Gov's plan to combat VAWG to focus on boys

We need to be careful with this, and it's good that others can see that it can end up alienating this boys are weren't that way inclined.

Every time I see this measures about lessons etc being brought in, I always think "well you're not targeting the main culprits" because more often than not those boys have already been suspended (or bunking off) and so won't be around to attend.

Everyone's favourite villain/scapegoat Andrew Tate has been able to tap into this resentment and make a career out of it. And then stuff like trans (particularly transmaxxing) has been boosted by this resentment too, with a lot of boys trying to opt out of masculinity and gain protected status.

@5128gap - I think there are a lot of false and exaggerated narratives on social media rather than necessarily reality.

Personally I felt that Adolescence completely missed the mark on why boys are behaving the ways they are. There are either roots in trauma or differences in psychology/brain operation/ways of thinking and being that are still often further impacted by trauma at the root of these issues.

It is largely down to lack of positive connection and connection happens at a much deeper emotional level than many parents ever experienced themselves so they don’t even realise their children are missing out.

In attachment theory they speak about different forms of early attachment. I would say very strong healthy attachment is actually pretty rare and modern parenting which has practices that run counter to healthy attachment are part of the problem. Not that there has probably ever been a time in history that there were not significant issues with DV.

Boys feel and particularly react to this lack of attachment and connection in different ways to girls. They largely externalise their feelings and they manifest as behaviours whereas girls often internalise it.

There is no way getting lectured in school and made to feel shameful for being a boy is going to repair these early disconnections.

Agreed @5128gap- and men’s rights groups have already shown they will leverage ‘this is what some men do and it’s wrong’ Into ‘this is what WAG think all men do and they’re wrong’. It’s a sort of reverse whataboutery, to avoid having to confront the fact that although NAMALT, an awful lot of men are at the soft edge of the spectrum.

It will be the HOW of the teaching of boys that is important. I do think this is a good idea but the fact that boys feel blamed by what they are being told means the teaching is wrong. What we really need is specialist trainers to go into schools to work with young people. A teacher standing up and treating all boys the same won't cut it.

I work with training deliverers and facilitators and the most effective work is done where it is a conversation and where the learners have time to come to the conclusions for themselves. I don't really see how schools have the time to do this without outside support. Teachers are amazing at what they do, asking them do take this on as well is a huge additional load if it is to be done properly.

Is there actually any evidence that boys 'feel they are blamed for everything and that this alienates them further'? Because I see this said, but I'm not sure in what it's actually based.
As far as I can see, there has been no societal swing whereby male people are now encouraged to see themselves as lesser or worse than female people.
There has been no sudden surge of the prioritisation of the 'good' female people over the 'bad' male people.
Women and girls continue to be held to higher standards of behaviour and subject to greater disapproval when they step out of line in all areas of society.
All I see is a long overdue recognition that the behaviour of some male people is causing great harm to female people and other male people. Which is typically delivered with great care for the feelings of the 'good' male people on pain of instant NAMALT should we forget the 'some'.
Men's rights groups and misogynists are working hard to tell us that when we are alienating men and boys, because they don't want us to talk about harmful patterns of behaviour shown by male people.
But I've yet to see evidence that decent men and boys are unable to differentiate between conversations about behaviour they don't show and tar themselves with the same brush as those that do, thus living down to expectations.
Obviously we don't want to alienate boys. But I'm not sure how we can have an honest and useful conversation about VAWG without being explicit that this is something that some male people do to female people, with the focus on ensuring they don't become one of those male people.

Whatever they do they need to find some young role models to combat twats like Andrew Tate. Danny Dyer did a good documentary on channel four looking at attitudes of mainly younger men and boys, and we've had Idris Elba having a go at knife crime. But let's face it they're too old for younger men and older lads to identify with.

That’s awful, @GoodBrew your poor daughter.

Couldn't agree more. My daughter was used as the role model, forced to sit next to disruptive bullies in the hope that her good behaviour would rub off on them. A couple of years later and she can barely attend school due to anxiety from constant mean comments, boys invading her personal space, pushing, shoving and throwing things at her. I honestly think if they had found a quiet space for her away from the disruptive kids then she wouldn't have reached autistic burnout.

This has taught her that girls exist to serve the needs of boys. She is learning to minimise her own needs to keep them happy, a dangerous lesson!

Perhaps the adults could also take a look at their own policies and practices which de-prioritise female safety, comfort, dignity and privacy in favour of male feelings and desires.

boys feel like they are being blamed for everything and alienate them further.

Completely agree with this. Our MAT had started on its own a similar programme.

We have stopped because the content is doing exactly the opposite. Most notably, the boys who were not part of the problem came out feeling less engaged and less likely to want to stand up for women. Making boys feel at fault creates more problems than it solves.

But again, schools can not fix everything.

Apologies 😂

Maybe school leaders could be encouraged to look at themselves first. The practice of using well behaved girls to moderate the behaviour of disruptive boys is still being used in our school and obviously vast numbers of schools are prioritising some boys who want to use girls spaces.

I think also it will be hard, in the extremely limited time they have, for schools to pitch this in such a way that doesn’t make the boys feel like they are being blamed for everything and alienate them further. They are a product of society - including parenting and social media. As @arabella says, it starts earlier than school.

From everything dcs have said about their school’s assemblies on this sort of thing, it’s cringeworthy and unproductive so I hope they take a different approach.

Just to clarify Adolescence was a drama rather than a documentary.

Good. Haven’t we been saying for years that that’s where the issues start?