General background on boys growing up and feeling for sex differences.
- Specific development, specific tasks
- Nature, nurture, stereotyping
- Movement and language
- Outside influences
- What does really matter?
- Boys with a different background
- Fathers
An extended and wider elaborated version of this text can be found on the page Basics, Boys in Balance
Specific development, specific tasks
What do boys really want? What makes their lives meaningful? At the moment there is worldwide much attention for boys falling behind in education and for their misconduct. But how about their qualities? What about our attention for them? Boys do need more and better attention in upbringing and education, they hunger for good and inspiring examples, integrity and wisdom that is not imposed on them, but offered in communication and respect.
Just like girls, but otherwise, they are faced with specific tasks to develop into balanced adults. They need space and attention to fulfil these tasks. Too much space equals neglect. Too much restrictions and negative attention breeds negative reactions, grudge and despair. Misconduct is often the result of a long process.
Keywords are: contact, eye for their already mastered qualities, safety, connection with the world and focus on their future. Of course, setting clear limits can be (very) necessary, but it's important to make a difference between learning (from within, leading to self control, makes proud) and obedience (externally oriented, costs extra energy, produces dependence and fosters low self esteem and resistance).
Nature, nurture, stereotyping
XX or XY? After all everyone is different. Nature is only the raw material with which boys and girls start their journey in life. Nurture (care, upbringing, education and media) anticipates, builds and reacts on it. Naturally, it doesn’t make sense to reduce boys and girls to their biological differences, there is so much more. Basically it's all about doing justice to both boys and girls, supporting them to develop into balanced grown-ups with responsibility for themselves, towards others and this our planet, reaching a meaningful place in this world in cooperation with others.
So: no stereotyping, but in raising children and education it makes sense to have some feeling for & insight in some important average sex and gender differences in their nature (body including the brain), the way the environment influences them and their maturation process. These differences can be dominant or not, and turn out differently in each individual. We better adjust to these in our practice.
Movement and language
Boys are associated with qualities such as creativity, being physically orientated, the instinct to experiment, curiosity and daring, or they can develop these qualities, just as girls, but boys are on average more inclined to do so. Learning to relax and control their often strong impulses is very important for them, as tension and high energy have the tendency to shut off their higher brain functions, anticipation and empathy. Their lingual development - say what you feel, communicate with words and so also getting grip on your feelings - tends to be slower. It takes them more time to find the right words, whereas their movement in space seems to develop faster. Often asked "What are you doing there?", they have to account for their deeds and feel that their words may turn against them ("Everything you say can be hold as evidence...") and so they bluff, lie, wriggle out or even worse: they refrain from an important developmental task: language, and by using this: reflection, leading also to inner language and getting grip on their own emotions.
In girls other qualities draw attention like empathy, communication and verbal expression. Elements I mentioned for boys are less conspicuous, but girls can acquire these qualities as well, sometimes with extra stimuli (for example self defence, or learning to make mistakes and learn from them). Girls have the task not to make abuse of their empathy, verbal and social skills.
Even so boys can - when they are up to it, thus not forced upon them - acquire better verbal and communication skills.
Boys do have much to offer - just as girls do - but they are often portrayed negatively: they are said to be restless, unmanageable, school dropouts, they would behave dangerously or are destructively aggressive. This portrait does not work, it's not constructive, it points at the negative, and doing so so reinforcing that aspect. Of course boys do have their own responsibility, they can grow towards that, but sometimes it is as if we blame them for the effects of our neglect and bad examples.
Outside influences
No boy is the same, whether it be in terms of background, culture, temperament or sexual orientation. Each has an individual interpretation of his own life and has to make something of it himself. To a certain extent, boys have to deal with partially other tasks than girls when they are growing up, both in terms of their disposition, their biological make up in body and brain, the male heritage placed on their shoulders and because they have few close and communicative male models.
They grow up somewhat more irregularly, some of their qualities come sooner, other later. In general it takes them longer to mature into adulthood than girls and they thus need to be given extra and sometimes different forms of attention. When they are up to it they can learn to communicate better whereas girls for example can learn to defend themselves also physical.
Boys can and should learn to get to know themselves and others, see what suits them, direct their energy into constructive channels, get connected and achieve a sense of balance. Women can give this attention. But boys do also need positive and near male examples. Male dominance in the world out there may seem to favour boys; but they have an invisible burden on their shoulders. Many adults know too little about the ways in which boys do learn and operate in the world, do not think about their lack of intimacy, the pressures of work, the media and market, or of the violence they experience from each other and sometimes become part of.
It is as if grownup men have forgotten their own young years. Negative reactions towards boy's behaviour easily lead to a vicious circle. The male world imposes limitations upon them, emphasizes greed, gives often bad examples and so the choice to learn to care for themselves and others is often a difficult one. Spiritual fulfilment often seems far away.
What does really matter?
Mankind is heading for disaster if we keep on focussing on material wealth and ‘economic growth as a flight forward, escaping responsibilities here and now’ and mixing up show with self acceptation, self-esteem and self actualization. Advertisements try to link products with unfulfilled wishes and needs of people, for example prestige, belonging, intimacy, self esteem. A never ending story: real satisfaction for longer than the ever shorter product-cycles is the enemy of this economy. In other words: from advertisements one can deduce the flaws and shortcomings of our culture. For example: in a world where people have satisfying sexual relations, it would be ridicule to sell cars (or coffee, or whatever..) with sex.
Upbringing and coaching boys in what really matters, love for themselves, other people and enjoying this world, and so taking care of our environment, instead of duty, guilt, do's and don'ts..., that is is one of the manners in which we can turn into a better way with our planet.
Boys learn differently from girls and in some aspects they give different contents and meaning to their lives. Parents, schools and the media can offer them support by tuning into what they are already capable of doing, by challenging them and helping them in areas which they are just ready for dealing with. Imposing - where necessary - limitations on them and confronting them when they go too far and harm others, gives boys structure and safety. The distinction between obedience and learning is here crucial. Under unsafe conditions, obedience is a way of coping with stress or threads, but real learning may suffer. Skills and knowledge of a higher order will fail here.
Boys with a different background
For boys from ethnic minorities it is even more difficult to find their own way. Their religious beliefs sometimes provide them with inspiration, but major cultural differences can also be a hindrance. They are often brought up with little discussion or negotiations and they may communicate badly with the still dominant western white culture or adjust to culture they became part of. The mutual lack of understanding arising from this, plus discrimination and more limited opportunities rapidly lead to a destructive escalation. Major contrasts between men and women in the original culture may stand in the way of equal rights and a relaxed relationship with girls and women. We adults must make contact. Poor opportunities and humiliation will create a climate in which they become easy prey to extremists. This places extra requirements on those who are supervising and sometimes also disciplining them on their way to an adult role in this world.
Fathers
Let the fathers come in, make contact, set examples and give support. Happily, an increasing number of adult men are trying to combine work and care, but there are others who provide awful examples for boys such as placing an excessive emphasis on material prosperity and asocial, corrupt and sometimes even simply loutish behaviour, on the street but also high up in government and corporate business. With the power of money and the media all around them, the integrity which boys should be able to mirror themselves upon is often missing. Yet the world is at their feet now that the relationships between men and women are changing, even though this won’t happen of its own accord. It is a question of equal opportunities and – whenever necessary and useful – attention for differences in predisposition and development; no more and no less.
