To wonder what the hell happens to boys at birthday parties

[pouffepants]

I've had this before. Boys that behave perfectly reasonably at all other times seem to morph into crazy creatures as soon as they enter a party.

Dd2's 6th party this afternoon. Invited a mix of boys and girls, but several of the boys couldn't come so only had 3. The boy who lives a few houses down, plays round regularly, so I know he usually behaves fine. A very small quiet mouse of a boy, renowned for being a complete sweetie. And a boy I didn't know well, but had heard was lively.

Now I expect a bit of daft and rowdy behaviour since they're excited, but honestly it was ridiculous. Literally, the second they charged through the door it turned into the scene of a crazy OTT kids film. Just hurling everything they could get their hands on at each other, jumping off stuff etc.

The girls were fine, a couple excitable, but behaved fine and joined in. But the boys? They said they wanted to play pass the parcel. So they all sat in a circle nicely, but as soon as it got to one of the boys, it just got hurled across the room. Anything involving music, just turned into fighting, not just play fighting, properly kicking each other in the head.

They went in dd's room, and they literally just pulled everything out and started smashing it against the walls, and each other. Had to bring everyone downstairs again because they were trying to smash the computer. This is a boy who plays on it perfectly nicely, when he comes round to play.

So I got the food out, and they made no attempt to eat at all, just smearing it all over each other, throwing it, pouring drinks around. I really don't like telling other people's kids off, especially at a party, but I had no choice. Spent the whole afternoon having to separate, and 'have a word', whereas my 16yo ds could manage all 8 girls no problem while I was talking to boys who seemed in a zombified crazed state.

The boy I know best, on an average day I might say 'no, we don't do that' and he'll stop, no probs. Today spent the whole of musical chairs having to hold onto him on the sofa, because if I let go, he charged into the middle of the room and knocked all the chairs over and tried to throw them. This was all before any food, so I can't blame junk.

This sort of divide has been obvious at every party I've ever done, so why do boys get SOOO hyper, while the girls just get a bit excited?

Sounds like a hell of a party

You are all very strange! I am the mother of 3 boys, love boys and have been a Beaver leader - I know boys! They wrestle for fun, they wrestle if bored. Girls don't - especially not at parties. I know a fair few boys who would behave like that if allowed to. Perfectly nice boys decided to throw food at one of my DS's parties and you do have to lay the law down. I can quite see that it happened and she was too nice with them.

OP I totally agree. i had a party for my 7year old ds a few months ago and the boys all behaved in this mad crazy way, even the ones who are normally good as gold. We had plenty of supervision, so some of you posters can unpurse your lips and unfold your arms. The OP is not being sexist, this is just her observation and i have had the same experience. I was shocked at the behaviour and it has put me off having a party for ds again for a very long time.

Sounds like a load of guff to me. I want to say it sounds like bllocks but frankly bllocks has nothing to do with it. My two beautiful, boisterous, slightly barmy and very physical boys can go a bit bananas at times, but behave like cocaine-crazed out of control rock stars? Completely lose any sense of social boundaries that I have spent years drumming into them? Throw stuff around and try to smash computers? Spoil party games by trashing the props? No. And shock they play really nicely with GIRLS. I know, can you believe it??!

Been to a few 4 yo parties and the girls are the same as the boys, some are excited some shy some quiet some loud of either sex.

I was banned from having parties aged 7 (in the '70's) because we had a massive food fight- all girls iirc.

I really must read Cordelia Fines book about gender.

exotic, I don't deny for one minute that a lot of boys are more physical than a lot of girls (exceptions on both sides of course). What I don't recognise for one minute is the utter pointless vandalism and mindless destruction mentioned in the OP. "Hurling" the pass the parcel across the room - never seen it, the boys are too busy trying to open it to see if they've won! A bit of messing about with food yes, smearing it all over the place - no.

And as for ripping everything out, smashing it against the wall and smashing the computer - that is utterly mindless. Have never seen any of my friends' boys or mine do that, none of them.

irish, I feel sad that your DS will miss out.

I ran birthday parties for 6-12 year olds for about 6 years - one every week.
I saw parties that were all girls, and parties that were all boys, and parties that were mixed.
There are differences between the genders, without doubt.

The trends I observed were that boys do indeed tend to fight and wrestle more if given an opportunity. It doesn't mean they won't do anything else though, and most do calm down really fast if dealt with quickly.
If there's a disagreement, boys tend to punch each other and then forget,
Girls tend to be much more snipey in their dealings with each other - you were far more likely to find a child sobbing quietly in a corner because 'they won't let me be on their team' at a girl's party. They also tended to nit-pick over the rules of games more, and complain more about fairness.

That said, I never expected any individual boy or girl to behave that way - these were just general trends I noticed after running 46 parties a year for 6 years!
I liked a mixture of the two - generally much the easiest!

Stereotyping? I don't think so. I think if you took a sample of 3,000 boys and 3,000 girls you would see trends developing in each group - a tendency to like dolls vs cars, for example.
It does not follow that no-one in the girls group will like cars, or whatever - it just means there's a slight swing in that direction for the group as a whole.
Babies of different genders have slightly different balances of hormones floating round their systems before they are even born, and we know hormones affect behaviour - I don't see why it's an issue to acknowledge that, as for me that is part of recognising their individual personality - acknowledging that gender is part of it. I guess the problem arises when you start to think that gender dictates the rest of their personality, rather than as being a component of it.

baby, as said above I'm not denying a difference between the genders - it's the ridiculous stereotyping of boys (even the "good" ones) as mindless hooligans that makes me so angry.

I see boys and girls play together every day within my social circle and also did so as a teacher - yes, there are definite differences, but the Girls Good, Boys Bad crap is tedious, offensive and just plain crap.

That is my experience, babybythesea, and you just make sure that they don't get the opportunity!

Oh, and I did once see the level of destruction the OP talked about, including throwing icing off the luridly coloured cake around the room we were in, covering each other, and the room, in it.
It was a mixed party though.
I was renowned for being strict but I just couldn't not get that party under control - my basic problem was that there was one of me, and apparently the three other adults (all party parents/grandparents) figured that since they were paying me, I could deal with it. And there were 26 children, and as fast as I told one off, others behind me caused more chaos. I just couldn't get round the little buggers fast enough. Only once, though, did I ever have that level of trouble.
Most times, if trouble broke out, I came down fairly heavily on the ring leaders and it got sorted fast.

HOLD ON!

I did not demonise boys. I said I have boys over to play, who play perfectly well. I take groups of boys out for the day, they behave fine.

I have a teenage ds, who frankly has been easier than either of my girls to parent, and has fantastic male friends. I often have a house full of 15/16 yo lads. A couple of them came and helped at the party.

I asked what the hell it is about PARTIES that sends then over the edge, not the boys themselves.

And I'm not surprised some don't believe my account, I'd never seen anything that bad. If my own children had done that, I would have gone mental, but you can't really do that so I was having to sit on the sofa most of the time with one on each side until they'd calmed down and assured me they could behave. Which lasted about 1.5 seconds each time. They started headbutting each other at one point!

Pirates - absolutely. That wasn't directed at anyone particularly, just an observation. I think we probably agree - as I said in my last sentence in that post, acknowledging the differences between genders is not the same thing as then trying to fit all children into one box or the other.
For what it's worth, I'd far rather deal with the boys thumping each other when they argued - you could see it, it was obvious, and there was little or none of the 'he said/she said' to go with it. The girls stuff was always harder to manage because it tended to slip under the radar right up until one child started sobbing!

I am not saying that boys are bad! I wouldn't have given up my spare time to be a Beaver leader if I thought that! There are differences however. I could find you 15 girls for a party and 15 boys and you could run it the same and it would be a totally different experience. You can't have much experience if you think they would be the same. Personally I prefer the boys but you will have to keep them busy and involved at all times!

yep, last party we had for DS1 and the boys on the whole behaved like this. Some more than others. They are lovely boys and very well behaved generally, but once their parents were gone they were hideous.

Suffice to say this year it's 3 close friends at the cinema.

Oh and my own son flipped out completely at his own party once, I had never seen him quite so crazed.

Oh, and I used to volunteer at a cub group. Never had any problem with crowd control there.

But the 3 parties I have done involving boys have been awful. This one the worst.

DS's 8th birthday was a bit like this. No computers smashed or anything but just a bunch of normally individually nice boys acting like loons. I was videoing when a bunch if them jumped onto the table during the birthday song, and them tried to grab stuff off the icing as I was cutting. Their parents were when they saw it.

A friend of mine hosted a sleep over for a similar age group and was traumatised by it.

The difference with the cub party is that they would have a proper adult/ child ratio. If you have a party at home you need it properly planned, lots of helpers and never a spare moment- e.g make sure you have an activity as soon as the first ones have finished eating - don't expect them to wait nicely for the slow ones. You can take it a bit more easily with girls they will sit and chat in a way that boys never will and they won't wrestle on the floor.

We had this issue with the boys at DD's last party, and a couple of other parties. It confused and surprised me as I never had this issue with DS's parties, so there must be something different but I am blowed if I can work out what.

You won't have it all the time- it depends on the mix. We had one particular DS who set them off.

YABU and sexist.

I have three daughters and one son. At home my daughters gave me much more trouble with arguing etc. than my son. He was very placid and laid back. A joy to have in the house.

However, I was a Youth Worker for several years and run clubs for boys and girls from aged 8 up to age 17. (Different clubs of course). Boys were definitely wilder than girls at the clubs. Don't get me wrong, girls weren't angels either, but the boys could get outrageously out of control at times.

I do think children can act totally different with strangers than they do in front of their parents.

Just my experience!

This happened with the girls in DS' 7th birthday party. Seriously. Not smashing stuff up- I would have intervened before that point- But four little girls in a destructive mood, in party dresses, yielding chairs.
This does not mean that girls go mad in parties. This means that some groups of friends go mad in parties, and their sex is irrelevant.