did anyone read the article in last sunday's observer about raising boys...

[beforesunrise]

... and thought it was really, well, a bit crap? it was all about boys are being shortchanged by society, are much more likely to go to jail or be knifed etc. so far so good.

but then it went on to identifying the reasons as an increasinlgy "feminised" education system and teh fact that boys don't get to run around enough.

no mention of the huge impact of fatherless households, or of the stark divides of those crime stats by racial and economic background.

but, more fundamentally, i just don't think it is true that boys have it so hard. i mean, girls get into trouble in ways that don't make the headlines- ie they get pregnant, for example. and women are still marginalised and discriminated against in many parts of society. i reckon it's still harder to be born a girl than a boy. and raising girls is as hard if not harder, in the long run.

maybe because i am a mother of two girls, but i am still annoyed by it- so superficial, and so WRONG...

anyone else?

I read that article and enjoyed it. I hoped that some of my family would read it and realise my boy is nt that mad and full of life than others. I also have a girl and l think all children have different bits to their personalites. My boy does need a lot of running but l think that is him rather than because he is male. We have friends who's boys are totally different. I have to say when he started school l was worried about all the play fighting him and his friends got up to. His teacher reassured me that some 4 year old boys do just act like that for a year but they do learn alot from it.

ICANDOTHAT:
how come a majority of people in our prisons and young offenders intitutes are men? Why is it that most suicides are men? How come most people suffering from mental illnesses are men? Why do girls achieve better GCSE and A Level results then boys? Why is it that boys are more likely to be excluded from school then girls?

well then: how come most sufferers from eating disorders are women? how come women are much more likely to be raped, assaulted, or victims of domestic violence (1 in 10 in the UK, accroding to Amnesty)? why, despite the fact that girls achieve better GCSE and A level results than boys, they underperform 10, 15, 20 years down the line on any measure of career progression, remuneration, and satisfaction?

listen- this is not a competition as to what sex has the tougher deal. we both do- we all do, life is hard, and yes, it's hard in differnt ways for boys and girls and for men and women. the causes are complex and probably a mix of nature, nurture, socioeconomic background and policies.

it's all so much more complicated than saying "boys like to run around, and it's the state's fault that they do badly in school blah di blah". as far as i can see it, there is no institutional conspiracy to hold boys (vs girls) back. far from it.

God Bigbella where do you live?

I've seen none of that at all at my baby/toddler groups. I childmind now so I'm back on the circuit and still don't see it.

Also children are treated exactly the same in primary school,there would be uproar if they weren't. Girls aren't told to go into the homecorner, boys aren't told to pounce on the bikes. They are given free choice in rec.

The fact is as unpleasant as it is to stomach time and time again boys and girls choose the sterotypical option. It frustrated me as a teacher and it frustrates me now as a parent.

My boys are fab readers but their handwriting is . As they are expected to now be writing they need to practice their letter control etc. If I want them to do it I have to force them (not right imho so I don't). DD a year younger on the other hand loves colouring,'writing' etc. Even the 14 month old girl I mind for sits longer with crayons than my boys do.

Also my dd loves baby dolls,plays for hours with them she started off at 1 with my boys castoffs,played with them in a way they never ever did. I didn't encourage it didn't buy anything extra for ages,tried steering her towards their Brio etc-just not interested at all. In the end I gave in and got her what she really wanted last Xmas Baby Born. She's constantly up there dressing her.

She's now at 4 discovered Barbie, again I never bought 1 as I can't stand them but she's been to friends houses and adores them. I could spit. As a compromise I've let her have my old Sindy stuff which she adores and which makes her happy. She's surrounded by boy stuff and boys (some days this hols she's been holding her own with 5 other boys) but she drifts off to do her girly thing.

Yesterday we were in the woods with a friend and her 5 year old girl. My 2 boys went romping on ahead turning their sticks into weapons,thrashing bracken,climbing logs etc etc. What did the 2 girls do sat in a puddle for ages'mixing' with their sticks. We had to haul them out eventually as we'd have been there for hours.

beforesunrise - my experience has taught me there is. It is a topic which is debated far and wide in the educational field. What happened the last time we had this debate was that stats were brought up to show that boys don't necessarily do better with male teachers and that classrooms are not female-centric. Of course not every classroom is female centric but most classrooms at primary level have female teachers (like myself) who see things from a female perspective and will never totally understand things from the male view. I do believe the male and female biology makes a difference to our experience of education - i used to be a pro nurture person - now with a son who has autism (classic male brain exaggerated) i am a little more sympathetic to the idea of inherent differences in biology.

Children are not treated in exactly the same way at all. Subtly and not-so subtly we re-inforce stereotypes all the time. And the danger of generalising about boys and girls behaviour, even when the majority of children seem to fit those stereotypes, is that those who don't, and any population is going to have variation, will be at a disadvantage.

I asked further down the thread whether Jay Rayner has girls, because his description of boys being boys sounds like my girl being herself. He sees his boys behaving in a particular way, and extrapolates from their behaviour how boys behave. And then conversly how girls behave.

Yes we need to make sure that different styles are catered for in education. But going down the sugar and spice and frogs and snails route is just not helpful IMO.

when you say there is, are you referring to my last sentence? an institutional conspiracy to hold boys back?

perhaps i am not making myself very clear- i am not disputing for a second the inherent differences in biology, seriously. i think the facile and superficial arguments in the article don't do justice to these very serious issues and in fact hamper the debate.

i will be the first to admit i don't have much experience of education yet, so i will watch and learn...

Milamae north london - fairly middle class area if I'm honest - and that's what I have seen.

The whole crawling/dress thing particularly got on my tits.

Mind you I do keep my eyes peeled - all this stuff really interests me - especially as someone who, despite my mums best efforts, has never been particularly "girly"...

Some boys fit the stereotype as do some girls but other boys and girls don't. Where do they fit in? or are they just ignored.

I think there is a whole range from what we consider extreme 'boy' behaviour and extreme 'girl' behaviour but as with everything most are not at the extremes and there is overlap. However, boys behaving in a generally accepted 'boyish' way is encouraged and girls behaving in a generally accepted 'girlish' way is encouraged.

I've also witnessed scenes similar to those Bigbella describes.

I don't think there is an institutional conspiracy to hold boys back - the govt wants everyone to get good grades so much so that by 2015 i reckon the GCSE grading system will be A, A, A, A*, A, A (you get my point here!)...what i think it is is that there has been a drive to push standards up with girls (quite rightly) and to make education more attractive to girls (ie take away 100% exam and add in element of coursework which girls by and large prefer and do better at than boys )which is all very commendable indeed, after all i am a product of this push since the introduction of the GCSE's, but i think encouraging more male teachers into the classroom is a good thing at primary level, encouraging more kinaesthetic learning to benefit all (although difficult because of time and space restraints) would help.

whoop s my grading system doesn't make much sense - i think some asterisks have been cut out

will try again:

A, A, A, A*, A, A

Haven't read full thread but as a mother of a boy and two girls,I just think it depends on personality not sex.My eldest-my daughter- is a typical tomboy...loves to climb trees etc.Second is my son,who doesn't particularly climb trees but loves footie...!Third is the little princess with the dare-devil rebellious attitude.There are no hard and fast rules.They're all different.That's the way it is.

oh how funny - mumsnet has cut out my asterisks! you get what i mean though

I don't think its about what they enjoy its really about how they learn and develop skills.

Even so stillenacht, reducing it to girls and boys I think ignores the variations within those two groups, to the detriment of those who don't fit neatly into that stereotype. I think that is true for learning as much as behaviour.

Of course there are variations within the groups - we can't totally say boys do this and girls do this...its a much more subtle thing thats going on in education...my own son (if we are going to have personal anecdotes) is a quiet, sensitive boy who loves anything to do with theatre staging (lights/music) but he also loves rugby, motor sport and DT yet hates football and finds it very boring. They are all indeed very different and very unique however in general there are gender traits which are more common in either sex.

I'm in Devon Bigbella,maybe parents round here are more into the outdoors, sensible water proof clothes,like seeing kids dirty etc.

Also most of the parents I'm friendly with are outdoorsy so maybe the gender thing isn't concentrated on so much as we all tend to drag them all out to the beach etc regardless of gender.

Juules I don't think boys are encouraged to be boys at all they're totally repressed. At school they're told to calm,down,sit down,be quiet etc,etc.

In the playground they're now not aloud to play fighting games,race around too much etc etc.

At home often they're squeezed into far smaller houses with smaller gardens than kids used to be as the squeeze vast numbers of house onto tiny estates.This means they can't let off steam at home.

They can't roam the neighbourhood as there are too many cars on the roads now so they may get knocked over.

My poor boys are repressed all day at school then at home they are told to play quietly as we live in a small house,our garden isn't big enough for them to roam. Thank god for the beach and moor onto which they're turfed every weekend

Very possibly true milamae - it's possibly something more pronounced in urban areas where indoor activites are maybe more prevalent.

I also think a lot of people don't even realise they're doing it - the boy/girl stuff - and would be aghast at the suggestion while quietly enforcing gender stereotypes on their small offspring like billy-o.

Someone mentioned single sex schools earlier - and they had a very good point - if girls and boys really need to be taught differently then surely that is the way to go?

I will be interested to see what happens when DD goes to school - the local girls school specialises in drama and the boys school in maths - for me that says a lot.

theres a good girl

Big Bella this book is right up your street. ITA btw

milamae and bigbella good points

A small suggestion ... from a mother to two DSs, now 17 and 22:
Let's have a return to the idea of a playgroup rather than a "pre-school".
School to start at term child reaches 5 (or term after that).
My DSs loved playing when 3 and 4 and never wanted to come to the table to do work. The girls were all "ready for school" according to their mothers, the boys happily playing with no interest in school.
Now, DS1 is in a well paid graduate job, having excelled in school/university and DS2 is about to do well in his A Levels, despite preferring to play rather than sit down and practise letters when they were 3-4.

Milamae, it's not just the boys that are repressed with sit down,calm down, be quiet.

And at break they can run around, play football etc. But of course they are stopped some play fighting if it's getting out of hand or someone is getting hurt.

Squeezed into far smaller houses Why were houses much larger in the old days? Which houses? Certainly not some of the terraced ones near me.

Can't roam the neighbourhood? I'm presuming we mean primary aged children. I think this depends on where you live. The children round here are out and about until it goes dark. But it's a quiet area that backs onto a playing field.

excellent point Lilymaid - I think mums who are not as far down the road really do sweat it about the most trivial educational things at times (check out the 11plus forum - Christ its scary on there and i teach the GS kids all day long!)and if you have a loving homelife where there are boundaries etc etc then 95% the kids will be fine despite the odd detention in senior/sending outside for 'naughty' behaviour at primary- but what if they don't become 'turned on' by the thought of sitting at the table to work until they are 8/9/10 and by that stage they have had 3 years of 'now come and do this, sit here, stop fidgeting etc etc' from largely female teachers/TA's by which time the seeds of dissafection have already been sown.

Lilymaid, my dd1 "never wanted to come to the table to do work" at 3 or 4 either. She couldn't read until the end of y2. However, she's doing well at A'level.

Perhaps leaving them all to play until they are older would be the better way to go.

disaffection even