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?

It doesn't have to be that way. I have a boy in that age bracket and he's great fun. Loves board games and is very active, curious etc. We spend lots of time with him, he is keen to help with cooking and is polite and sensible.

I do think schools are often bad with boys this age. Most of the teachers are female, and struggle with the fact that a lot of the boys are simply less compliant. Many simply don't care as intrinsically about things like creative writing, compared with girls. The focus on a very flowery heavily descriptive style of writing, loaded with inference, can really put boys off. It feels like teachers can't be bothered to engage the boys properly.

Reward systems also tend to favour a behavioural profile more typically seen in girls. Its really annoying seeing the girls in my sons class constantly being given far more class points than the boys.

I have a younger daughter and despite her being less academically inclined and a bit cheekier/naughtier than her brother, she is better treated by teachers generally.

I can give countless examples, these are all from my experience. Eg. Routinely keeping all the boys back after class because some were messing around whereas girls were never all kept back when a few were messing around, just those couple would be kept back. Eg. When both my children are late for school because the train is cancelled my daughter doesn't get a detention because they'll be sympathetic about the train but my son does. Eg. Teachers saying 'right boys, pipe down' when both girls and boys were talking. Eg. Teachers assuming that if there was bad behaviour it would be from the boys, 'when we're on our school trip we don't want anyone shouting in the library, OK boys?'. Eg. Lower academic expectations of boys, for example my son getting the same marks exactly as a female friend in his 5 English assessments over the year and then a lower teacher-given grade than his female friend in the end of term report. Eg. Girls pulling a prank on a teacher (woopy cushion and wet chair), teacher assumes it's boys who have done it and is very angry, investigates with threat of punishment, finds out it was a group of girls she considers to be very good and decides it's in fact really funny and no punishment is needed. . . . . . I absolutely believe that we have a horribly misogynistic society, with sexism endemic in most adult settings. But there's not a doubt in my mind that boys get the raw end of the deal in schools. And unfortunately I think that feeds resentment and then leaves boys open to Andrew Tate type misogyny that fuels their anger and feelings of alienation.

Hhhm, my post above was in response to someone who asked for examples of boys getting a raw deal in schools. I tried to link and reply but it didn't work.

Yes @Adifferentwayoflooking its so so sad and frustrating but it never gets the traction it needs. It’s so very very frustrating and sad.

May be to teach them to be future gentlemen etc but how?

Sorry @HippoStraw what trades are you talking about and what female traditional jobs are you taking about?? A lot of ‘trade’ jobs (plumbers, electrician, master builders) are actually very very highly skilled!! And require many years of training to be fully qualified. That’s why they pay well and so they should!

I couldn't have put it better, OP.

I get your opening post Op. It’s sad. 😔 I didn’t read the replies. I’m just automatically assuming you were personally attacked though 🤷‍♀️.

Not read through the thread but as a mother of boys I find there is much preference in schools for girls. As much as I love our school there is a noticeable difference in how the teachers behave and treat the girls vs the boys.

Not just me here either . Lots of us parents see it.

So perhaps schools should also take a look inwardly as well…

This 👆

There is no intrinsic reason why boys wouldn't like creative writing etc compared to girls

It's the masculinity that has been jnstilled in them and expected of them - the problems start young and start through all of society

But as soon as people believe in intrinsic differences - that's another way of saying boys will be boys - assuming and accepting different behaviour because they are boys

Wow. This was genuinely my favourite stage with both my boys. They were affectionate, playful and adorable. And they didn't smell yet.

Yes, this is a bit odd. So the whole field of literature must be dominated by women -
oh, wait…

Like the OP and some others who believe boys have more intrinsic need for exercise or being rough or getting dirty while playing. But they don't see themselves as part of the problem.

Well the exercise is fair, its called testosterone?? I'm not sure why people are trying to deny males and females are different, you notice it as soon as they are born even if you try to ignore it

That literature, or math, or any specific field has been historically "dominated" by men, does not mean that the school system is fair to boys. The people who are famous in literature are at the top of their field. They represent outliers. That the system has historically favored male outliers over female outliers at the tops of their fields, doesn't negate the unfairness done to average boys by the same system.

Yep. If your son can’t sit quietly and listen, thats likely because its a skill he hasn’t been taught by parents. A less compliant boy likely has sexist parents with low behaviour expectations. A boy who refuses to do descriptive writing likely has parents who didn’t invest in story telling or writing beyond the dinosaur who pooped a planet.

You get in what you get out, if us brown and black boys can do it, so can the majority of white boys.

The original quote I’m responding to not cardibach.

This is a strange view considering desk education was original set up for boys (especially upper class) and mostly women were excluded.

The only people in my circle of friends who were taught Latin, for example, are male.

Prep schools still exist specifically for this age group and onward, these schools were set up for boys originally and they were set up for desk learning. This desk learning has allowed many more boys to gain positions of power in society than girls. It’s ridiculous to say desk learning is suited to female sex only.

Perhaps I’m missing something but I would like to see some evidence of boys being neglected in schools.

But you forget you are brown/black and thus accommodating you really isn’t a need. You can flail/fail to even if you are a 7-10 year old boy. And even if you do better in school you are likely to do worse in the workplace than peers who didn’t do as well in school.

I’m also yet to actually see any studies for the OPs title that 7-20 yr old boys are neglected and nor was race mentioned.

One thing I've noticed at school is that the reading reward system is set up for reading whole books. Which generally means fiction. One of mine in particular will happily read a few pages of quite a complex encyclopaedia but can't get any credit for that because he hasn't read the whole book. He wouldn't find the type of non fiction books which can be read easily all the way through. He's overall doing very well at school so it's not a problem for us but I think it is an example of a bias. If a child (boy or girl) can read a newspaper report about a football match and answer questions on it, why can't we acknowledge that as valuable reading in the same way as if they read a chapter book?
I have two boys in this age group and they are brilliant but they are loud and often quite silly and very very energetic. They don't cope well with 'a quiet morning at home' - I have to get them out of the house and stop them squabbling. After 10 years of that with minimal support from family I am exhausted. It would be much easier to sit them in front of computer games to keep them quiet. When parents are under so much pressure, financially and in other ways, I think the boys tend to spend a lot of time gaming.

Also where are all the boys in gymnastics and dance? Both fantastic ways of channelling energy. I don't believe that boys don't enjoy doing gymnastics or dancing.
I also agree that it's completely unacceptable for girls to be used to manage boys behaviour in primary school.

All these activities suggested need a motivated parent at home. Many don't have that.
When we saw that women who were bright weren't fulfilling their potential, we did that work in schools. We built up their confidence, we challenged stereotypes, we arranged work experience, we arranged university trips. This was done in school.

That work needs to happen in school for working class boys. It's their only chance. Many parents of this age range don't even wake up to make their kids breakfast. They're not going to arrange bloody cross country running or gymnastics.

I think the proportion of parents who can't be bothered to get up to make breakfast is tiny and not a boy specific issue.

My point about the gymnastics and dancing was more that there still seems to be a big cultural barrier for boys accessing these activities, even where finances allow. Whereas quite rightly girls of this age are playing football, for example (though I know engaging teenage girls in sport is challenging and I don't want to minimize that). So if as a society we have expectations that boys don't do dance or gymnastics, what is that telling us about our perception of boys more generally?

And yes my point was also that if I am exhausted by my boys despite having finances and time to engage in activities to keep them busy, I can see how parents with fewer resources will really struggle.

Of course there are lots of kids out there who don't get breakfast but there are many factors to that such as finances and parents' shift patterns.

@Danascully2 but I think what I've seen is that girls are more skilled at thinking around these problems. They will go to friends or ask school or endear themselves to neighbours. No one is asking the boy kicking the shit out the tree if he'd hungry. If he goes to school and is disruptive, no one thinks maybe he's hungry. It's oh what an awful boy, well you know what sort of family he's from!