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This article assumes a priori that talking to boys differently than to girls is bad, then attempts to substantiate the claim, in part, with references to obvio

by unit91 9y ago

This article assumes a priori that talking to boys differently than to girls is bad, then attempts to substantiate the claim, in part, with references to obvious bullying -- a very different topic. But it overlooks the obvious: that boys and girls are different! I have two daughters and three sons. I love them all. I speak to them differently because they need to be spoken to differently for them to be understood, and for me to provide appropriate instruction. Contrary to this article's thesis, the kids actually lead with this. As is typical, the girls are more sensitive, and tend to seek approval and understanding. The boys are more rough, need to be spoken to much more bluntly, and view me (their father) as an intellectual companion / wrestling partner, depending on their age. I imagine most parents find themselves in similar situations, and we respond according to the needs of their children. It may not be PC, but in my experience, those needs are often correlated to the chromosomes of the people involved.

nhaehnle 9y ago
So, the one really interesting (new to me) part of the article is that they mention a study according to which boys are born more emotionally sensitive than girls. If this is true, then society is doing something that is clearly against nature. The other side to this is -- okay, boys and girls are different, but why? Society's influence is an extremely powerful force. Your own influence is huge. How could you possibly be sure whether the differences you see in your children are the result of your upbringing (and the influence of others) or not? How would you be able to tell the difference, given that most people treat babies differently based on gender before you can really interact with them in any meaningful way? (It already starts with people buying different types of clothes!) Finally, it should be obvious that any kind of stereotyping is bad and should be minimized, because it's an obstacle to people pursuing what they're really passionate about. Those obstacles certainly lead to waste and a net negative for our society.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Simple answer, they typically start genetically somewhat different, which then feeds back into parents, society and back into kids. You cannot prevent such feedback without an extremely strong force. More importantly, it could be dangerous in the extreme, messing with procreation like that. If you don't have experimental data, it would be going blind too.
glormph 9y ago
I'm not big and strong, and definitely not "very cool", and my child sample size is 5 times smaller than yours, so I wouldn't know by experience, but I agree on the missing link between communication differences and bullying, and indeed boys and girls may well have different brains and needs, on average. The article doesn't make that point, but kids with communication needs more into the other gender's distribution also exists. I would say as you do, look at your kids, treat them according to their needs. Outcomes are of course fairly unpredicatable in any case. I guess there is always the possibility that a parent's behaviour before children express their need clearly can steer the children's behaviour. I do wonder about cultural differences. Hyperbolically, I find US masculinity as different from say its Norwegian version as I find girls from boys.
b6 9y ago
Thank you. I hope someday humans can get past the idea that uh oh, something is different, and that means something is wrong, and something must be done to fix it.
- a3_nm 9y ago
  It is fine that children are different. The problem is when parents and society start assuming that it is correlated to gender, and start treating kids (and adults) differently based on their gender, no matter their individual personality. To reply to the grandparent comment: I don't know if male and female children behave intrinsically differently, but this is going to be hard to measure in a society where everyone, including parents, are biased and subconsciously treat them differently based on their gender.
  - andriesm 9y ago
    Uhm I dunno if you read the comment above, his point was that certain differences do in fact correspond with gender, e.g. Rough and tumble play is more appropriate for most boys than it would be for the majority of girls. Do we have to prefix everything with NOT ALL to have a generally valid generalization?
akss1989 9y ago
All fair points, however all the author is recommending is asking you son about his feelings once in a while.
- mnsc 9y ago
  This! It's not super hard either if you just remember that although you are a man, there have been times when you were afraid, weak, scared, sad and lost in life. Just try to be a guide and role model to your child in all situations, don't be a part time dad that is absent when the scariest feelings hits.
- eni 9y ago
  I think that is a very good advice. Reminded me of my conversation with my son when he was three years old: “I want to be brave. Tell me how to be brave” asked my darling son today before leaving for his school. I didn’t have an answer. As my eyes welled up, I asked if he is scared of anything in particular.”No, I am brave. I am not scared of anything” came back his reply. https://introspeak.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/tell-me-how-to-be-brave/ https://introspeak.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/tell-me-how-to-b...
boomboomsubban 9y ago
>As is typical, the girls are more sensitive, and tend to seek approval and understanding. The boys are more rough, need to be spoken to much more bluntly, and view me (their father) as an intellectual companion / wrestling partner, depending on their age. I imagine most parents find themselves in similar situations, and we respond according to the needs of their children You raised these children, your idea of "typical" is going to be reflected in their behavior. They want your affection and attention, and from an early age they've noticed that you react in different ways to their attempts. Combine that with the well defined stereotypes in media, and you get a disparity in how they want to be treated. I'm not trying to chastise you for this, actively working against it would be difficult and possibly worse for the child. And there are some differences caused by hormones. You are the driving force in their behavior though.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  At best 50% of the driving force and it is feedback not force. It is not reflection either and kids tend to be partly similar in disposition to parents genetically too. (Look up twin experiments.) Unless you feel particularly despondent (which is outmoded by the way), society has more hand in raising your kids than you, not to mention genetics.
adaml_623 9y ago
"the kids actually lead with this". No. You spoke to your child for months before they started talking back to you and leading you. You shaped them in a period that you you don't even seem to be acknowledging.
belorn 9y ago
While correlated to the chromosomes (ie gender), let me put a different hypothesis. Kids will as part of of growing up start to emulate the parent of the same gender. The default is to seek approval and understanding of both parents, but boys will at some point start to emulate the father and girls will similar emulate their mother, while continuing seeking approval and understanding from the other parent. If the parents follow gender roles and social expected behavior you will also get different behavior from their children of different gender.
bbatha 9y ago
> This article assumes a priori that talking to boys differently than to girls is bad, then attempts to substantiate the claim, in part, with references to obvious bullying -- a very different topic. But it overlooks the obvious: that boys and girls are different! The assumption should be the other way: talk to your children the same unless proved otherwise. Do what's best for your individual child, don't hamstring them by talking to them by what you think is the best way to talk to a girl vs a boy. If your daughters are more sensitive and need external validation, great! talk to them like that. But you don't need to generalize to all or even most girls.

by unit91 9y ago

nhaehnle 9y ago

So, the one really interesting (new to me) part of the article is that they mention a study according to which boys are born more emotionally sensitive than girls. If this is true, then society is doing something that is clearly against nature. The other side to this is -- okay, boys and girls are different, but why? Society's influence is an extremely powerful force. Your own influence is huge. How could you possibly be sure whether the differences you see in your children are the result of your upbringing (and the influence of others) or not? How would you be able to tell the difference, given that most people treat babies differently based on gender before you can really interact with them in any meaningful way? (It already starts with people buying different types of clothes!) Finally, it should be obvious that any kind of stereotyping is bad and should be minimized, because it's an obstacle to people pursuing what they're really passionate about. Those obstacles certainly lead to waste and a net negative for our society.

AstralStorm 9y ago
Simple answer, they typically start genetically somewhat different, which then feeds back into parents, society and back into kids. You cannot prevent such feedback without an extremely strong force. More importantly, it could be dangerous in the extreme, messing with procreation like that. If you don't have experimental data, it would be going blind too.

glormph 9y ago

I'm not big and strong, and definitely not "very cool", and my child sample size is 5 times smaller than yours, so I wouldn't know by experience, but I agree on the missing link between communication differences and bullying, and indeed boys and girls may well have different brains and needs, on average. The article doesn't make that point, but kids with communication needs more into the other gender's distribution also exists. I would say as you do, look at your kids, treat them according to their needs. Outcomes are of course fairly unpredicatable in any case. I guess there is always the possibility that a parent's behaviour before children express their need clearly can steer the children's behaviour. I do wonder about cultural differences. Hyperbolically, I find US masculinity as different from say its Norwegian version as I find girls from boys.

b6 9y ago

Thank you. I hope someday humans can get past the idea that uh oh, something is different, and that means something is wrong, and something must be done to fix it.

a3_nm 9y ago
It is fine that children are different. The problem is when parents and society start assuming that it is correlated to gender, and start treating kids (and adults) differently based on their gender, no matter their individual personality. To reply to the grandparent comment: I don't know if male and female children behave intrinsically differently, but this is going to be hard to measure in a society where everyone, including parents, are biased and subconsciously treat them differently based on their gender.
- andriesm 9y ago
  Uhm I dunno if you read the comment above, his point was that certain differences do in fact correspond with gender, e.g. Rough and tumble play is more appropriate for most boys than it would be for the majority of girls. Do we have to prefix everything with NOT ALL to have a generally valid generalization?

akss1989 9y ago

All fair points, however all the author is recommending is asking you son about his feelings once in a while.

mnsc 9y ago
This! It's not super hard either if you just remember that although you are a man, there have been times when you were afraid, weak, scared, sad and lost in life. Just try to be a guide and role model to your child in all situations, don't be a part time dad that is absent when the scariest feelings hits.
eni 9y ago
I think that is a very good advice. Reminded me of my conversation with my son when he was three years old: “I want to be brave. Tell me how to be brave” asked my darling son today before leaving for his school. I didn’t have an answer. As my eyes welled up, I asked if he is scared of anything in particular.”No, I am brave. I am not scared of anything” came back his reply. https://introspeak.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/tell-me-how-to-be-brave/ https://introspeak.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/tell-me-how-to-b...

boomboomsubban 9y ago

>As is typical, the girls are more sensitive, and tend to seek approval and understanding. The boys are more rough, need to be spoken to much more bluntly, and view me (their father) as an intellectual companion / wrestling partner, depending on their age. I imagine most parents find themselves in similar situations, and we respond according to the needs of their children You raised these children, your idea of "typical" is going to be reflected in their behavior. They want your affection and attention, and from an early age they've noticed that you react in different ways to their attempts. Combine that with the well defined stereotypes in media, and you get a disparity in how they want to be treated. I'm not trying to chastise you for this, actively working against it would be difficult and possibly worse for the child. And there are some differences caused by hormones. You are the driving force in their behavior though.

AstralStorm 9y ago
At best 50% of the driving force and it is feedback not force. It is not reflection either and kids tend to be partly similar in disposition to parents genetically too. (Look up twin experiments.) Unless you feel particularly despondent (which is outmoded by the way), society has more hand in raising your kids than you, not to mention genetics.

adaml_623 9y ago

"the kids actually lead with this". No. You spoke to your child for months before they started talking back to you and leading you. You shaped them in a period that you you don't even seem to be acknowledging.

belorn 9y ago

While correlated to the chromosomes (ie gender), let me put a different hypothesis. Kids will as part of of growing up start to emulate the parent of the same gender. The default is to seek approval and understanding of both parents, but boys will at some point start to emulate the father and girls will similar emulate their mother, while continuing seeking approval and understanding from the other parent. If the parents follow gender roles and social expected behavior you will also get different behavior from their children of different gender.

bbatha 9y ago

> This article assumes a priori that talking to boys differently than to girls is bad, then attempts to substantiate the claim, in part, with references to obvious bullying -- a very different topic. But it overlooks the obvious: that boys and girls are different! The assumption should be the other way: talk to your children the same unless proved otherwise. Do what's best for your individual child, don't hamstring them by talking to them by what you think is the best way to talk to a girl vs a boy. If your daughters are more sensitive and need external validation, great! talk to them like that. But you don't need to generalize to all or even most girls.