Before the whole nurture-nature thread gets out of hand I’m going to throw in the source. Avail www.thorsons.com category parenting. His books which I haven’t read are :The secret of Happy Children and Manhood. I doubt that anyone would seriously object to what he hasto say in context and might find it at least food for thought.
I didn’t know there was a testosterone surge around age 4 in boys, but I’ve seen my sweet babies and their peers turn into gun toting space zooming jedi lone rangers like clockwork about then. And i know even the Pirate-Warrior princess types that self-select as play companions drop out early and want to watch beauty and Beast. Never oncehave they agreed to Zorro despite heavy lobbying by the boys. Testosterone , obviously must have more side effects than just making the dangley bits grow and then operating the hydraulic system from puberty on. And in fact what he suggests is not sending boys to the office for behavior is what causes it. When boys are acting out it is because the adult community has failed them by not providng order and structure not because it is male PMT. There are unpopular conclusions like baby boys should NOT be put in daycare. They suffer more from separation anxiety and it can lead to clinical depression later. And because boys brains develop more slowly because of testosterone they should not enter a public school system until they are 6 or 7.
But unfortunately everything i put here is again out of context. I would suggest keep an open mind and get the tape or book.
Re: Raising Boys, By Steve Biddulph
Umm Victoria. He in fact says many of the things that you say. A therapist who writes a book for layman may be classed as a poular psychologist but that does not mean that he is not equally well-published in his field. I do approach these things with a healthy skepticism and I think that anyone who does would still find a lot of food for thought. Incorporated is the fact that some girls (and women) show high-testosterone behavior. It is not just a male hormone. You said in one of your posts that you would not presume to tell another parent how to raise their child. Well, have you raised boys? Before you attack something you haven’t read I wouuld suggest you read it. Everything I have put is out of context and ill-explained. But you have not said anything in your posts that he does not also say. And I found esp intersting what he said about rt -brain wiring and LD’s in boys since that seems to be where my son’s prob is centred.
Re: Raising Boys, By Steve Biddulph
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I wonder what you would think if the next popular book recommended special treatment for girls and your boys got left out?
Helping little boys does NOT take away from girls
In fact that IS my point. You are starting from the attitude that giving little boys what THEY need takes something away from little girls. It does NOT. But raising boys without the support that their more slowly and differently developing brains and bodies need does take away from them and ends up with emotionally disconnected and violent males.
There are a lot of judgemental attitudes towards little boys that help to make school hell for them and when they are at their most vulnerable.
There isn’t a 4 yr old boy who isn’t a hero along with that testosterone surge. At age 4 there isn’t a boy who doesn’t want to save the world and as mine says “fight for freemen and justice”. And I DON’T see little girls dressing up in capes to save the world for truth and justice once again!!!! There IS a difference.
It is a pretty systematic process in society to disassociate boys from their feelings and individual personalities. When physical disposition is there in wiring and chemistry to begin with and we don’t give them what they need we end up changing 4 yr old heroes into teenage killers.
It made a light go on in my head when I learned that even boy toddlers acting out are doing so because they are Anxious and AFRAID. And to not be afraid they need a different environment to learn in. It has suited society for eons to crush that fear and anxiety and turn it to aggression. It has suited society to raise aggressive males with fewer emotional left-brain connections who can easily shutdown emotions. To change that process society will need to understand what happens , recognize that it happens and raise boys differently.
I beleive in girls getting more support and teaching for math and science , and maybe even in single sex classes since they do better there and I don’t understand why it doesn’t follow as well that boys need more intensive language training, classes teaching them how to use words for conflict resolution, to preserve , stengthen and make more left side connections thru out infancy and childhood. And with boys it looks like it is from infancy to puberty when this needsto happen.
I fought hard for rights for women. It looks like I’m going to have to fight as hard for my little boys to be the strong , proud heroes they were born to be.
Re: Helping little boys does NOT take away from girls
Once again, you repeat the same well-worn prejudices. You talk so nicely about giving girls extra help in math where they need it — except, you see, I happen to be a woman who is a math graduate and I don’t need the so-called extra “help”, thank you very much; in fact the stuff that is advertised as “help” for girls is the worst thing that could be applied to people who learn like me and would have caused me frustration and failure in school.. But hey, I’m female so what do I know about how to learn math? Sure, your boys need to be taught properly. So do girls. Proper teaching is not sex-linked, proper teaching is concerned with the actual needs of each child. As soon as you lump people of any age into groups and define this group as having to have this particualr treatment, that is called *prejudice* and it is harmful to all concerned, both the “in” group and the “out” group. Never mind, you know all the answers so I’ll just go away and talk to people who want a discussion.
I was trying to suggest a reasoned skepticism before, and will try again. I have not read this particular book, but from your comments it appears to be another pop culture thing — reinforces popular ideas through picking and choosing which science to report and which to ignore, hits a lot of people’s hot buttons, and sells very well. If you want to have a discussion about facts, you have to get away from the highly advertised commercial books and look up the dull dry articles with the actual facts in them, and they are a lot less striking and exciting, suggesting small differences and tendencies, not two different species of humans.