Why are over 80% of school suspensions boys?

[ZenAgainWoo]

Watched a tv show not long ago looking at children who have been suspended from school, and I think it stated that near 85% of school suspensions are boys. Why is this? Am I missing something glaringly obvious?

The most violent child I have encountered does have autism and is a boy. The violence was not about 'getting his own way' it was about intense distress at any perceived failure. This spiralled to explosion very rapidly because he had a very rational view that losing control to the point of shoving someone was a failure. Regulating himself was a huge issue.

I see children around all the time who are just not being taught how to regulate their feelings and control their behaviour. Constant negative parenting, being 'loudly parented' by public telling off and shaming (much more of a problem than the 'yes Horatio it's a cabbage white do you want to take a picture for your holiday diary' type of loud parenting) and totally ignored if they happen to be behaving well. If you've had to learn to look as if you don't care when your mum tells you in public you're a waste of space, why would you show you care what a teacher says? And yes, that sort of useless but painful negative parenting does seem to be done more to boys.

I always see on these boards people claiming men and women are wired the same, and often that they're just raised differently etc

really? You've seen many frequently mumsnetters say men and women are the same?

i call bullshit on that one.

Not all of them. My boy doesn't behave like that. I'd look at your parenting tbh.

I definitely believe some boys are boisterous.

I loved having DD's little pals over when she was young, I hate seeing DS little group of pals coming.

It definitely starts at home my DS is good outside because he is terrified of breaking the rules, some of his friends are very good.

The good DC have parents who correct them, who won't tolerate bad behaviour and see instilling manners as important.

Then there is the wilder DC are from homes with no discipline or routine, they destroy everything constantly screaming and shouting, spitting, hitting cars, while their parents either ignore or scream like a banshee.

Their behaviour pains me and they're going to be destructive arseholes for life.

Sterotypes have a lot to answer for. In toy shops little boys are so often dragged away from the soft toy, role play, doll sections and marched over to the dinosaurs, superheros etc. It's sad to see part of thier emerging personalities stamped out at such a young age. They are also taught that anything stereotypically female is a bad thing, beneath them even.

Thanks to stereotypes we see so many mothers on here disappointed at having a boy. What chance do these young boys have if their mums are disappointed in them even before they are born? Same goes for dads who just want to mould boys in thier own image.

I've realised today that until secondary school, my son is unlikely to have a male teacher. I'm not saying female teachers are doing a bad job, more that men need to step up and become teachers so that more boys have a positive male role model.

We also start school far too early. It's been scientifically proven that summer born boys have the poorest outcomes, yet we do nothing to help.

No one but you has brought that up so far. Not everything is about your pet subject.

This is about the tidal wave of violent behaviour by boys in school that is being experienced by students and teacher first hand and ruining their school experience.

The school system is more suited to girls.

ADHD presents differently in boys.

Boys are physical. Girls verbal.

Absolutely this!

It is well documented that schools are not well set up for boys.

Boys develop mentally at a slower rate than girls and find sitting down and writing for long periods much more difficult than girls.

There’s a big difference going into a year 3 class and a year 6 class, even though there’s only a couple years between them.
Going in to a year 8 class you think they’re all the same but boys are a couple years behind mentally.

So they either mess around in class or that frustration builds up and it ends up exploding at break times when they have more freedom.

If you’ve ever seen boys and girls at break and lunch in a secondary school you’ll notice the boys often have loads of energy and they’re all over each other constantly touching each other, whilst girls are much more calm.

Girls can also mask their emotions much better (which is why SEND is so difficult to diagnose) so they store it up and it’s much more mental and then it comes out as them feeling insecure about themselves or being bitchy and falling out with other people and taking it out on them mentally.

Boys are much more physical and they find it hard to mask their emotions and when they do come out it’s much more physical.

But boys don't have to be allowed to behave like this. I teach in a school in a very mixed urban area and we don't have very little of this type of behaviour, from boys or girls.

There’s a study about this. How gender expectations encourage girls to stay close to home. During puberty the ‘roaming area’ (for want if a better phrase) of boys expands but for girls it contracts- they stay closer to home and security.

There is something majorly fucked up with modern gender expectation. Absolutely fuck them. The slut shaming, hyper femininity is so harmful. We’ve got more teenage girls than ever self harming. They see the unrealistic kardashian expectations of how to be a woman and just know that it is impossible for them.

Boys suffer the same way with unrealistic masculinity standards.

Gender is a prison for our souls and it is harming our children. At the moment it seems to only being expressed by hyper sexualisation and massively polarised, plastic beauty standards.

No wonder kids are depressed and anxious.

Definitely part of the problem. We don't have any male teachers. As a woman, particularly at 5 foot nothing and 8 stone, sometimes it’s really hard to be convincing. The other difficulty is the physical element - some of the year 6s are massive compared to me. I've had really difficult children in my class this year. The most difficult are boys and it's because they're physical - it’s the outward display of aggression. Boys are stil encouraged to suppress their emotions rather than talk about them. Our most difficult girl has MH issues already but because she's not aggressive her needs aren't met.

I'm relying purely on my personality and the respect they have for me to get the results I need. At the beginning of the year, I was kicked and spat on. It stopped now but I'm sure if I was a 6 foot man it wouldn't happen at all.

my ds is now 19. He has always beena very 'macho' type boy and certainly loads of testosterone. Since he was tiny he needed lots of physical exercise in a way that neither of my dds did, and he expressed everything physically - punching kicking etc.

I am a trained teacher, and I am with his dad who is great, so we had skills and male role models etc etc, and together it took HUGE amounts of parenting to teach the vioence out and teach other responses in.
To teach that you are not allowed at any point to hit/punch/kick, to give alternative expressions of anger. To teach selfcontrol. To teach him to verbalise his anger. He is ginger and gets picked on a lot for this (still, he gets people in clubs coming up to him, making ginger comments and throwing punches at him!) I spent a lot of his teens teaching him how to NOT retaliate, so that he did not end up on an assault charge.

It was a long haul and hard work.
At 19 he is now a charming young man, who wouldn't dream of using violence in any way. He is also 6'4"and works out, so lots of muscle.

But with different parenting, all that young aggression would have ended up with him throwing a punch (or 6) down the pub and an assault charge or worse.

It isn't hard to imagine that many parents simply don't parent enough for these boys.

Part of it is testosterone, which makes adolescent boys and men more likely to engage in risky or violent behaviour.

Part of it is the fact that boys are less mature than girls at the same age, all the way up to age 25 or so.

And part of it is society excusing shitty behaviour by boys and men

Because dad too many people still let the little cute toddler boys will be boys turn into primary boys will be boys who then end up these strapping teenager boys will be boys who cause damage.

like training a puppy yeah it might be cute when it steals a sock and destroys it while teething not cute when it’s an adult eating up your stuff.

Girls are held to a higher standard they are expected to always be polite to put others feelings first. Boys are not it all starts with the isnt he so cheeky, such a wild child. I have both boy and girls. My nephews are young but the stuff they get away with even from the grandparents is shocking none of my three would of been allowed to do any of it male or female.

Classic male entitlement.

More than 90% of the prison population is men.

I do think biology forms part of this. In no way does this condone behaviour or suggest that they should be excused. It does show that we need to nurture our young men (that is society's responsibility not just women and mothers).

I don't think the school system is build around girls, I think because boys present so much more of a discipline problem, all these stupid draconian rules secondary schools have put in place now adversely affect girls. Loads of teaching time is spent dealing loud, show off, naughty boys. This is why girls do better in single sex where there is a proper focus on them and their separa

te and different needs.

Stereotyping, misogyny and poor behaviour management in schools. Children are effectively rewarded for bad behaviour these days.

@Rosehugger dream on. I went to a girls only secondary school and it was a bloody bear pit. Not much violence but huge amounts of low level disruption, plenty of bullying and drama.

I chose a very (but not super) strict secondary for my kids as a direct result of my experience and they've had a far better time and education, even if they can get detention for not having a pen.

I think girls bully more psychologically, whereas boys bully physically. I think boys a little behind in development than girls, behave a bit less mature, shorter attention span for non physical activities. But tbh I think a lot comes down to 1. "Boys will be boys" and 2. "Boys are naughty, girls are good."

My ds hates school. He's not rude or disruptive but he just sits there, waiting gor the day to end. He isn't academic at all.
But, he thrives at cadets and his work experience posting were so impressed with his work ethic they have given him a Saturday job and even paid him for his work experience because they thought he deserved it. He was like a different child for that fortnight- up before the alarm, on the train, organising himself.

But he is stuck in school, with very limited choices because he won't get his maths gcse. He wants to work in trade but apprenticeship requires maths. No wonder he is disengaged.

He'd have been better off 40 years ago, leaving before o levels straight into a trade, learning on the job. As would very many of the other boys I teach. The whole system needs changing. Schools need to offer practical nvq and trade training. 40 years ago my brother was a "naughty boy" so off to "the hut" in school he went. Learnt bricklaying there. Now he earns a fortune and did better than me, stuck on the same wage as a teacher for donkeys years.

Boys are physical. Girls verbal.

But the majority of poor behaviour which disrupts classes day-in day-out is not physical. Yes, in terms of actual exclusions there will be a higher proportion of physical misdemeanours, because they are often more serious. But the vast majority of poor behaviour in schools is non-physical, from boys as well as girls. The constant non-physical poor behaviour is serious, as it wastes countless hours of learning time, and often involves behaviour which makes other students and staff feel disrespected or threatened.

I think when people talk about boys' bad behaviour, they often envisage this 'quick punch-up, all forgotten by home time, unlike those nasty, mean girls who hold a grudge' scenario. It's an inaccurate stereotype imo. The fact that violence occurs more frequently between boys does not mean there is no psychological element to their bullying, or that the other aspects of boys' bad behaviour isn't just as 'nasty' as that of girls. Deliberate intimidation, sabotage of lessons, vandalism (common in boys and girls), cyber-bullying, misogynistic, homophobic and racist comments etc.

The boys will be boys attitude is incredibly toxic and starts very early!
in primary school boys bad behaviour is very often minimised and pandered to, very often at the expense of girls!
Sadly these attitudes are then reinforced at home, and by the time these boys gets to high the situation is out of control.
I’m astonished how long and cumbersome a process it is to exclude a pupil!

@Grackl8 my friend has had lots of issues with her SON being bullied by a GIRL. Seems like the school is pandering to the girls needs at the expense of her son.

I can't believe the girl is still allowed in school with her toxic behaviour, it got so bad that she has had to take him out of said school and find another!

It's not always boys!

THIS.
I remember the outcry when a longitudinal research study found that you could largely predict which under-fives would go on to be excluded from school. It was not just about poor behaviour, it was also about parents who minimised or dismissed the reports of staff that there were any problems.
It is why Sure Start was created and there was such an emphasis on early intervention. Problems can develop for all kinds of reasons, but the key is to tackle things as early on as possible.
Of course, sometimes trauma happens later on in childhood which leads to behaviour that leads to expulsion. But most of the time the roots can be easily traced.
I read it even on MN, parents assuming their young child will grow out of hitting other kids and so they do not need to do anything. Or dismissing concerns teachers and other workers have raised with them.