The Complete Parenting Collection. Steve Biddulph

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late teens, boys catch up with girls intellectually but, in the way schools work now, the damage is already done. The boys feel themselves to be failures, they miss out on key skills because they are just not ready, and so get turned off from learning.

      Holding boys back is also much less unkind. Sitting still at a desk is often hard and painful for small boys. In early primary school, boys (whose motor nerves are still growing) actually get signals from their body saying, ‘Move around. Use me’. To a stressed-out Grade 1 teacher, this looks like misbehaviour.

      A boy sees that his craft work, drawing and writing are not as good as the girls’, and thinks, ‘This is not for me!’. He quickly switches off from learning – especially if there is not a male teacher anywhere in sight to give that sense that learning is a male thing, too. ‘School is for girls’, he tells himself.

      There is much more that we can do to make school boy- friendly. This is explored in the chapter on schools, ‘A revolution in schooling’. But the first question – is he ready yet? – is perhaps the most important place to start.

      In school, the same help is needed. One young female Maths teacher I know rarely lets a lesson pass without using some practical, hands-on example of what is being studied – often going outside to do it in a practical way in the playground. She found that the less motivated of her students could get a grasp of the concepts if they could see them in practice and do physical things with their bodies to comprehend the idea being taught. They were getting right-brain concepts to link to their left-brain understanding – using their strengths to overcome their weaknesses. This teacher’s boy students loved learning from her, she was adventurous, keen and cared about them.

      Boys are not inferior – just different

      Having a well-developed right side of the brain, as boys tend to do, has many pluses. As well as having Mathematical and mechanical abilities, males tend to be action-oriented – if they see a problem, they want to fix it. The right side of the brain handles both feelings and actions, so men are more likely to take action, while women tend to mull over something to the point of total paralysis! It requires extra effort for a man to shift into his left hemisphere and find the words to explain the feelings he is registering in his right hemisphere.

      Germaine Greer has pointed out that there are more male geniuses in many fields, even though many may be imbalanced characters on the whole, needing someone to look after them (usually a woman)!

      In an era when advertising and the media mostly portray men doing bad or stupid things, it’s important to remember (and to show boys) about the men who built the planes, made the art and music, laid the railroad tracks, invented the cars, built the hospitals, discovered the medicines and sailed the ships that made our world so wonderful, safe and interesting. There’s an African saying, ‘Women hold up half the sky’. But, clearly, men hold up the other half.

      A new kind of man

      The world no longer needs men who can wrestle with buffaloes or cut down trees with a flint axe. In the modern world, where manual or mechanical labour is less and less needed, we need to take that masculine ability and energy and redirect it to a different kind of heroic effort. This means adding language and feeling skills to the thinking and doing skills of boys – making a kind of ‘superboy’ who is flexible across all kinds of skill areas.

      If you think about it, the great men of history – Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Buddha, Jesus – actually were like this. They had courage and determination, along with sensitivity and love for others. It’s an unbeatable mix, and it is certainly needed today.

       IN A NUTSHELL

      The gender differences created by male hormones and male genes need to be handled in practical ways. The following sums up what you can do with your boy to help him be a ‘new kind of man’.

BECAUSE BOYS OFTEN:	WE NEED TO:
…are prone to separation anxiety …	…show them as much affection as we do girls, and avoid separations, such as leaving them in childcare before the age of three.
…have testosterone surges, making them sometimes argumentative and restless – especially around age fourteen …	… calmly guide them through conflicts – settle them down with reasoning, not yelling at or attacking them. Be clear that they need to show good manners always, and never use or threaten violence. Fathers need to be role models and to insist that mothers are respected.
…have growth spurts that make them vague and disorganised, especially at age thirteen (this applies to girls too) …	… get involved in organising them, teaching them systems for tidying rooms, doing housework, tackling school projects in small bites, having a routine.
…have bursts of physical energy that need to be expressed …	… be sure to allow lots of space and time for exercise and moving about.
…have a slower rate of brain development, affecting fine-motor skills in early primary school …	… delay starting school until they have lots of pen-and-paper skills, can handle scissors, and so on.
…have fewer connections from the language half to the sensory half of the brain …	… read to them, tell them stories, and explain things, especially from ages one to eight.
…have a need for a clear set of rules and knowing who is in charge …	… have good, calm, orderly environments at home and school. Avoid schools where bullying is common and kids are not well supervised.
…have a more muscular body …	… specifically teach them not to hit or hurt others. Also teach them to use words to communicate (see our book Complete Secrets of Happy Children for ways to discipline that don’t involve hitting, shaming or blaming).
…have a tendency to act first without thinking of the consequences …	… talk with them often in a friendly way about options, choices, ways to solve problems, and what they can do in situations in their lives.

      

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