Why are teachers failing the narrative for boys, is boy playing incompatible with school

[Leteer]

Does anyone feel like boy play is deeply unsupported and thoroughly discouraged in school up to the point where boys are questioning if play is actually good / encourages boys to question if their hard wired need for play is a bad thing. Isn't this a downward spiral for boys to not support what nature gave them which could in turn affect academic work.

I had a parent complain their child wasn’t getting enough exercise at school but then admitted their child wasn’t sleeping. I asked about her routine after school and apparently they went straight home every day. There’s no additional needs and they live in a village. I suggested a park trip or scooter walk after school or after tea. It was as though I’d suggested something groundbreaking!

Or living with in an independently commutable distance for the student.

I am sure you are not proposing that all rural areas of the country should be actively stripped of all secondary school-aged children?

Yes, ideally all children commuting in rural areas should take school buses, but there are reasons why this may not work:

• Cost: the distance may be just too short to be funded, or the ‘school with funded buses’ may not be the one the pupil attends. This can happen mid school career - the ‘catchment school’ (with bus funding) for a village I used to live in switched randomly one summer.
• Timing: children may have before or after school commitments (including eg sports clubs), either on school premises or elsewhere, that don’t coincide with the single school bus.
• Location: a child having to walk along unlit lanes and then wait beside a main road may be considered less safe by parents who may anyway be driving to a place of work near the school.

Are you imagining that the countryside should be populated by hermits and old people, and that everyone with children should live in cities? There is plenty that's good about living in the countryside. A 2 mile walk is good for you. Public transport exists. People have cars.

I grew up in a (commuter belt) village near a small town where I could get a train to London, then lived in London, then moved back to a village, then to a more rural area when my dc were 6 and 9. My kids walk, get buses and trains to places. How is that lacking in independence? They will no doubt move to the city when they leave uni, as I did. That doesn't mean it was a bad idea to move them here.

No. You are refusing to acknowledge statistical differences between the sexes. Male toddlers get a surge of testosterone that females don't, so the sexes are differentiated at an early age.

Competitive games (wanting to win, keeping score)
Not sure, but I would tend to say the sexes differ with this, as girls prefer more communication and cooperation in their play

Physical exploration (climbing, jumping, testing limits)
Boys do more of this, with more risk-taking, that girls

Rough-and-tumble play (wrestling, chasing, mock fighting)
This is pretty much a boy thing

Object-focused play (building, vehicles, tools)
I would guess a slight difference, with boys preferring this a bit more than girls.

Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding, of course I am talking about statistics, so the inevitable outliers do not disprove the differences.

Yeah, except the toddler testosterone surge is a myth. Sorry.

The claim that boys experience a testosterone surge from ages three to five may be gaining popularity on social media but it is not supported by research. The danger in promoting myths like this is that they can lead parents to view boys’ behavior as biologically predetermined and out of their control. In reality, research shows that parenting plays a powerful role in boys’ development and that boys may actually be more sensitive to both positive and negative parenting than girls. Rather than accepting a “boys will be boys” mindset, parents can work to help boys to develop emotional regulation and social skills with the following research-backed tips:

1. Let boys express all of their feelings: Rather than simply assuming that boys aren’t as “emotional” as girls, parents should encourage boys to express a range of emotions, particularly the “weaker” emotions like sadness, fear, and anxiety. Parents can encourage this expression by noticing, validating, and empathizing with all of their feelings. Research finds that parents are more likely to ignore boys’ feelings of sadness and anxiety. Over time this may lead boys to express fewer of these more vulnerable emotions and instead show more anger and aggression.
2. Talk about the emotions that you see in books, shows, and movies with your boys: Research finds that parents talk about emotions more frequently and talk about a greater number of emotions with girls than boys. An easy way to talk about emotions more frequently is to point them out in books, shows, and movies. Ask what the characters are feeling and relate it back to your child’s life (“Have you ever felt that way?”).
3. Do not use harsh or physical discipline: Research finds that parents, particularly fathers, with more traditional ideas about gender roles tend to use more physical control of boys than girls, which may contribute to the later development of aggressive behavior. Parents should be mindful that their discipline of boys is not harsher or more physical, as this can reinforce the very behaviors they hope to reduce.
4. Make an effort to teach boys social emotional skills: Make an effort to teach social-emotional skills such as perspective-taking, empathy, and emotional regulation. You can use books like The Rabbit Listened, Cara’s Kindness, What To Do When It’s Time to Calm Down(my new book!) or Calm-Down Time to teach these skills.
5. Set the same rules for play for boys and girls: Parents are more likely to encourage rough play in boys, which can contribute to boys showing more and more rough play over time. There is nothing wrong with rough and tumble play but it is important that parents have consistent rules for rough play for boys and girls (for example, you have to stop immediately if the other child asks you to stop).
6. Model healthy emotional regulation: Research finds that parent aggression is linked to children having more aggressive attitudes. For example, instead of yelling or banging on the steering wheel when you hit traffic, try deep breathing or saying a calming mantra to yourself such as “I can handle this.”

https://parentingtranslator.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-the-toddler-testosterone

A lot of people live where their children cannot independently and reliably access transport from their homes to their schools or the local High Street etc. It leaves them dependent on parents until they can (unsafely) drive at 17.

Yes, rural public transport has been decimated, I agree.

Does this mean that every family with teenage children should flee rural areas, even when their family have lived there for generations? Consider the knock-on effects as well - certainly, when we lived in a village, many homes were occupied by key workers (nurses and other NHS workers; those offering council services; teachers / TAs; academics) priced out of but still working in the nearest expensive city.

I do think your view that ‘all families, however long they have lived in the countryside, should move IMMEDIATELY their child goes to secondary’ is a little odd.

Yeah, except the toddler testosterone surge is a myth
Interesting. I did not know that. It was in a book my daughter read some years ago.
But I stand by the statement that wrestling and play-fighting are boy things, that generally girls don't like.

Can you accurately say that girls don’t like it when they aren’t exposed to it and socialised with it , from toddlerhood? Nevermind other barriers such as practical, suitable clothing, expectations to be good, be quiet, keep their clothes clean and tidy etc.

Maybe not, have you actually ever looked at a school playground, boys taking up most of the space whilst the girls and younger children hover around the edges. There is a huge rise in male aggression toward women atm. Maybe they all need national service from 5 they wouldnt have to sit down much then.😁 in the past disapline in school was expected and parents supported it as we all know that the working world doesn't care. Now parents reinforce that its ok to ignore uniform codes, that teachers can be answered back and abused. Rules are ignored. Porn is feely available and the. Numbers of boys exposed to it from the age of 9 is terrifying.the situation is getting worse women dont have to put up with men's BS anymore many men will find themselves isolated alone and angry. Ps I have 2 wonderful kind sons.

That’s partly true but also there are often (not always) inherent differences. I have both and from a young age, there was a difference in how they played. That said, my eldest boy is gifted in languages while his sister is better at maths and science so I’m not saying it’s all a package, much less that the final outcome is predetermined.

Still, as children my boys had noticeably more physical and less structured play than their sister, and while she did used to play video games with her brother(s), she was never mad keen, whereas they had to be physically detached from them (this was just before girls all got into social media thank heavens! Video games were fights, races and the like).

My son had a dolly (given to him by his male cousin) and he mostly played with her by twisting her head round, cutting her hair or otherwise throwing her around. My daughter used to carry her dollies around carefully, telling them stories and playing school or shop with them. That was not down to our expectations - it was just how they played with their toys.

I absolutely did not want my children of either sex to play with video games all the time and neither my DH nor I ever really played them ourselves, so again, that wasn’t a question of parental expectations.

I don't get all this 'schools aren't designed for boys' stuff.

Any teacher knows that most of what we do is always geared towards:"what can we do to help boys achieve better?" Girls are expected to suck it up. And as a pp said, schools were FOR boys initially! Even when my aunties were young (50s and 60s)they'd be the ones kept home from school to help at home; the boys were sent to school. Presumably to sit in rows and get battered if they stepped out of line.

Maybe that's the answer- the teachers need to be more rough with the boys.

I think it's a misstep to conflate toys with behaviour in this context. Yes, lots of girls including mine (and me!) preferred Lego and cars to dolls and fuzzy-felt.. Lego and cars are just more interesting and offer challenges and investigations; dolls require imagination to make them any kind of 'fun', and both sexes can be attracted to either type of play.

The 'rough and tumble' thing is a bit different. I worked for 10 years with children aged 2-7, and also I gave birth to two girls when, my best friend had two boys. The difference in the boys' desire and NEED (it seemed) for 'play-fighting' was marked. Girls just did not seem so obsessed with it as boys did.

Is it really so surprising, given that men/males are overwhelmingly the sex with more tendency to violence and aggression, that it should begin in childhood?

Boys are socialised to play rough from infancy, where as girls are encouraged to be quiet and gentle. It’s not an innate thing, we literally treat boys and girls differently.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40936719

On the nature vs nurture debate: a friend’s 3 year old daughter just moved nurseries.
Old nursery was outdoor style, very much child led. Daughter never much looked at dolls , dresses etc, was happily playing with cars.
4 months in her new nursery where everyone calls her “so pretty” when she puts on a princess dress, takes loads of photos for the app etc, and pretty much ignore her if she plays with cars - and she loves pretty dresses and refuses to do “boy things”.
Same child, less than 4 months.

But this is socialised behaviour - there is nothing inherently different between a boy and a girl that would mean a boy needs more 'rough and tumble'

Parents of boys are more likely to play rough with them, so boys learn to crave rough play.

Parents of girls are more likely to have them sit quietly (and keep their pretty dresses clean), so girls learn to avoid rough play.

It starts from babies.

Absolutely. I remember reading some research that showed that people cuddle boys less, even from a very young age, and it proposed that another reason boys wrestle and rough house is to meet the need for physical contact that they are lacking through lack of hugs/cuddles. Pretty sad really. We need to stop this kind of stereotyping, it’s so harmful.

Pretty sure the research says we start using different language to the fetus from the time we are aware of their sex.

Actually if this is really true to that extent, and if it’s universally found in all societies, then maybe treating baby boys and baby girls differently is something that is hardwired into us as parents, like the way people tend to use certain tones of voices with babies, which it then turned out actually helped babies “tune in” to language development?

IOW maybe it’s not just “bad parenting” but “instinctive” parenting?

(Or on the other hand maybe it’s not actually true? Like that study that found that survival rates for premature babies of black ethnicity were better when cared for by black doctors - only the researchers later admitted that they had omitted confounding data because it didn’t fit the “narrative”. And in the end it was really down to which doctors were looking after the most seriously ill babies, not the babies’ ethnicity at all.)

@Ileithyia I’ve seen a similar experiment where babies were dressed up as the different sex (using stereotypical clothes) and it was to see how adults treated them (no toys involved) and again the difference was marked, with ‘girls’ being treated much more gently and more cuddles etc.

It is true. It occurs from the time the parents know the sex of the baby in the uterus.

As a Black woman, I don't need research to tell me that I am going to get better care from a Black practitioner or at least a non-Black practitioner who understands the systemic racism in healthcare enough to protect me from it.

You’ve ignored the fact that the study didn’t show what it claimed to at all. The differences in survival rates were not due to racism from white doctors (which is a shocking thing to say without really serious evidence) but to the fact that it was the most senior doctors who cared for the illest babies, ie the ones most likely to die. And those doctors, for historic reasons, tended to be white.

No it was because more Black babies are born with VLBW. That in itself is a health outcome that needs investigating and other studies have indicated that systemic racism is a factor.

We are more than aware that systemic racism isn't "solved" by someone simply having a practitioner in the moment that looks like them. If that was the case, it wouldn't be systemic. It would be about racist individuals.

They admitted that more white babies also survived with those white doctors, but left that out because it didn’t fit the narrative.

That discredits anything else those “scientists” might have to say such as blaming white people for black babies’ low birth weight. Because it shows they want a narrative, and not the truth except that is comfortable for their pre existing beliefs about racism.