What are we doing wrong with our boys?

[OhNoItsMonday]

NC for this. Mum of boys here.

I love my DC to pieces. They're too young for school yet. But I've already noticed that, whenever you hear complaints about badly behaved children in the classroom (or often outside it), it usually although not always seems to be boys who are being complained about. Just wondering why that is? What are we doing wrong with our boys?

In school, I think school tends to be less suitable for active children. It favours children who are more interested in sedentary learning. For a variety of reasons, this tends to be more likely to be girls.

Its not the child who is the problem but the system we try to squash them into at too young an age.

I think it's two things.

We often excuse wild behaviour from male toddlers that we try harder to tame in females.

Boys & girls mature socially and emotionally at a different pace. Obviously the there's a huge overlap but on a population level for example, boys are generally a little later to acquire language for example. I think the school environment perhaps doesn't suit the youngest boys particularly.

I have no idea. But I wish the parents on our street would sort their boys out. Their behaviour is disgusting, they are naughty and seem out of control.

My DS spent most of his primary school years being told outright by female teachers stood at the front of the class saying girls were better than boys. And being told to let the girls go first in queues, which may be well-intentioned to ensure girls gained more self-esteem, but it was at the cost of the boys' self-esteem.
The boys who were valued and celebrated were the boys who behaved like girls.
The situation improved a lot in secondary where boys seemed to be valued a little more, but still the focus was ensuring girls were looked after. Sets were balanced so that top science sets had equal numbers of girls and boys, irrespective of if that meant boys were in set 2 who should have been in set 1. Girls' mental health was prioritised over boys' mental health. More girls had exam access arrangements than boys for reasons of stress and anxiety, despite men and boys being at far greater risk of depression and suicide.
That kind of start of life is letting boys down.

I have a dd and a ds....My dd is sweet, compliant, hard working at school. The teachers sing her praises. My ds wasn't naughty, but he was boisterous and a typical lad type. I worked hard to keep his behaviour in check. In both my dcs classes, the disruptive behaviour is always from the boys. My view is that parents need to work really hard with their boys to stop that happening. In my case that involved making sure he had opportunity for plenty of physical exercise, football, karate, plenty of sleep, decent food, no fizzy drinks. If boys can't express themselves or expend their energy and aggression in constructive ways, then the problems start

Give me a class of boys.
Give me a class of girls.

The height of bias and stereotyping. It mostly means give me a class I can cope and know how to deal with. And most people also mean nice/easy boys or girls whatever that means to them.

Give me a mixed class.. sex,ability,personalities etc.

But if i had to choose,give me a class of children that have full bellies and enough sleep,no ACEs, a safe home,that are loved and cared for. Not because it would be easy for me,but because it would make their school life so much easier when they don't start their day with so much already on their shoulders.

@lazylinguist maybe in that case the school system just isn't set up for the way the majority of boys learn.

It isn't natural for any human child to sit for hours on end, we are supposed to be active.

Also think lack of male primary teachers.

@disconnect

I completely agree with you...I too have seen how teachers massively favour the girls and the small number of very quiet boys in a class. I remember there was a stem workshop at my dcs school...My ds was desperate to do it but there were limited places. The school was obviously trying to encourage girls in stem so virtually all places were taken by girls.

It’s a tricky one but generalisations about the sexes never help and dealing with the children as individuals is surely what helps.
My DD for example has always loved boisterous play and rough and tumble and she does that all the time with her dad,It seems to de-stress her, whereas our DS gets slightly more stressed by it and only likes it up to a point. Both my kids need a lot of exercise and both of them play with typically girly toys. My DD is obsessed with pink and princesses but likes playing with boys.
There’s a great book called Living Dolls that talks about girls and women in our culture and is very eye opening. It talks about how powerful expectations are. For example there was an experiment where they set a maths test with some young people from asian backgrounds who were told beforehand how much better Asian people tended to perform in maths. A separate group of people from a non Asian background were told how rubbish their demographic tended to perform at maths. The Asian background group went on to do much better at the maths test and the other group much worse compared to control groups who were given no expectations beforehand. They did the same thing with gender related expectations.
I think there’s a combination of nature and nurture going on but even with “nature” not all boys are totally one thing and girls totally the other. And with nurture it can be quite shocking the amount of sexism that goes on, like my DD being told scornfully “that’s a boys t-shirt” by a classmate when she wore a Spider-Man T-shirt to school. I don’t know what this kid’s parents like but this kid had firm ideas in what boys do and what girls do and likes to continually police other kids on it and make them feel bad if they stepped outside the lines

@Disconnect

Yep, absolutely agree.

If boys are naturally more boisterous and curious as popular opinion seems to go, it must be down to socialisation from a very early age surely? Showing my lack of biology knowledge here but does testosterone start playing a part yet?

Sorry OP, bit of a derail but actually this is an interesting discussion

[quote Spicegirls]@lazylinguist maybe in that case the school system just isn't set up for the way the majority of boys learn.

It isn't natural for any human child to sit for hours on end, we are supposed to be active.

Also think lack of male primary teachers.[/quote]
I don't know of any primary school(doesn't mean they don't exist )where children have to sit for hours on end.

There's often a just dance or some kind of active session early in the morning(especially in KS1), one hour of learning then play, one hour of learning then lunch. KS1 and some KS2 classes get an afternoon play to break the two lessons in the afternoon. There are two PE lessons a day. Plus other occasions for partner work,role playing,moving around,investigations. Some teachers offer a "brain break" in the middle of a big write. 5 minutes of bouncing around,chatting etc.

But in general, the hours on end are actually just the two hours in the afternoon .

If you had two kids, one boy one girl and raised them in a sterile environment away from all traditional gender messages and societal expectations, how much would their behaviour differ I wonder?

But yes the old "boys will be boys" bollocks does grind my gears. In many (not all) cases it's lazy parenting encouraged by a general opinion boys should act that way.

Excusing it leads to some of those boys being bully's, particularly towards women, in adulthood.

Boys’ bad behaviour and girls’ bad behaviour tend to exhibit slightly differently at school, but I refute the claim it’s always the boys who exhibit bad behaviour, it’s just that their version of bad behaviour, and their way of expressing distress, is more often physical and exhibitionist, so that everyone knows what they did and can report it to their parents when they go home!

Many boys often benefit from more physical activity than the classroom allows. Sitting still, plus activities such as sharing ideas in groups etc don't play to boys' typical strengths.

My DD was badly bullied in primary school, physical violence involved as well as theft, name calling etc. The bullies were all girls, the boys in her class were supportive, in fact for a bunch of 9 year olds they were wonderful. Two or three of the girls didn't join in with the bullying but they didn't do anything supportive.

I hope that might give you a bit more balance.

That's true @Walkaround. If my ds had a falling out with another boy we all knew about it because it was a physical fight normally...next day it was invariably forgotten about between the boys. The boys would be punished at school.

In my dds case I only found out years later that a girl in her class used to tell her that she really hated her and only pretended to be friends. This deeply hurt my dd. My dd only told me once the go had left. So no one knew.

I have a DS aged 18 months and think he will be the one that will bring complaints from school everyday. He is very naughty and has been since he was little. I do my best for him to be disciplined in a way he could understand but I'm limited as he is young and lacks understanding. So I don't want to say it's lack of discipline at home because believe me, I do discipline him and don't allow unacceptable behaviour. I left many restaurants, baby groups or play dates early because of DS's destructive behaviour and couldn't just sit there and watch him wreck things. My DS is mainly surrounded by girls similar to his age that I know through friends and family and believe me the girls are well better behaved. They are content and playful whereas my DS, is very boisterous, curious and very hyperactive. He won't sit still to save his life, always on the go and up to all sorts of mischief. My friends daughters will just sit there and play along or cling on to their mothers whereas my DS would always find ways to cause destruction and escape through safety gates and doors. My DM and dsis hate babysitting him for a couple of hours as he is very destructive and is a danger to himself (that's how bad it is). When DS starts school, I won't accept bad behaviour and he will be punished for it but I do think it's a boys thing and girls who are naturally boisterous aren't as accepted as boys as I know from myself as I was also boisterous from a young age. My brother would set fire in school and he would be ok whereas I was hyperactive too and wouldn't sit still would get into trouble because I was a girl.

*once the girl had left I meant

Hence everyone still thought this girl was a model pupil despite her nastiness. Her cruel words upset my dd more than my ds was hurt by his mate hitting him...not condoning violence by the way!

@Bingbongbinglybong

Yanbu, something isn't going right. In my DD's primary school the boys are just out hand. It is not so much violence, but an inability to self-regulate behaviour and emotion.

They run around during class. They throw books. They open up the PE cupboard and take out the equipment (set aside for the class due to covid) and lob balls around. They run of screaming and yelling out of the classroom door into the playground. They chat to their mates. They poke, scratch and distract the girls and steal the equipment of the calmer girls they are partnered with. They talk back to the teacher. They write rude words on the white board. More than half the boys in class are like this. DD is in a school with 3 classes per year, which get mixed up, so it isn't just an unlucky intake

I think, it is lack of clear discipline at home, lack of clear discipline at school, and the influence of online games and TV programs that are available all the time, showing bad behaviour and violence . And children just being spoiled and there being no expectation that they have to behave and work. Life gives them so much, and is so permissive. It affects girls too, but is less obvious and many girls are still brought up with an expectation that they should "behave nicely".

Children need boundaries and consequences and school and home simply arent providing them.

I don't know what age the children are, but it sounds like behaviour management in your school is non-existent, as that would not happen in any class in the school I work in.

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

If boys are naturally more boisterous and curious as popular opinion seems to go, it must be down to socialisation from a very early age surely? Showing my lack of biology knowledge here but does testosterone start playing a part yet?

Sorry OP, bit of a derail but actually this is an interesting discussion

Steve Biddulph in his book ''Raising Boys'' goes in to this.

Hormones play a huge part in forming who we are, even in the womb.

I wish I'd discovered his book sooner. {Discovered it in a charity shop}

Boys - even those brought up without typical gender stereotypes- tend to act in a 'boyish' way.

Mum forbade any gun or warlike toy ...but my bros made 'weapons' out of sticks and Lego.

My DS played with friend's daughter at age 7 and pestered for a Barbie..I bought him one.
He made her dresses out of bits of ribbon, but an adult friend of mine was forbidden an ''Action Man'' as a boy as his father said

No son of mine will play with dolls!

@rainydayslover - if you were hyperactive, your brother was an arsonist, and nobody likes to help look after your destructive ds, I would suggest you don’t assume your ds’s behaviour is within normal ranges for a boy!

It’s interesting that the thing that has only been mentioned once on this thread and then pretty much disregarded is the influence of a father in boys’ lives. Loads and loads of research has been done on this, and the uncomfortable fact remains that boys who grow up in a house without a father are more likely to have difficulties with their behaviour and their mental health.
It’s such a difficult thing to talk about because of all the amazing single mums working themselves to the bone to raise their children, but the fact is that a missing father can have a huge impact on a boy’s life.

I’m interested in why boys are not taken to dance classes in the same numbers as girls when they have so much supposed energy? Yet clearly boys can be incredible dancers? That is parental or societal decision? Even in a modern society we are still steering them in certain directions.