7-10 year old boys are the most neglected children

[Sunnytimesarecoming]

I work in children's safeguarding and I see it all the time. Boys at this awkward ages are often neglected, abused and forgotten. They're past the age of being mummy's little cherub or daddy's little soldier. They're less likely to be outgoing or chatty. They're less likely to be fully embraced by step parents.

I see them at school and it feels like for many of them, the school system just doesn't fit their interests or learning style.
Some almost need that rough play almost hourly. Some just feel pushed towards being men when they're not ready to, or don't know what that means.
I really feel to tackle all the shit related to toxic masculinity we need to do some sort of intensive work with this age group. It's when many young boys start displaying anti female, aggressive type behaviours. Even ones from single parent, all female households like mine.
But what would that look like?

Mine had their father's influence once a fortnight, and have turned out (and always were) fine young men in spite of that, not because of it.

Their morals, work ethics, approach to commitment in relationships, decent political views etc are ALL down to the upbringing I gave them.

I think some bits of this age start to be under-parented. You see them out in groups, lateish, unsupervised and they are only 9 or 10.
My daughters began to be on the receiving end of nasty comments from boys at this point as well, and I felt it was dismissed as just ‘silly behaviour’.
As for careers, they still earn more and get top jobs despite achieving less well at school. Many of the more practical trades etc still pay we’ll compared to more female dominated jobs.

They don't go to secondary until 13 in Ireland. I used to think that was a bit late. But have revises my opinion. There is also an optional 'Transition Year ' at 16 where you just keep the core subjects and do extra mural projects , work experience etc. My kids loved it. Especially as they were summer babies.

Having raised three well adjusted happy boys myself, I agree with all of this. Fair rules that apply to everyone. Adults take responsibility and make the right choices for the kid. And no not all boys enjoy “rough housing” which is just another term for unwanted physical contact. To insist they need that is just lazy stereotyping. None of my three ever wanted that.

Oh and boys are just as entitled to physical and verbal affection from their parents as girls. I wonder if some parents don’t think that’s appropriate for boys? If we want emotionally intelligent men then we need to make our boys feel valued and loved.

I think that low expectations for young boys is a massive issue. In my personal experience which, obviously, is purely anecdotal and not at all a particularly large sample size so not even a tiny bit scientific, I've seen the boys at our primary school and a good chunk (definitely not all) of them seem to be get away with poor behaviour from very young for a variety of reasons, "boys will be boys" and "my son would NEVER do that" being the two main ones.

In the case of DS' year group, who are now at high school, it was quite interesting to see the transition to high school for these boys. It didn't go so well, in particular for a group of boys who had consistently bullied DS and a few other boys. At primary, their parents refused to believe it and the school kept telling them all, "be nice to each other" and that was it. At high school in term 1, these boys were all involved in quite serious altercations including one in which DS was involved as the victim. As there was CCTV footage of the incident, DS was fully vindicated and the other boys were punished quite severely at school. Their parents were FURIOUS.

DS tells me that one of the boys is still struggling and two of the others are up and down.

There was another group of similar boys who went to a different school and I haven't heard much but I did get the impression the first few months weren't great for them either!

Aw I like to think they do go away for most

I was never keen on the idea of sons. Always envisioned myself with just daughters. I had my DD then my DS, and developed severe PND. I did not love him properly that first year, it wasnt that rush of love like I got with DD.

It was after his first birthday when I started to get better I started to love him like I should of.

Now hes 7 and is the apple of my eye, hes such a funny caring loving boy. If I ever hsad any more I'd only want sons. I wish I had more sons. Were also a single family, no dad involved at all,

Some peoples feelings do change about boys 😅

I think working class kids in general get a rough deal in the education system. I helped out in a school for a while and as much as the teachers tried, the parents who had the most social capital (so generally higher income/education levels) were most able to source help for their children.

My DD is in her final year of school. They have 6 house captains, 2 for each house (presumably would have been boy/girl initially but that is long gone). A pupil vote is part of the section process and they have to do a speech. About 18 kids applied, 2/3 girls, 1/3 boys. 4 boys got the gig and 2 girls. My DD (who is not a HC so is looking from the outside) says the 2 girls are run ragged doing most of the work that goes with the roles. The school need to try to encourage more boys to go for the HC roles but if they succeed in that I can’t see many girls getting a look in. The school has a very mixed demographic but I know most of the kids who applied as they were at primary school with my DD and they almost all from pretty affluent backgrounds. So IME the education system works best for affluent boys and, yes, I think poor WC boys are at the other end of the scale, particularly if they leave school with few qualifications and are still of the view that only certain types of manual jobs are acceptable for males while those jobs may not exist any more.

It doesn't matter what people "think". It's a fact that boys need more rough and tumble play for the development of their prefontal cortex, and when it is denied them they are more likely to develop aggressive behaviour in later life. And if you think there are no differences between boy's and girl's needs, it's you who is deluded and part of the problem. OBVIOUSLY all girls and boys are different, but in studies we look at the general trends.

And they ARE, thank goodness. I work with amazing, dedicated staff who choose to teach where they do (a life teaching in a leafy suburb would have been a walk in the park in comparison, but it's where I've alway wanted to be, where I feel I can do most good) & are fighting for our pupils who come from a very, very disadvantaged area. I've waved so many pupils off to medicine/ law/ RG Universities/ great college courses/ meaningful employment, and we all burst with pride, but it's the many others existing on the edges, with no support & poor literacy & numeracy that after 30 years I STILL can't help. It's not the teachers or the schools, but the curriculum for these kids. Unfortunately change in education is snail-like, and the iceberg we've ignored for too long approaches rapidly.

No there is no good scientific eveidence for this that I can find, perhaps you could link it? No idea how any such evidence would allow for other differences in upbringing though. I agree that brain development is different in both sexes, although it appears that this evens out in adulthood.

Physical exercise (which is not the same as rough housing / wrestling), is important for both sexes. There are lots of positive contructive ways for children to get physical exercise other than rolling around on top of each other or pushing / shoving.
My boys loved trying different sports, forest school type activites and just long countryside walks. I suspect all of that was far better for their devlopment than wrestling.

Exactly the book I mentioned upthread. Fantastic. All parents of boys need to read it. And parents of girls his 'How to raise girls'.

Clearly you've had bad experiences, that's tough, however you cannot blanket claim that men are the problem as they're taught & think ' girls are inferior '! My God. Not in my house (3 sons) or my classroom, or any others that I know.

I'm hoping that this world we all contribute to is one where my nieces can thrive as freely as my nephews/ sons. Thankfully that's happening as I'm surrounded by strong, sharp girls who are making their mark on the world.

This pointing fingers & blaming & dividing the semester needs to stop. There are poor parents & difficult children of every sex.

• sex not semester

It's funny how, despite centuries of being the spat-upon sex in almost every human society, girls/women still seem to have had the monopoly on "emotional intelligence", depending on what you mean by that, without special efforts being made to make us feel "valued and loved". It's not that I'm against what you say,I course boys should have the same physical and verbal affection from their parents; but in so much of the discussion of the foundations of male violence, male emotional dysfunction, male underperformance, compared to girls that is, there's this undercurrent of "well if you want boys/men to do better, girls/women are gonna have to xyz!" finger wagging which I don't see an equivalent to for girls.

It's interesting to me that boys outstripped girls in every arena for centuries by the simple expedient of explicit or implicit exclusion (and post education there's still a lot of this goes on!), but its only now the scales tilt in favour of girls, in exam results, university places, the professions, it suddenly gets raised as a serious problem about which Something Must Be Done (and we're only talking a few percentage points here in most cases).

Would it really be such a tragedy if women/girls gained the upper hand in society for a while, in these incredibly limited ways (as other posters have said, by the time you get a decade or so on from school the balance tips again very strongly in favour of men by most metrics)? Why is that such an unsettling thought for society?

The answer I think is the obvious one - that makes bested by females in any arena do not tend to take it in good part, and a lot of dispossessed angry boys becoming dispossessed angry men is bad news for everyone. Fundamentally it's just another threat.

I think that boys this age are expected to model girls behaviour as in sit still and be calm for hours on end. Both of my sons were absolutely bored stiff at school, So much so my youngest developed an anxiety disorder. Home education has been a much more positive, healthy and successful experience.
I am from an all girl family and having two sons has really opened my eyes as to how out society views males, there is a complete lack of understanding and tolerance. They are treated like second class citizens.
I can fully understand why young males have no desire to defend this country and l don't blame them.

If you want this problem addressed OP, then surely your first port of call would be men? Their lived experience, access to resources and power make them ideally placed to take on this issue and make themselves part of the solution. Just as women do for girls. Unless your point is to tell mothers we are failing in the parenting of our sons, and to tell us we should be doing it differently, then I'd have thought your best bet was to seek a male audience and encourage them to put forward a solution from their greater expertise. I'm sure women would be supportive of their efforts.

I think this is the perfect age for boys to get karate or other martial arts.
They have a lot of energy to burn off and there is a lot going on internally.
If you get a good class leader, they will teach them so many ways to get centred. They teach them about respect, how powerful they are and how to channel that powerful energy in the right way. It makes a huge difference to them mentally, as well as physically. They need strong male role models and when that doesn't happen, they look in the wrong places (hence Andrew Tate)
I'd go to a few different classes if you need to, until you find the right leader.

Reading this is sad.
As a mother of two young boys, I hope to give my sons love, support and space for their emotions at every age.

As a mum of two boys, I’ve found this book eye-opening

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boys-Dont-Rethinking-Masculinity-Schools/dp/0815350252

I also have to wonder this. You expressed it so well!

And have I just missed it, where are the stats for the assertion of this thread? Is it all anecdotal? 7-10 year old boys are the most neglected children.

@OutsideLookingOut I don't know about neglected. There are some stats that white boys on free school meals have the lowest level of achievement at primary school, yes. Caused a little ruckus a year or so ago when the report came out.

I'm not sure if OP is extrapolating that this children are neglected or focusing on being neglected at school in that not enough is being done to improve things for them.

Either way, there are a lot of factors here and while I think it is concerning and I'm all for finding ways to improve things for these children, I think it's a bit more complicated than "oh, those poor white boys are so hard done by" which does rather suggest that it's because everyone else is getting MORE.

I think the thread has been interesting but slightly diverged from the topic. I just wanted to know if there was anything to support the age 7-10 boys being neglected? Are we saying only white boys now?

Well sadly according to some posters mums have nothing to do with it 🙄apparently it should be purely men who take responsibility for how boys turn out - what a load of crap!