly treat the kids differently if they are male or female. The things they say to them, the things they encourage, what they react to - this is happening in almost every social interaction, and also what they observe- how other boys and girls are treated.

I have two nephews and neither are rough-and-tumble, one is incredibly cautious (in fact, if there is any pattern of difference in this, I'd suggest that first-borns are generally more cautious and later born children more 'wild'. but that's not proven afaik!). Does this make them less male? Of course not. So what do you do with the knowledge that slightly more boys are slightly more physical?

Personally I believe that if we look at us as a species, across different cultures, there will be differences between male and female children, but the overlap will be considerable. I think this because of 3 things
. Firstly the interaction between groups of all girls is very different to that of all boys from being very young. If you were to watch preschool children interact, without being able to tell if they were boys or girls, you would notice the difference.
Secondly in boy/girl twins the girl child invariably is "ahead" of her brother, up until a certain a free when they level up.
Thirdly, the way SEN presents itself. The reasons behind why girls are less likely to be diagnosed than boys.
This in no way means that either girls or boys are better, more intelligent, kinder more empathetic than each other, just that on a whole they do present slightly differently as a group, rather than as individuals.

Individual variation isn't really all that relevant though. Especially within a single family - siblings often have quite a lot in common temperamentally.

If we are talking about population differences you need to look at larger numbers.

I have boy/girl twins aged 3.5. We have both 'boy' and 'girl' toys but they honestly do both play with both and we have really tried not to encourage/discourage things except based on their preferences at any given moment. My daughter doesn't inherently prefer the 'girls toys', and actually plays in a very varied and imaginative way with almost everything. My son is very keen on vehicles and balls, but will play with everything as well. Personality wise they are very different as well, in some ways like their sex stereotypes and in some ways not. My instinct is that there are certainly differences between children that are innate rather than purely down to socialisation. In some cases their sex may be an influencing factor, but I don't think it's necessarily an overriding factor. All in all it's just a nature/nurture/genetics/socialisation melting pot, I reckon. It would be nigh on impossible to untangle it fully, but I wouldn't dismiss the influence of sex entirely.

I think I bucked a lot of the trends with my 3 boys. I wasn’t consciously doing any kind of gender neutral thing, I just didn’t buy into the whole “tough tough boy” thing. There was no play fighting/ wrestling, no aggressive toys. Mainly because I just don’t like that, and they weren’t that bothered. We did lots of small world and imaginative play. I encouraged communication and empathy. Crying was definitely not seen as negative!

They were fairly calm and thoughtful boys. Was it because I didn’t encourage the gender stereotype? I don’t know but possibly….

my sister and I were like your daughters!

We’ve both ended up in very similar places as adults (education, finances & family size-wise) but I took a much longer, more dramatic route 🤣

Birth order supposedly also has enough influence to show average patterns - is your wilder daughter the younger one?

I have often observed the most well-behaved children becoming the most-difficult-of-teens, but I have never looked to see if that’s a phenomenon observed in any scientific studies - it does make me wary of how easy my third child has been so far tho!

I think there's so much socialisation that we don't even realise, we and the kids are bathed in it from birth.

We moved around a lot when younger, so my kids were very, very heavily influenced by me rather than by carers, friends, family members, TV shows etc. and TBH it shows a bit - whilst they're both as different from each other as chalk and cheese, they are also both calmer and generally less boisterous than most of the boys in their class (obviously there's a couple of similar boys, and some boisterous girls too). They enjoy quiet time, as much as they love running around the house, cooking as much as computer games etc.

We shape what normal is for our children, along with everything else around them, and they respond to it.

I have two daughters they are completely different.

1 laid back & to be honesty quite easy - the odd teenage tantrum.

The other one a ball of wow - she is strong willed, has no fear and will challenge you. She is only just 13 so definitely in for a bumpy road.

My sister has one of each and if you asked her 6 months ago she would say boys easier - her daughter was tough now she is 18 and everything seems easier. Her son was lovely…..then he went to high school (14) and he is a nightmare, she is going through a tough time. She now says it’s just parenting in general is really tough!!

But those statements aren't necessariily implying that they are fixed, biological, inherent differences, nor that they are going to be true for all boys or all girls.

It might be true that many boys are a handful, because of socialisation to be boisterous, rebellious, confident etc, and some of those expectations also mean behaviour that is challenging in particular ways.

And girls have a hugely complex and changing role in society, and are socialised in a way that can mean interesting friendship dynamics, conflicts between different expectations, etc., and thus managing their emotional and social behaviours could indeed be often more complicated than it might be for boys.

It doesn't mean it applies to all boys or girls, and it doesn't mean that it's an inherent difference between them, but sometimes things like that are a perfectly valid observation of what it tendds to be like in the current society for raising boys are girls.

So I think it's important to be careful not to read too much into what is being said, and to not assume that they are saying that boys and girls are fundamentally wired different in an unchanging biologically-determined way (in terms of behaviour and personality, obviously, not physically!). But in many ways, their experiences and socialisation does produce different challenges, and it's fair enough to acknowledge some common experiences like that (whilst at the same time, being careful to not perpetuate the idea that it's inbuilt, or that all girls/boys will be like that to the extent that people end up seeing what they expect to see).