Can boys be civilised, as in, made civil?

[NineNine]

I have dds. For every mother I meet who has a ds who is a bit loud or physical or unruly, at some point we have a conversation where she implies or says outright that boys are so different and my girls are ‘easy’ more or less because they are girls.

It drives me crazy because I have put a lot of effort into teaching my dds to be empathetic and considerate but also not to accept bad behaviour from others. But time and again I see boys being aggressive and destructive and it’s just shrugged off because boys will be boys...

Obviously NABALT, but I wondered if anyone has had dss who they have struggled with but feel they have had a positive impact on their behaviour? Have the mothers of these disruptive boys tried their best, and know better than me what boys are really like? Or have they been shrugging their shoulders all along and not even attempted to avoid what they believe is typical male behaviour?

I’m sorry SafeandWarm, I didn’t intend to make anyone feel bad, just to challenge any instincts to say boys will be boys.

Your situation sounds really hard, I hope you can find something that works for your ds. I fully accept I have been lucky with my dds, but I refuse to accept it’s because they are girls, that’s all. And it sounds like you would never claim that anyway. Good luck with everything xx

Thank you, sorry I’m having a bit of a bad day.

safeandwarm the op hasn't criticised your parenting. She is criticising those she sees interpreting their ds's aggressive behaviour as 'boisterous' and downplaying it. I'm sorry you're having a tough time with your ds.

Sorry cross post

I think all little human beings should be taught to respect each other's boundaries, that constructive play should be encouraged over destructive play and that when a parent or teacher says desist that they desist! The reference to 'boisterous' is when it is used to explain away boundary violating or destructive play. Boisterous is fine as long as everyone is enjoying it!

OP, of course there were (very consistent) consequences but in all truth he grew out of it.

I don't know what age children you are talking about as that makes a big difference. I don't think majority adult violence is down to lack of discipline around the playing of young children. I think it's down to same sex modelling - I'm a lot more like my mum than my violent father. Boys will be boys has very little in my lived experience to do with domestic violence which is terrifying and nothing at all like I ever see (normal) children playing, even roughly. I think a lot is learnt and men pick it up more as it likely comes from their main role models.

We’re increasingly sedentary as a society, and we seem to be expecting our children to conform. Please stop equating “boisterous”, “active” and “noisy” with being violent and aggressive. Children should be allowed the opportunity and space to indulge these normal impulses.

Interesting. Perhaps the girls are being over-socialised to be ‘quiet’ and ‘well-mannered’ which could come at the expense of their enjoyment of sport etc.

My DS is constantly being elbowed out of the way by boys and girls. I have heard a lot of ‘boys will be boys’ nonsense in my small, parochial town. I don’t normally challenge it (small talk) but I don’t repeat it and it wouldn’t excuse bad behaviour from him. My husband is a gentle, kind man but that might all be excellent parenting by MIL, of course!

If you see children playing in an especially violent way I'd be deeply concerned about their home life and their safety. They aren't 'bad' kids, or undisciplined - they are likely victims and witnesses of some pretty terrifying behaviour.

Perhaps we have different definitions of “boisterous”. To me it means noisy and very active, NOT aggressive or rough.

DS is at his happiest climbing trees and whizzing round the park on his bike, as fast as his legs can carry him. Usually singing at the top of his voice. I’m fine with this; not because he’s a boy but because he’s 8! I was the same at that age.

That doesn’t mean he’s allowed to be violent or destructive.

HTKS, you’ve hit the nail on the head. I do think that - as a class - there are physical differences between boys and girls, that may be based in biology (eg hormones), that may make boys as a general rule, more active. And this is seen as a negative in the mainly female milieu they are brought up in. On what planet is being “physical” a bad thing? And going from “a bit loud” to violent is a bit of a jump, no? Such negative commentary on normal childhood behaviour is surely more likely to contribute to the problem of disaffected young men.

The opening post clearly talks about aggressive and destructive behaviour, not just physical and active. No one sensible would suggest that being physical and active is a problem! I don't think that being physical/active is seen generally as a negative.

Interesting. Perhaps the girls are being over-socialised to be ‘quiet’ and ‘well-mannered’ which could come at the expense of their enjoyment of sport etc.

Possibly, yes. I don’t think being very active and being well mannered are mutually exclusive. DS, as described above, has ADHD but also has beautiful manners. He works very, very hard at not letting his need for constant motion be disruptive to other people. But I do feel sad for him that the current ideal for children’s behaviour seems to be as quiet, sedentary and unobtrusive as possible. I think praising girls for conforming to this, and claiming that it’s “natural” or innate for them can be damaging too.

So someone ( sorry no sources available because I have had a right day and can’t face google ) did a survey of the behaviour of toddler - / babies (before good speech)

A load of nursery staff rated the children , and they found that the boys were boisterous , rough and tumble types playing with bricks and car and the girls lovely, playing with dolls and were very gentle and caring.

However half the time the girls were actually boys and vices versa. The nursery staff saw behaviours and treated the children different solely because of how the children were dressed, and the children responded directly to that treatment

So take any notion that boys are fundamentally different and lock it away and think about how you treat the children, what behaviour you expect, accept, reward.

Many similar studies available. This is just the first one I ever heard about. It’s about 20 years old

Well said Midgebabe

Ok I think the op and title were unfortunate.

Have you watched this?

Even if boys are sometimes more energetic in character than girls (which I'm not fully sure of, but there's a branch of all this to do with learning difficulties where possibly there are more boys than girls diagnosed with certain difficulties) the way those energies are dealt with stereotypically can have a huge impact. So yes "boys will be boys" is very damaging for boys and girls. As in, those boys may grow up to be aggressive towards women too.

FWIW- 'bruiser baby' is much calmer than older male sibling who was tiny at birth but would go crazy in the womb, kicked and pushed so hard one ankle was wonky, continued that frame of existence to now. At school is wonderful, was applauded for writing a poem about armistice day that bright tears to the teachers eye, often played with girls, has a girl best friend outside school, is polite and incredibly caring towards his younger sibling. I have to often beg him to stop bouncing about but I've never once had to tell him off for fighting or hurting another child. I let him have guns as I had guns as a child (and used a real rifle- even on a school residential) he's not especially bothered by them. (Though I don't live in in a high gun crime area. Dunno if that would alter my view)

But I've tried very hard to encourage kindness endlessly as I would with a girl . We watched ants together a lot when tiny; last summer I was banned from certain parts of the front path in case I damaged their homes.

Also, I took my friend's children to a super market once and wasn't sure how to deal with her 8 yr dd old doing cartwheels in the aisles. Because I wouldn't have allowed it personally. I've worked hard on ds not using the aisles as racing tracks. So hard he loudly told dh off for doing it once.

Oh and I was to hear my local school reception teacher has reassured a mum friend that her very boisterous and gets into trouble for hurrying other children son with "boys will be boys" and "it's just little boys, he'll grow out of it".

Hurting

Ffs. I have 2 kids. They are well behaved (mostly) because DH and I put a lot of thought and effort into teaching them to be so. They have their moments as all kids do.
They are boys though so I'm probably wasting my time, right OP?

DearTeddyRobinson you've missed her point.

I know a surprising number of extremely middle-class people who do the "boys will be boys" thing even if they don't exactly say it out loud. And even when it doesn't excuse outright violence I see it excusing a lot of entitled behaviour that would be shamed out of a girl.

I have boys and my boys (so far) are civilised. If in doubt, I make an effort to ask myself "would I tolerate this behaviour from a little girl?".

Yes, it's certainly a but suspicious that this was posted in the feminism section rather than the parenting one...

My DS is 7 and most definitely boisterous, physical etc.

He has always had to have firm boundaries and always pushes them. We are good parents. DH is hands on as well. There is no violence in our house, he has had a range of toys and clothes (he has a doll, a princess dress and raids my make up alongside all of the rest of the more typical clothes), he was an early talker, we never minimise his behaviour or talk in terms of gender stereotypes. He does a lot of physical activity and plays an instrument as well. He has a reputation of being physical so DH and I monitor him as best we can and remove him from situations that have gone awry. He is an only child but we have pets which have really helped with his empathy. He is worse near illness (before and after), if he’s tired, stressed or excited, and/he if one of us has been away.

I have read a lot of parenting books, had advice from nursery, childminder, health visitor, the gp, school nurse, a paediatrician we know, positive parenting classes, school, SENCO and even a clinical psychologist this month. We are as engaged as we possibly can be because we are trying to help him manage his behaviour and because in a small village, his card was marked a long time ago.

He is not autistic, doesn’t have ADHD etc. He is developmentally behind in managing anger and excitement. He needs time, patience and a little extra support to build up his skills.

Those of you who have less boisterous children are lucky. We haven’t chosen this path. We have done everything we ‘should’ have done and more but here we are.

He is boisterous but he is also loving, charismatic, funny, imaginative, sensitive and kind.

Sometimes you just have to manage the hand life dealt you as best as you can... maybe some of these parents as best as they can as well.

Did anyone criticise boisterous behaviour? I think what was in question was minimising aggressive boundary violating or out of control behaviours as 'merely boisterous' when they are not merely boisterous. Also it is parental minimisation not the behaviours of the children themselves that are being criticised.

Ah, NAMALT in action, always such a pleasure to see.

Everyone else is discussing their children and their parenting strategies - why is it not ok for me to mention DS? Why is that NAMALT?

Yes he has problems with anger management and occasional violence as well so I think our experiences are relevant to the thread. Apologies if I was unclear, the post got long