Male vs. Female Emotionally Disturbed/Behavior Disordered St

I remember listening to an Australian speaker on “Raising Boys”. He said that when the brain is being wired the nuerons are supposed to cross wire the left and right side of brain but testosterone makes it difficult for them to connect to the left side so unable to connect they come back and doublewire the right side.
I’m paraphrasing here so if anyone can clarify this jump in, but I thought that made sense if true. He also said that testosterone and double wired right brains meant that boys needed more structure. Without structure , somebody taking charge and being the alpha male boys become anxious. When boys are anxious and insecure-they act out. Boys running around screaming and tantrumming are boys who need to know who’s in charge, what the rules are, and that the rules will be consistently and fairly enforced- at any age. Wo that they feel the position is up for grabs and they ought to compete for it and it makes them afraid and aggressive. It sort of makes sense why sometimes bootcamp and military school is what he kid who couldn’t succeed at high school needs.

Yes, I live with 3 alpha males (includes husband of course, they need limits too). This makes sense. Thanks for explaining this, all my boys seem a little hardwired to the right.

My son does better, with everything, when the limits are set in stone.

The best book I found on this (and I have read alot on this particular subject) is “Back Talk” I forget the author. I lent it away and probably need a new copy as a refresher.

My 20+ years were the same. Females are underserved. When abused they tend to act in, males tend to act out. Males are the greater threat, get the attention and the staffing. I do not believe disturbance is gene related nor do I believe reading difficulties are gender related. I also think Scots could make damned good basketball players and African-Americans could make damned good hockey players. Put that on the record!

It’s not really a gender specific thing. Girls have testosterone too and individual inherited traits that over ride other things. But generally….Need my resident male right brainers to implement all my design ideas though. Explains why when building trains with one yr old and not able to get bridge to fit with suppot pieces - 4 yr old rt brainer took one look and said in most patronizing gentle voice, ” Mom, you might try it THIS way.” And turned bridge over. It fit. It looked the same to me…

Amen! I too have experienced many more boys then girls but think that you are absolutely correct that girls (society requires this!) behave in a more internal way then what we permit boys to. Nurture vs nature - I continue to buy nurture in most areas, including this one! We accept more “stupid” behavior from boys then girls and are shocked when girls act out “like boys”. You go girls! I’ve even seen teachers send girls to the office for behavior that would never result in a boy being referred.

…….because we, as a society, have successfully taught them to be submissive?
Are we really that powerful?

Testosterone is a very powerful hormone, responsible for many unwanted
thoughts and behaviors…..LOL. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was also
responsible for the “wiring” problem in the brain. This is fascinating! Thanks!

selective!

OK, so I have to add more to this question! Watched any TV lately? As a female I hate the way women are typically portrayed. In my house gender is not an issue. My daughter, who is 22, is not submissive and as a matter of fact is so sure of herself and has such high standards that I’m not sure any man will ever be able to live up to them. But to answer your question - yes yes yes, society has created this situation. Women continue to make less then men, except in education - yea!!!! (public) If we are assertive, we are bitches. I could go on and on but I think I’ve made my point. I know I can’t change society so I do what I can with the people I touch - I hope it makes a difference.

I have noticed in my 10 yr. old son’s sped classes over 5 yrs. only 2 female students.

As a mom and former foster mom for 8 yrs. my personal opinion is that boys would rather be playing, doing something active for their first 8 yrs. Girls will usually be content doing art, drawing, quiet games and therefore are able to sit still and consentrait at an earlier age.

If we used an example of a boy without any learning problems who was pretty active and a girl same age I have seen boys having more trouble being interested in work.

I think there probably are more girls out there that need help, but since they sit still, don’t cause a problem they may be going undetected.

I still have trouble buying the idea that girls show fewer emotional issues
because we have taught them to as a society. I have seen many a female
outburst in my day as well as male outbursts. Granted, the males tend to be
more violent…….but I still don’t think societal expectations are the reason
females are not in ED/BD classes. The testosterone theory provided earlier
makes more sense. Granted………I’m a guy…….LOL. Thanks for your input
however! I do take it seriously.

You may *like* a theory such as the testosterone theory, but liking it does NOT mean it’s true. And yes, I’m a woman who majored in the non-traditional areas of science and advanced math, and I know how to differentiate between a logical argument and an emotional opinion, even if that is typically supposed to be a “masculine” approach. A lot of half-baked theories like this have done a lot of harm, and as educators we should at least try our best to find the truth and use the best information available.
Just for one example, there was a half-baked theory for some years that autism was caused by “refrigerator mothers” who didn’t show appropriate emotional warmth; it was a comforting theory to the psychologists, but incredibly destructive to the children, the mothers, and the whole family. I mention this one because there was a recent TV show interviewing some of the people whose lives had been damaged or destroyed and you may have seen it. Please take warning and don’t hop on the latest pop psychology bandwagon because it sounds good to you.

Social pressures to fit gender stereotypes start from the second of birth, and it is very hard to tease out the behaviours that are actually caused by hormones and those that are socially programmed. Some day, take an hour and watch mothers and teachers with babies and toddlers at the local park or community center. Loud behaviour from boys will be laughed off and even encouraged, while in girls the same behaviour is corrected. Quietness and withdrawal in a girl will be allowed or even encouraged, while a boy will be pressured to be more outgoing. Since this starts at birth and goes on for a minimum of five or six years of the most impressionable time of the child’s life before you even meet them in the classroom, you really can’t say how much is inborn and how much is environment.

From everything I have read, it seems that the gender differences are quite small. If you measure a thousand people very carefully, yes you will find some *average* differences between men and women; but 80% of both men and women will fall into a middle range, and ten percent of women will be above the average of men and ten percent of men above the average of women, so you CANNOT predict the individual from the average. All those of you dealing with LD out there certainly have experience with the difference between the individual and the average!

As far as placement in classes — well, is anyone else out there old enough, or well-read enough to remember the foolishness that was promulgated in the 70’s about LD? At that time it was said that dyslexia and other LD’s were almost always sex-linked and so almost all students identified as dyslexic or LD were boys. Many reading classes were then like your behaviour classes now, 90% and more boys.
Then a few people took a real hard look at the data and found that no, reading problems are spread through the population, perhaps not exactly 50-50 but not nine to one either. But girls with reading problems didn’t generally act out so they were not a problem and were just passed over.

The fact that the few girls you get are exceptionally agressive — sure, been there myself. If you are a chubby blonde girl or woman, it is very hard to get respect. People pass you over easily. You can give up and accept being passed over, or you can go somewhere else and do your own thing, or if it is a really important issue and nothing else will work you can raise hell. The girls you get have been trying to get attention for their problems whatever they are, and they have not only had the usual ignorance, but they have been told that since they are girls they are wrong to be the way they are. So they have to be twice as bad to get their point across. Not a desirable situation by a long shot, but understandable. If you can reach them, they are probably very intelligent and capable people who can go far when they are given a chance.

Having come to that time of life and had my hormone levels tested found myself low on testosterone. My experience was unmitigated estrogen is much nastier than the balance. On the other hand more on topic According to my Readers Digest source women should have levels around 500 Average man 1500. Teenage boys can range from 2000 to above 3000. It takes that to turn their bodies into men. But I think women who’ve been pregnant and parents of teenage boys can attest you can’t go thru that kind of hormone flooding wo having some effect on your brain. (And when Mom’s menoupausal …LOL
Dad posted a while back about some research into testosterone levels in pregnant women and autism. There’s a lot of new research out there. I don’t think the original post was excusing boys behavior but rather explaining WHY boys are boys and why they act out more- which seems to be uncontested. Not because boys will be boys but because they are anxious and afraid. I think it is meant to counter the old attitudes.
Jim in New Orleans might like to read, “I Don’t Want to Talk About It”by psychologist Terrence Real, Family Institute of Cambridge. He treats male alcoholism, family violence, difficulty with intimacy , rage, workaholism as depression. Women turning in on themselves feeling suicidal etc.. are diagnosed as depressed. And those symptoms tend to be identified as those of depression. He writes that men’s depression manifests differently but identifies it as depression and treats it as such.

http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/07/28/loc_cutting_through_pain.html

So the guys are the ones in the ED/BD classes; the girls are the ones quietly slicing themselves up. It sorta doesn’t matter whether its nurture or nature — the tendencies pervade even under many different social atmospheres and “societal pressures.”

Read my post that you responded to again, more CAREFULLY this time if
you please. I never said I “liked” the theory…….I said it made sense. Lots of
theories make sense. I’m trying to find answers as to why there are more boys
than girls in ED/BD classes, and the testosterone thing was one possibility,
and NOT, as you misconstrued, to excuse the behavior, but because it may
cause some interference in the “wiring” of the brain.

You suggest, along with others, that girls do not act out(and are therefore not
placed) because they have been taught to be submissive. Possibly. I still find
that a little hard to believe, however, especially given that we are teaching
females(thankfully, I might add!) to be more assertive in our society, that they
should have all the entitlements of men.

Submissiveness in females…….yet another theory to explain why there are more
males than females in ED/BD classes, and I thank you! :-)

Guys are cutting themselves up too, sp. ed. classes or not. If indeed more
females need services in ED/BD classes, perhaps we should all be focusing
on ways of identifying them and getting them placed? Any ideas on this?

I suggest that you read *my* post more carefully.

Lots of things seem sensible to us — and are dead wrong. If you had grown up in the eighteenth century, you would have thought that it made perfect sense that certain people are inferior and certain people are superior and God ordained it that way. In fact, at that time many of the people classed as “inferior” internalized that judgement about themselves and supported the system as it was — it could never have continued otherwise. See Thomas Jefferson and family for one well-publicized bit not at all unusal example.

I was not talking about “submissiveness”, although that is one part of the issue, but about learned behaviours of distancing oneself from a fight you are destined to lose; this takes various forms from inhibition to introspection to complete withdrawal to excessive desire to please, to bitchiness and manipulation.

If you want to have a discussion about science and facts, look up the real science and facts. If you want to trade insults, I am one of those bitchy women who will sling them right back at you. But I would much prefer the reasoned discussion, thank you.

Well, I have lopts of ideas about this, but clearly you don’t respect my ideas.
And perhaps this is part of the problem in your identification processes, your respionse to a woman who disagreed with you in a polite and scholastic manner being a nasty personal comment, maybe you need to look at your *own* attitudes towards girls and women.

I think this is interesting:

The woman is advocating science be the guide the man is looking at theories.

HMM I like this.

I have learned over and over and over again the importance of objective data in guiding practice for all things.

I think there are quite a few studies suggesting females tendancies toward inward destructive behavior versus men being more outwardly aggressive.

Anorexia is certainly well studied and is known to be caused by exactly this type of socialization.

**Except — the incidence of male anorexia is increasing rapidly!**

Boys haven’t caught up with girls in the degree of self-starvation, but as social and media pressure on male body image is increasing, the number of boys needing to be treated is also increasing.

Read *recent* articles in any reputable publication — I read Scientific American which is definitely dependable, and Discover which is a bit popularized but usually fairly good.

I don’t have the exact numbers to reference but it goes something like this: twenty years ago there were almost no male patients in anorexia treatment, less than one percent. Since then the number of female patients has tripled or quadrupled (again, I’m estimating, just to give an idea) but the number of male patients has increased tenfold or more; they now make up perhaps (estimate again) five percent. If this pattern continues, in another ten years it will be (again, estimating) ten percent male patients and so on.

This is a *perfect* example of the fact that social pressures have a heck of a lot more to do with behaviour than genes and hormones. Anorexia has always existed, but was a rare problem until it became socially acceptable and technically possible to show thousands of images of scantily-clothed tiny-waisted women in every home, so that girls could become habituated to an unrealistic goal of body image, and female anorexia grew exponentially starting in the sixties and seventies. But for many years although women could be scantily clothed, men were not seen the sdame way. Only in the past ten to fifteen years do we see lots of images of scantily-clothed men with tiny waists and hips; and lo and behold the rates of male anorexia have mushroomed.

Victoria-
Excuse me, but I was never “nasty” in any of my replies. My language was
appropriate, my tone was calm. I thanked you for your ideas and response
in answer to your rather unpolite retort. The truth is, the moment you did not
like what I said, you went on the attack.My friend, I’m not the one with issues
here. Your responses were argumentative, judgemental, and filled with
accusations. However, I’m burying the hatchet. I’m here to get ideas, share
info., and gain insights. I simply have better things to do than argue with
someone who takes offense because I don’t bow down and worship their opinion. May God bless you with success in your professional and private life! :-)

Victoria-
Excuse me, but I was never “nasty” in any of my replies. My language was
appropriate, my tone was calm. I thanked you for your ideas and response
in answer to your rather unpolite retort. The truth is, the moment you did not
like what I said, you went on the attack.My friend, I’m not the one with issues
here. Your responses were argumentative, judgemental, and filled with
accusations. However, I’m burying the hatchet. I’m here to get ideas, share
info., and gain insights. I simply have better things to do than argue with
someone who takes offense because I don’t bow down and worship their opinion. May God bless you with success in your professional and private life! :-)

You write

appropriate, my tone was calm. >

Excuse me, on the internet, all capitals means you are raising your voice.
A sentence in all capitals means you are yelling at me.

Asterisks are taken to mean stress or underlining. Asterisks in an all-caps-sentence mean extreme stress as well as yelling.

I am not making these rules up off the top of my head; you will find them in any article on nettiquette.

A post which started with an all-caps sentence (I quote from memory here so this may be a little inaccurate, but this is certainly the sense of your post)

<>

is *not* calm, it is the equivalent of screaming at me at the top of your lungs.

Further, in what is supposed to be a scholarly discussion, the implication that I do not read or am not capable of reading your posts is exceptionally rude and demeaning; this is *not* appropriate.

Reading your previous posts I thought you seemed a well-informed and capable teacher; getting this screaming response when I dared to disagree with you has made me lose respect for your intellectual integrity.
If you want to tell me that you really did not intend to scream insults in my face during what was supposed to be an intellectual discussion, OK, drop me a line here or by email and let’s share some ideas.

PS

You also write:

accusations. >

someone who takes offense because I don’t bow down and worship their opinion. >

Hmm, I would call these statements argumentative, judgemental, and highly offensive. Hardly burying the hatchet; rather snotty in fact.

My *first* post was perhaps somewhat argumentative, in a philosophical and scholarly way, but certainly not personaly insulting.

AFTER you tossed out a lot of personal attacks, I replied in kind. I gave backing down in front of aggression years ago. (See original post).

Do you wish to discuss education, or to prove that you have even more screaming an insults waiting for anyone who dares to disagree wtih you? I once more repeat my offer to get this back on a level of reasoned discussion.

I did not intend to do any screaming or insulting in any way. It is obvious that
some of my perceptions were incorrect, and therefore……I sincerely
apologize. Yes…….I would like to continue to share ideas. I am a capable,
intelligent teacher who cares for his students dearly. I share with my parents
weekly through e-mails and phone calls. I also have ten-year-old triplet girls
who are flourishing, due in part to good parenting and in part to the good
grace of God…..LOL. Again……..for whatever miscues I made here in my
communications with you……..I apologize………and simply wish to get back
to discussing ideas. My intentions are sincere.

Just for one thing, you need to look for the withdrawn ones who have been so successful in their withdrawal that nobody even notices it any more. Not the ones that the teacher points out as withdrawn, but the ones who never get mentioned at all by anone anywhere.
And when counselling them, please be very careful not to put any fault or further demands on their shoulders — they-re already trying not to be here, not to take up space, and any more guilt can lead to total collapse and complete their lack of faith in the world.