Interesting Article

I read a really interesting article in the grapevine magazine this morning regarding gender issues.

It spoke to me significantly and really did confirm everything I had concluded for myself over the past few years and also explained a few things that I have yet to experience with my own children.(Namely teen issues.)

I will summarize it briefly as I really think we could all benefit from it's wisdom.

*The majority of young boys between the ages of 5 and 9 who teachers, parents and schools believe to have ADHD, in reality do not! These children do not need drugs instead they need teachers who understand that the best way to teach a young boy is often very different than the best way to teach a young girl of a similar age.

*A young boys hearing is less sensitive than a young girls so in a classroom boys should be sitting close to the teacher and not at the back. In the homeschool environment a parent should go to a young boy and get down on his level face to face if she wants him to hear what she has to say. When explaining a lesson or reading aloud young boys should be right next to their parent and shouldn't be instructed from a distance.

*Boys and girls vision develops differently and boys seem to overwhelmingly prefer to play with things that involve the magnocellular visual system - namely things that MOVE! Whereas girls seem to prefer things that have colour and texture. This can explain why girls start using colour and detail in their drawing at a young age whilst boys of a similar age are busy drawing black and white stick figures engaged in a variety of fighting and battle scenes. In this circumstance the most damaging thing a teacher or parent can do is try to get the boys to draw like the girls or express a preference for the colour and detail shown in the girls art work. Nothing will have a more detrimental effect on a boys confidence in his artistic abilities than this.



*Boys tend to take more risks than girls and when more than one boy gathers together they tend to each use less of their brain than they would if facing a situation on their own. The collective IQ of a group of teenage boys is significantly lower than the IQ of 1 teenage boy. This is the reason why boys often tend to take unnecessary risks when they are in a group that they often wouldn't even consider if they were on their own.

*Discipline needs are different with boys and girls. Girls usually respond best to emotive reasoning...such as "How would you feel if they did that to you?" Where as the most effective method of discipline for boys is punishment and reward. Boys need immediate black and white consequences where as a girl often will not need anything more than some gentle persuasion or discussion of feelings. This is one of the reasons that boys often respond better to discipline when it comes from theri father who will typically discipline themas comes naturally to him.

*For girls conflict is a serious issue and often means the end of a friendship, whereas boys use conflict as a means of moving on and building a friendship and establishing hierarchy and boundaries within a friendship. Conflict for boys is usually here today gone tomorrow. For girls though yesterdays conflict could last until next year and sometimes even for the rest of their lives. Banning fighting or aggressive play in boys will not make them into gentler people instead denying those natural aggressive impulses a constructive outlet may well result in more serious kinds of fighting later in life as they will not learn to move beyond and resolve conflict effectively which could prevent them building and maintaining meaningful relationships in spite of conflicts that will always naturally occur.

*When it comes to emotions the brain activity in a 12 or 17 year old boy is no different than that of a 6 year old boy. So talking about feelings is something that most boys are not comfortable doing at any age. Face to face confrontation of emotional issues is almost never effective with boys instead they prefer to work shoulder to should with you and have you steer the conversation the direction you want it to take while they are busy focusing on something else. eg the scenery or the work at hand. Girls on the other hand often like nothing better than to sit down over a cuppa and have a nice heart to heart chat.

*Girls and boys have different attitudes and values regarding sex. Girls often get involved in premarital sex because they think it is what is expected of them or required of them. Where as boys ... Well we all know what teenage boys spend a lot of their time thnking about. The role models found in music videos, on TV and in movies often create an un-natural perspective on sex which is detrimental to both boys and girls. Girls tend to spend a lot of their teen years worrying about what the boys think of them which can restrict their participation in certain activities and prevent them from feeling comfortable in their on skin. For this reason it was suggested that girls and boys participate in single sex activities as much as is possible to prevent their budding sexual awareness from overshadowing other areas of their development..

*The psychologist interviewed in the magazine recommended that "school" kids should also attend single sex schools whenever possible from an early age for both educational and social reasons.(Naturally we'll all agree that homeschool is an even better option.)

And that is just a brief summary of the main points in the article. I found it to be a very interesting and in my opinion realistic perspective of the differences between girls and boys.

If you'd like to read more go to the following links.....

http://www.whygendermatters.com/

http://www.boysadrift.com/

Blessings

Nina