To think parenting high energy little boys is a different type of parenting?

[iwonderificould]

DS is now nearly six and I have to say I love parenting him now although he can still be quite hard work, but he’s got bags of energy, fearless, independent and fun to be around.

But thinking back to when he was a toddler … it was really hard work and not very enjoyable. He didn’t really play with toys in any meaningful way but could create chaos in seconds. One of his favourite things to do was to pull books off the bookcase and throw them across the room, or empty the cats water bowl. He was just a mini wrecking ball of energy and mischief. He didn’t even watch TV so I didn’t have that option.

We ended up out a LOT as a result. I remember my friends from the NCT group (all with girls!) commenting on it. If there was a group, we were there, we did soft play, parks, all sorts, I had so many passive aggressive sort of comments about it.

Three years later I had my second child and I understood that actually you don’t have to be out all the time. DH and I waited for her to destroy the house (sort of toddler part 2) but it didn’t happen and still hasn’t. I can stay in and do puzzles and playing.

There wasn’t and isn’t anything ‘wrong’ with ds; the opposite but I do find even now that energy needs burning. So when I read on here things like ‘when do they get time to chill / I loved staying home doing crafts and playing with mine / oh a long bath is all they need’ I realise some of us with children with bags of energy … we are doing a very different parenting journey!

My sister apparently took herself off to bed at 5.30-6pm every night once she started school.

No chance of that ever happening with me (or in turn, with mine).

When I got pregnant with my daughter, after having 2 boys, I had a few comments from people, saying a daughter will be a walk in the park after 2 boys.

They lied! And I say this as a mum of boys with ADHD, that my daughter was just as energetic. Team sports and taekwondo have been a godsend for all three of mine.

I have two feral children, one of each.

I think it is a mix of nature and nurture and that it’s a spectrum so you’ll have some boys that are more chill but a higher percentage that are feral, more girls that are chill but a few that are feral.

theres a paper about fetal testosterone that is interesting. I’ve used AI to sum it up because it’s 7am and I have two feral kids so I can’t 😂

Research published in Psychological Science indicates that higher fetal testosterone levels directly predict more male-typical, high-energy play and activity preferences. Because male fetuses produce significantly more testosterone in utero, these prenatal biological drivers suggest that higher-energy behaviors are more predominantly seen in boys rather than being solely the result of social conditioning. You can read more about the study by Auyeung et al. (2009) in Psychological Science.

I think you need to not take my post quite so seriously…. I said “I’ve always JOKED”
And I’m definitely stricter then my SIL,

The difference between boy energy and girl energy is the physicality that often comes with the high energy in boys. Completely different ballgame to my high girl. The testosterone hits differently!

This sounds like ADHD to me. Not just high energy but the constant dopamine seeking (attention, laughs, sensation of flinging himself off things etc). He is possibly young yet to be assessed for ADHD though, not sure. Im in Ireland and lots of places wont diagnose before 7. You'd also need supporting letters from school so chance for the school to observe him over time.

To be honest. I didn’t really mean to turn it into a boy / girl thing; it’s my fault, it’s the title but it was just that my mad child was a boy.

I was thinking about it because I read a post from someone along the lines of ‘when my child was preschool we didn’t even need to leave the house because we were having so much fun doing crafts and playing games’ and while I suspect there is an element of dewy eyed sentimentalism there it also made me think of the adage that appeared during Covid - that we’re all in the same boat but in very different parts of it if you like.

@Wishingplenty that sounds hard. I didn’t ever have any real negativity with ds. A few comments about being out all the time but then I get a few with DD as well and I’m actually not. Maybe some people do just rarely leave the house!

Ds quite likes colouring now but only since starting school; he wouldn’t do it before. Dd won’t either. She’s a bit of a perfectionist and will just start shrieking she can’t!

Yes my hyper one (deliberately not saying genders so as not to get sidetracked) is so sweet natured and very polite - it's not a bad thing, it will obviously be amazing for them to have so much energy in their lives! Just full on when you're parenting them.

Also yes, it's funny in their sports, I'm so grateful to the many coaches who give up time energy and so on to coach, but often I suspect they are those same kids grown up who still have a lot of energy and think racing round a pitch at night in the rain is still the ideal use of time in their forties! (While I lean on a railing in a dryrobe in the background). Thank god for these energetic types.

I agree that it’s different with high energy CHILDREN - children who happen to have more energy, be always on the go, can’t sit still etc - but it’s not a boy/ girl thing.

DD as a toddler couldn’t sit still for a minute (neither could DS to be fair!).

DD2 did - it was a huge shock to us even as toddler if tired she put herself to bed. Other kids would literally face palm of stools to nap as if they couldn't fight a second longer to stay awake.

However during day she was much more like DS with energy levels just didn't have the sleep issues or the potty training issues. Though older she's got more we think there something SEN/ND with her as well.

They do not come across as high energy adults/teens - though like DH they always have multiple projects on the go and can hand wave and shake a lot and have fidgit rings.

I did see a historcial sewer say she though people today had too much hand energy and in past spare minute you'd be hand spinning threads, sewing or knitting in spare moments. I remember as in childhood was always being to off for hand fidgeting.

Research has shown boys are, on average, more active than girls in childhood.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12966-023-01496-0

It’s unfashionable to say it - but it IS a sex thing.

At puberty?

Edited

I never said they did have different experiences. Absolutely nowhere have I said that.

Is that a true sex difference though or a social one?

boys are more often encouraged to be active, girls are told to sit still, help around the house etc.

the study doesn’t look at why boys are more active, only that they are.

studies show that girls tend to opt out of pe and exercise for social reasons- looking sweaty, hair, make up, being socialised into thinking girls aren’t as able- run like a girl, throw like a girl. Plus clothing and feeling self conscious, and of course the ubiquitous sexualisation..

See, as a mum of a boy with ARFID, I fucking hate the 'all boys eat all the time' stereotype.

I guess many of us have stereotypes we hate when our own experience is different. Its one things saying, 'boys are more likely to be like this', (ie, not all boys and girls can be like this too) its another to say ' Boys are like this' (i.e. all of them are).

@Beautifulhaikuare you making a point that I’ve edited my post? So what?

It’s present and evident from really early on and in my view cannot be explained solely by societal expectations of boys and girls.

This doesn't show causation though. Boys are parented differently (and largely more permissively) than girls, who are punished for behaviour that's accepted in boys.

@Stompythedinosaurpeople think this is so but, again, the research doesn’t actually bear it out.

I think the problem is that the only way to truly test it would be to raise a cohort of children in isolation in a completely neutral way with unbiased caregivers, which is obviously impossible.

I was cleaning out my old laptop and watching videos from when ds was a toddler and I wanted to give that exhausted, frazzled woman the biggest hug. He was my first and I had no idea how high energy he was, and that the other perfect parents I knew were probably not dealing with this. I ended up avoiding groups once he was more mobile and getting quite isolated. It was only when I had a second, placid dc, that I started to realise it wasn’t all down to my parenting.

Yes I remember seeing a woman pushing a pram with a little girl on a buggy board, about age 2 or 3, she was holding on and smiling with a red coat and a beautiful beret on her. They were having such a calm walk.

i remember thinking ‘ you are having a very different experience than me’

I was just trying to stay alive and keep him alive until he was about 7.

I was a very physical child. Enjoyed play fighting, wrestling etc.

i was stopped every time. Told I would hurt someone and I “didn’t know my own strength”

it got so conditioned I cannot even do boxfit, martial arts etc now or as a child.

observationally boys are often given more leeway. Boys will be boys and all that. The testosterone makes them…

if you read those studies the “testosterone surge” is very early in infancy, returning to low levels by about 6 months.

so blaming testosterone for toddler behaviour is incorrect. You can find as many studies saying testosterone does not affect child behaviour as those that do.

Mine. She was exactly like that and still is at 14.

not pulling books of shelves or anything but loud, chaotic, ball of energy always on the go until she crashes asleep.

this isn’t a gender thing