9 ms·

Adolescent boys struggle with disorganization and distraction

62 points by pretext 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
Oh cool, something that wasn't a problem in the past now has a solution that can be bought through a variety of products and services. I don't know what's going to stop this machine. The machine craves GDP and profits. The machine needs problems like "boys struggling" in order to create products and services to reap those profits. The machine owns megaphones that broadcast its solutions: buy this product, buy that service. We need to stop this machine. Can you guys maybe turn down the volume on those megaphones and look inward? Instead of looking outward - coaches, counseling, this, that, maybe you need to seriously recalibrate your culture, because we're increasingly productizing solutions to problems that weren't problems in the past, and we're going broke, and our kids are suffering. What are some familial-cultural things you think we could do differently that would help us help boys while not having to spend thousands per month just to give our sons the privilege of a normal life? Remember, these issues simply were not issues in the past. Is there something from the past that we lost along the way that causes these issues? Can we bring that thing back? Similarly, what modern things did we introduce that could be causing these issues? If so, let's focus on removing that, the via negativa. Perhaps what these people call disorganization and distraction is in fact a good thing, and boys are not meant to fit into the square pegs you're carved out? Let them go out into the desert and explore. They can't find and bring back treasure to enrich the tribe if they're stuck in a chair listening to you ramble for 8 hours straight. The problem could be you, not the boys.
- hh3k0 3y ago
  > Oh cool, something that wasn't a problem in the past now has a solution that can be bought through a variety of products and services. Plastic additives and softeners have been linked to ADHD – and plastic is virtually omnipresent nowadays. ADHD presents differently in boys and girls. I wonder if there could be a relation.
- RobRivera 3y ago
  This is one of those situations where I find it's best to take agency and ownership over one's life and if a parent, evaluate deeper about why children can't focus. It takes growth to admit maybe people arent doing things right, to a point where it is easier to just spend money on drugs. It shofts the perspective to 'its ok, its not your fault, it is a real problem, you can spend your money' Obv. A complicated thing but hey.
- cj 3y ago
  > Is there something from the past that we lost along the way that causes these issues? Allowing kids to be bored. It’s a very clear change between 20 years ago and today: 20 years ago kids simply didn’t have unlimited unrestricted access to screens and devices that produce instantaneous hits of dopamine on demand. With TikTok, social media, endless TV streaming… it’s entirely possible for someone to exist for years while never learning to harness or channel boredom in productive ways.
  - scott_paul 3y ago
    20 years ago boredom wasn't a thing and we weren't addicted to screens? No, no. This dopamine-addiction screentime crap has been a thing for several generations. It's what fucked up the Boomers, I think, and it was definitely a thing for gen-X'ers like me. This isn't some new thing that just happened to the kids these days, it's a longer term trend that everyone talking here grew up with, and we should examine it as such.
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    I agree with you, and the issue seems to be people are being trained to get their sense of identity and worth from something external while also outsourcing their sense of well being to something else. People have always blamed media for societal ills, from traveling theater troupes performing questionable shows to radio dramas to television to TikTok. While those things are a tool which can cause issues, the underlying reason it happens is because people want to turn themselves off for a bit and be entertained to distract themselves from the pain of their lives. The pain never goes away, so the escapism becomes more and more common until people are barely functional without a hit of dopamine. Being bored is painful for my son because he's so used to constant focus on something entertaining. Mostly it's fear of missing out in his case, which is something good for him to learn to recognize and resist.
- fatherzine 3y ago
  100% Very hard to turn down the volume as an individual actor. It's a social dilemma (sic). I remember a recent poll indicating students would pay for /others/ to use their devices less. It is no random accident that the Church sees itself as the 'body of Christ'. That body, social fabric in modern parlance, is splintering at accelerating pace, thanks to digital comms -- thanks facebook. Uncharted rough waters for a social species like ourselves. A good summary on X -- please ignore the tacky username. Similar sentiments in Gabor Mate's 'Hold on to your Kids'. https://twitter.com/TheBrometheus/status/1725303595908628684 https://twitter.com/TheBrometheus/status/1725303595908628684 "Most people use therapy the way humans are meant to connect with our 5 safety net systems, which we retained even up to 100 years ago: Immediate family Extended family (kin) Family friend network (kith) Local community Religious community All 5 are now broken."
a1o 3y ago
https://archive.ph/V5hHG https://archive.ph/V5hHG
scott_paul 3y ago
That's a feature not a bug. A few thousand years ago we used to literally set them loose in the wilderness with some wolves for a few years, and it was fun & educational. We understand reason and organization because we have explored the chaos, in our youth. It is necessary to explore the chaos, in order to fully grow into a fully functioning adult human man. You don't get wise men from boring kids.
- sgu999 3y ago
  Nicely put. The problem though is our society requires children to behave in a certain way at a certain age, late bloomers will simply be left aside in most cases.
- croes 3y ago
  >It is necessary to explore the chaos, in order to fully grow into a fully functioning adult human man. Source?
- watwut 3y ago
  That is some alternative history
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- toofy 3y ago
  i’m not sure a single thing you wrote in here is true. it feels like each sentence is further than the previous. we set them loose with the wolves, and it was fun? i don’t think this is true. > We understand reason and organization because we have explored the chaos. again, i don’t think this is true either. there are many ways we can learn reason, and if by chaos, youre implying from your previous paragraph, we can only understand reason if we’ve roamed in chaos with wild animals, this is absurd from front to back. > You don’t get wise men from boring kids. Again, this is just more meaningless phrase, with no basis in reality. I know plenty of wise people who had extraordinarily boring lives growing up. I know plenty of “fully functional” adult humans who had entirely unremarkable and non-chaotic childhoods. I would even venture that the literal opposite of everything you said is true, the most broken and screwed up people I know grew up in chaos while the most sane, rational (and yes, wise) people were “boring kids.”
loup-vaillant 3y ago
Here's the entire article for me: > Adolescent boys struggle with disorganization and distraction; parents are paying to keep their middle-schoolers from falling behind > Teresa Lubovich says nearly every student coming to her private tutoring center to learn personal organization skills is a boy. > Starting at $500 a month, her services don't come cheap, but she says parents are willing to This is not the first time I see a paywall instead of an article. It happens pretty often actually. And yet they're upvoted. Does this mean many HN readers are subscribed? Or am I blocked more often than others? The article sure looks interesting, but I confess I'm not interested in a subscription.
- lolinder 3y ago
  The customary pattern on HN for paywalls is that someone posts an archive link that bypasses them. Here's the one for this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38583538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38583538 See dang's Tell HN from forever ago: Tell HN: Paywalls with workarounds are OK; paywall complaints are off topic https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
  - loup-vaillant 3y ago
    Ah, that was in the FAQ. I see, thanks. For a moment I thought I was supposed to be aware of some random post from a distant past.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
I admit I haven't read the full article yet, but personally, could easily replace "Adolescent boys struggle with disorganization and distraction" with "Late middle-aged men struggle with disorganization and distraction." I'm decently intelligent, and have done fairly well academically and in my career. One of my traits, for better or for worse, is being detail-oriented (for me meaning that I don't feel comfortable until all the details of the thing I'm working on are known and taken care of). That trait has always been a double-edged sword: it's helped me as an engineer, but I also have a tendency to be overwhelmed and easily distracted, and it can make it hard to prioritize. Since the advent of smartphones and modern "notification channels", however, it's definitely skewed much more to the negative. I feel like my concentration and focus have been totally shot, and, saddest for me, my creativity has taken a huge dive. I've also spent thousands on coaches/therapy, but it's still a constant battle that feels analogous to I think what people with strong addictions feel.
- senkora 3y ago
  > I also have a tendency to be overwhelmed and easily distracted, and it can make it hard to prioritize. This resonates strongly with me. I've had some success by building personal productivity systems/workflows and sticking to them, but it definitely feels like I'm developing coping mechanisms to compensate for something that others don't even need to think about.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- notjoemama 3y ago
  Whenever I've felt impacted by those things I simply eliminate them. I had TikTok installed for a while. One weekend I realized I had been scrolling for 5 hours but to me it felt like maybe 90 minutes? That's when I uninstalled it. I felt like my ability to listen or pay acute attention for long length of time was diminished. Eliminating the app let me get back to the level of performance I had before. Self reflecting, there's maybe a certain kind of power in not-knowing, or knowing there is a lot of information I simply don't have to be aware of. Political news, well, news in general strikes me as a similar case. I know going into it "if it bleeds it leads". If I consume that, am I really getting a true picture of reality? Probably not. So is there really as much value in making sure I keep up with the latest points? I don't feel like it matters.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jampekka 3y ago
> Often the boys are doing the work and not turning it in, there’s no follow-through on assignments, their backpacks are a mess,” In the 90s at least in Finland this was more or less the norm. And this generation were at the top of PISA. > Middle school has become high stakes. Maybe having kids' futures set at middle school is not such a great idea? And the dog-eat-dog winner-takes-all underlying that.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  In certain rich neighborhoods there is intense competition to get your kids into the right preschool to ensure they are going to be able to compete. Maybe there's a connection between the rich breeding expensive dogs and horses for competition and them overdriving their children for the same reason - because it makes them look good.
  - georgeecollins 3y ago
    As a parent who participates in these status games, this 100% aligns with my experience. We spend way way too much on school -- and I am talking pre-school middle school, high school, not college. And if you get your kid into a good college you feel you have achieved something. Objectively it doesn't make sense but if you opt out you feel like a bad parent.
    - jampekka 3y ago
      In Finland children are allocated to the school of their district until they are 16 or so (apart from some exception). School quality is seen as quite uniform, and poorer area schools get more funding. For-profit education or tuition (except for foreigners nowadays) is not allowed at any level of education that gives a degree. Equal opportinity for education was a huge political project from the left in the 1960s. Nowadays its so popular that even the political right can't really criticize it, although there is a drift towards inequality, as in everything else.
jasfi 3y ago
Many of them haven't found what works for them yet. Productivity isn't taught in schools (that I know of). Self-help is still just that.
- wildrhythms 3y ago
  I remember in public school having a spiral bound planner I had to bring to every class, and teachers would instruct us what to write in there to help us track homework due dates, quiz and exam dates and such. I have no idea what students do now; is it digitized? I feel like just the act of copying the assignment from the board to my planner by hand helped me stay accountable to it.
lolinder 3y ago
There's always such a rush to try to find environmental reasons for this behavioral tendency: microplastics, lead, smartphones, social media, video games, something must be causing this perceived increase in ADHD symptoms in boys! What rarely comes up in the media coverage is that maybe the change isn't in the boys, maybe it's in the social expectations that we have for boys. 400 years ago the average adolescent boy spent most of their days out in the fields farming or learning a hands-on trade or training in the military. What they were not doing was sitting in a classroom for 6-8 hours a day listening to someone talk and then going home and sitting indoors for the rest of the day because the world is too dangerous for their parents to let them roam free. The free range kids movement is the answer, not coaching and therapy.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jampekka 3y ago
  This. It's quite obvious that if over 10% of kids suddenly have a "neurological disorder", it's not the neurology that has changed.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- notjoemama 3y ago
  There's been good research in the education field around this problem. There are ways educators can augment their lessons to cater to boys. Unfortunately, not all educators do this and it remains an experience heavily weighted towards the behavior and temperament of girls. Graduation and college attendance rates are the opposite now of when a push to promote girls in schools occurred. Now might be the time to do the same for boys.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  Are you going to let your kids fall behind the others who are diligently studying in preparation to get into the best school they can? My cousin invited me to his daughter’s 3rd birthday. His request? No gifts, please contribute to her college fund. I long ago decided the only winning move in this game is not to play, but I can’t begrudge the parents who are caught in the game.
satellite2 3y ago
It's a very interesting article. While the family that was interviewed was resourceful (and not only in money, the mother took on her to call all the teachers of her son and keep track of all the homework to make sure he was not falling behind) and managed to resolve the situation it's not given to everyone. The article also list many reasons for this worrying trend. > The roots of boys’ problems are complex. Things that once benefited boys in school, including male teachers, recess and vocational classes, have dwindled in recent years. > Parents, tutors and education experts say boys need extra encouragement to understand the payoff of working hard in school. Basically, they need a bigger reason than letter grades.
- ponector 3y ago
  In real life not always there is a payoff of working hard. Either at school or at work. Child can work hard, get education, get degree and end as broke person with low paying job. Like being a teacher at school. Are the smartest, the most hard working children the most successful in adult life? Not really
  - satellite2 3y ago
    No, you are right you can do everything right and still end up unlucky. That's the hard (awful?) part of life. But that's an individual path. In aggregate there are statistics that can help us choose and recommend which path to follow. And the statistics show that people with an education are dramatically and earn way more successful than people without. Are the smartest, the most hard working children the most successful in adult life? In average yes.
    - em-bee 3y ago
      and you can add: are any dumb and lazy children successful in life? only if they have rich parents. so while working hard doesn't guarantee success. not working at all pretty much guarantees failure.
teucris 3y ago
While I agree (mostly) with the sentiment of commenters, it’s easy for a conversation like this to veer into blaming parents for structural issues. Parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Society expects their children to succeed in specific, somewhat arbitrary systems to succeed in life, but each child is their own being with talents, shortcomings, etc. It’s impossible for a parent to serve both. Parents are making constant trade offs, and if paying to keep their kids on track at school seems to be the best option, then I support that.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  Adapt and overcome. Life doesn't serve you on a silver platter. Catering to every single neuro-whatever when the real world doesn't is helping nobody. Semper gumby
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    This attitude is OK at a personal level, but telling a schizophrenic homeless person they just need to adapt and overcome wouldn't be acceptable. There's a lot of mental disorder out there and abandoning the "neuro-whatevers" to figure it out themselves when society is entirely designed for neurotypical thought patterns is an injustice. You don't blame someone with dyslexia for not being able to read, you try to help them learn a skill society assumes they will have. There has to be a middle ground.
  - flir 3y ago
    This comment is explaining why wheelchair ramps should be banned.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
  I fully share your sentiment. Also, if we are exploring the blaming avenue, I would veer into algorithms that maximize KPIs such as MAU which lead to all kinds of pathological issues such as recommending content that negatively influences mental health (of everyone, but kids, adolescents and the elderly are particularly vulnerable).
UncleOxidant 3y ago
I'm a 60 yo who male struggles with disorganization and distraction. Is this anything new? Sure, there are more distractions now (internet, social media, etc.)
devaiops9001 3y ago
[flagged]
highfrequency 3y ago
> Having to bring his Chromebook to every class was distracting. “I would have 14 different tabs open and be mindlessly going through them,” Henry says. Requiring kids to have laptops out during school seems like a bad idea…
1905 3y ago
Meanwhile the same aged boy is working on a family farm, eating non processed foods, limited screen time, physical active throughout the day and can almost single handedly run the family farm on a daily basis
RajT88 3y ago
So - people say 'yes this is a thing for older boys/men as well', but my experience has been that it is worse among adolescents. So - I used to play a lot of Destiny. Really loved running raids, some of the best fun I have had playing videogames. A raid requires a group of 6, all working together, sticking to their assigned role and being focused enough to improvise if a teammate falters. To get a group of 6, you either need to know a bunch of folks, or you have to find random people on the LFG sites. There was a very common phrase in the LFG posts: "No Squeakers". While politically incorrect I know exactly what they mean. Pubescent boys could not focus, and would not shut up. They understand their roles, but just cannot stick to it and often quickly devolve into screwing around. The kids 15-16 seemed a lot better. Young girls (what few there were) were fine too. Even us older habitually distracted men who have trouble focusing were a lot better. There seemed to be something unique to boys of that age.
gumby 3y ago
This phenomenon has been know forever — back in the 60s my paediatrician mother said 12 year old boys are smarter than 13- and 14 yo ones but then the curve bends up, and my son’s school even discussed how they took that into account. What’s fascinating about the article is the focus on KPIs: the parents saw the performance lagging (esp in comparison to daughters) and decided intervention was required. The carpenter knows the wood has its own grain and structure; Michelangelo said that “the sculpture is inside the marble and must be let out” (fissures and seams must be taken into account), but somehow the modern middle class mentality is that the child must be bent in some procrustean fashion to fit the model. This affliction is well known to us programmers who see management setting unrealistic metrics to complex projects.
watters 3y ago
We humans are a bizarre lot. We build complex systems and environments that alienate and marginalize massive groups of people and then, rather than recognizing that as a failure of the system, we frame the problem as one of individual responsibility to adjust. But, the system probably feels like it is still working working well enough for the folks running the WSJ to continue their support of it, so we get articles like this.
pizzafeelsright 3y ago
Boys struggle without a strong father figure.
glimshe 3y ago
Since around 5000 B.C.
em-bee 3y ago
how is it possible to forget to turn in homework? in my school teachers would ask for the homework to be turned in at the beginning of a class. you could forget to bring your homework, or worse forget to actually do it, but it was practically impossible to miss turning it in.
edgarfranklin25 3y ago
[flagged]

62 points by pretext 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Oh cool, something that wasn't a problem in the past now has a solution that can be bought through a variety of products and services. I don't know what's going to stop this machine. The machine craves GDP and profits. The machine needs problems like "boys struggling" in order to create products and services to reap those profits. The machine owns megaphones that broadcast its solutions: buy this product, buy that service. We need to stop this machine. Can you guys maybe turn down the volume on those megaphones and look inward? Instead of looking outward - coaches, counseling, this, that, maybe you need to seriously recalibrate your culture, because we're increasingly productizing solutions to problems that weren't problems in the past, and we're going broke, and our kids are suffering. What are some familial-cultural things you think we could do differently that would help us help boys while not having to spend thousands per month just to give our sons the privilege of a normal life? Remember, these issues simply were not issues in the past. Is there something from the past that we lost along the way that causes these issues? Can we bring that thing back? Similarly, what modern things did we introduce that could be causing these issues? If so, let's focus on removing that, the via negativa. Perhaps what these people call disorganization and distraction is in fact a good thing, and boys are not meant to fit into the square pegs you're carved out? Let them go out into the desert and explore. They can't find and bring back treasure to enrich the tribe if they're stuck in a chair listening to you ramble for 8 hours straight. The problem could be you, not the boys.

hh3k0 3y ago
> Oh cool, something that wasn't a problem in the past now has a solution that can be bought through a variety of products and services. Plastic additives and softeners have been linked to ADHD – and plastic is virtually omnipresent nowadays. ADHD presents differently in boys and girls. I wonder if there could be a relation.
RobRivera 3y ago
This is one of those situations where I find it's best to take agency and ownership over one's life and if a parent, evaluate deeper about why children can't focus. It takes growth to admit maybe people arent doing things right, to a point where it is easier to just spend money on drugs. It shofts the perspective to 'its ok, its not your fault, it is a real problem, you can spend your money' Obv. A complicated thing but hey.
cj 3y ago
> Is there something from the past that we lost along the way that causes these issues? Allowing kids to be bored. It’s a very clear change between 20 years ago and today: 20 years ago kids simply didn’t have unlimited unrestricted access to screens and devices that produce instantaneous hits of dopamine on demand. With TikTok, social media, endless TV streaming… it’s entirely possible for someone to exist for years while never learning to harness or channel boredom in productive ways.
- scott_paul 3y ago
  20 years ago boredom wasn't a thing and we weren't addicted to screens? No, no. This dopamine-addiction screentime crap has been a thing for several generations. It's what fucked up the Boomers, I think, and it was definitely a thing for gen-X'ers like me. This isn't some new thing that just happened to the kids these days, it's a longer term trend that everyone talking here grew up with, and we should examine it as such.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  I agree with you, and the issue seems to be people are being trained to get their sense of identity and worth from something external while also outsourcing their sense of well being to something else. People have always blamed media for societal ills, from traveling theater troupes performing questionable shows to radio dramas to television to TikTok. While those things are a tool which can cause issues, the underlying reason it happens is because people want to turn themselves off for a bit and be entertained to distract themselves from the pain of their lives. The pain never goes away, so the escapism becomes more and more common until people are barely functional without a hit of dopamine. Being bored is painful for my son because he's so used to constant focus on something entertaining. Mostly it's fear of missing out in his case, which is something good for him to learn to recognize and resist.
fatherzine 3y ago
100% Very hard to turn down the volume as an individual actor. It's a social dilemma (sic). I remember a recent poll indicating students would pay for /others/ to use their devices less. It is no random accident that the Church sees itself as the 'body of Christ'. That body, social fabric in modern parlance, is splintering at accelerating pace, thanks to digital comms -- thanks facebook. Uncharted rough waters for a social species like ourselves. A good summary on X -- please ignore the tacky username. Similar sentiments in Gabor Mate's 'Hold on to your Kids'. https://twitter.com/TheBrometheus/status/1725303595908628684 https://twitter.com/TheBrometheus/status/1725303595908628684 "Most people use therapy the way humans are meant to connect with our 5 safety net systems, which we retained even up to 100 years ago: Immediate family Extended family (kin) Family friend network (kith) Local community Religious community All 5 are now broken."

a1o 3y ago

https://archive.ph/V5hHG https://archive.ph/V5hHG

scott_paul 3y ago

That's a feature not a bug. A few thousand years ago we used to literally set them loose in the wilderness with some wolves for a few years, and it was fun & educational. We understand reason and organization because we have explored the chaos, in our youth. It is necessary to explore the chaos, in order to fully grow into a fully functioning adult human man. You don't get wise men from boring kids.

sgu999 3y ago
Nicely put. The problem though is our society requires children to behave in a certain way at a certain age, late bloomers will simply be left aside in most cases.
croes 3y ago
>It is necessary to explore the chaos, in order to fully grow into a fully functioning adult human man. Source?
watwut 3y ago
That is some alternative history
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
toofy 3y ago
i’m not sure a single thing you wrote in here is true. it feels like each sentence is further than the previous. we set them loose with the wolves, and it was fun? i don’t think this is true. > We understand reason and organization because we have explored the chaos. again, i don’t think this is true either. there are many ways we can learn reason, and if by chaos, youre implying from your previous paragraph, we can only understand reason if we’ve roamed in chaos with wild animals, this is absurd from front to back. > You don’t get wise men from boring kids. Again, this is just more meaningless phrase, with no basis in reality. I know plenty of wise people who had extraordinarily boring lives growing up. I know plenty of “fully functional” adult humans who had entirely unremarkable and non-chaotic childhoods. I would even venture that the literal opposite of everything you said is true, the most broken and screwed up people I know grew up in chaos while the most sane, rational (and yes, wise) people were “boring kids.”

loup-vaillant 3y ago

Here's the entire article for me: > Adolescent boys struggle with disorganization and distraction; parents are paying to keep their middle-schoolers from falling behind > Teresa Lubovich says nearly every student coming to her private tutoring center to learn personal organization skills is a boy. > Starting at $500 a month, her services don't come cheap, but she says parents are willing to This is not the first time I see a paywall instead of an article. It happens pretty often actually. And yet they're upvoted. Does this mean many HN readers are subscribed? Or am I blocked more often than others? The article sure looks interesting, but I confess I'm not interested in a subscription.

lolinder 3y ago
The customary pattern on HN for paywalls is that someone posts an archive link that bypasses them. Here's the one for this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38583538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38583538 See dang's Tell HN from forever ago: Tell HN: Paywalls with workarounds are OK; paywall complaints are off topic https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  Ah, that was in the FAQ. I see, thanks. For a moment I thought I was supposed to be aware of some random post from a distant past.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

I admit I haven't read the full article yet, but personally, could easily replace "Adolescent boys struggle with disorganization and distraction" with "Late middle-aged men struggle with disorganization and distraction." I'm decently intelligent, and have done fairly well academically and in my career. One of my traits, for better or for worse, is being detail-oriented (for me meaning that I don't feel comfortable until all the details of the thing I'm working on are known and taken care of). That trait has always been a double-edged sword: it's helped me as an engineer, but I also have a tendency to be overwhelmed and easily distracted, and it can make it hard to prioritize. Since the advent of smartphones and modern "notification channels", however, it's definitely skewed much more to the negative. I feel like my concentration and focus have been totally shot, and, saddest for me, my creativity has taken a huge dive. I've also spent thousands on coaches/therapy, but it's still a constant battle that feels analogous to I think what people with strong addictions feel.

senkora 3y ago
> I also have a tendency to be overwhelmed and easily distracted, and it can make it hard to prioritize. This resonates strongly with me. I've had some success by building personal productivity systems/workflows and sticking to them, but it definitely feels like I'm developing coping mechanisms to compensate for something that others don't even need to think about.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
notjoemama 3y ago
Whenever I've felt impacted by those things I simply eliminate them. I had TikTok installed for a while. One weekend I realized I had been scrolling for 5 hours but to me it felt like maybe 90 minutes? That's when I uninstalled it. I felt like my ability to listen or pay acute attention for long length of time was diminished. Eliminating the app let me get back to the level of performance I had before. Self reflecting, there's maybe a certain kind of power in not-knowing, or knowing there is a lot of information I simply don't have to be aware of. Political news, well, news in general strikes me as a similar case. I know going into it "if it bleeds it leads". If I consume that, am I really getting a true picture of reality? Probably not. So is there really as much value in making sure I keep up with the latest points? I don't feel like it matters.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jampekka 3y ago

> Often the boys are doing the work and not turning it in, there’s no follow-through on assignments, their backpacks are a mess,” In the 90s at least in Finland this was more or less the norm. And this generation were at the top of PISA. > Middle school has become high stakes. Maybe having kids' futures set at middle school is not such a great idea? And the dog-eat-dog winner-takes-all underlying that.

I_Am_Nous 3y ago
In certain rich neighborhoods there is intense competition to get your kids into the right preschool to ensure they are going to be able to compete. Maybe there's a connection between the rich breeding expensive dogs and horses for competition and them overdriving their children for the same reason - because it makes them look good.
- georgeecollins 3y ago
  As a parent who participates in these status games, this 100% aligns with my experience. We spend way way too much on school -- and I am talking pre-school middle school, high school, not college. And if you get your kid into a good college you feel you have achieved something. Objectively it doesn't make sense but if you opt out you feel like a bad parent.
  - jampekka 3y ago
    In Finland children are allocated to the school of their district until they are 16 or so (apart from some exception). School quality is seen as quite uniform, and poorer area schools get more funding. For-profit education or tuition (except for foreigners nowadays) is not allowed at any level of education that gives a degree. Equal opportinity for education was a huge political project from the left in the 1960s. Nowadays its so popular that even the political right can't really criticize it, although there is a drift towards inequality, as in everything else.

jasfi 3y ago

Many of them haven't found what works for them yet. Productivity isn't taught in schools (that I know of). Self-help is still just that.

wildrhythms 3y ago
I remember in public school having a spiral bound planner I had to bring to every class, and teachers would instruct us what to write in there to help us track homework due dates, quiz and exam dates and such. I have no idea what students do now; is it digitized? I feel like just the act of copying the assignment from the board to my planner by hand helped me stay accountable to it.

lolinder 3y ago

There's always such a rush to try to find environmental reasons for this behavioral tendency: microplastics, lead, smartphones, social media, video games, something must be causing this perceived increase in ADHD symptoms in boys! What rarely comes up in the media coverage is that maybe the change isn't in the boys, maybe it's in the social expectations that we have for boys. 400 years ago the average adolescent boy spent most of their days out in the fields farming or learning a hands-on trade or training in the military. What they were not doing was sitting in a classroom for 6-8 hours a day listening to someone talk and then going home and sitting indoors for the rest of the day because the world is too dangerous for their parents to let them roam free. The free range kids movement is the answer, not coaching and therapy.

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jampekka 3y ago
This. It's quite obvious that if over 10% of kids suddenly have a "neurological disorder", it's not the neurology that has changed.
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notjoemama 3y ago
There's been good research in the education field around this problem. There are ways educators can augment their lessons to cater to boys. Unfortunately, not all educators do this and it remains an experience heavily weighted towards the behavior and temperament of girls. Graduation and college attendance rates are the opposite now of when a push to promote girls in schools occurred. Now might be the time to do the same for boys.
hotpotamus 3y ago
Are you going to let your kids fall behind the others who are diligently studying in preparation to get into the best school they can? My cousin invited me to his daughter’s 3rd birthday. His request? No gifts, please contribute to her college fund. I long ago decided the only winning move in this game is not to play, but I can’t begrudge the parents who are caught in the game.

satellite2 3y ago

It's a very interesting article. While the family that was interviewed was resourceful (and not only in money, the mother took on her to call all the teachers of her son and keep track of all the homework to make sure he was not falling behind) and managed to resolve the situation it's not given to everyone. The article also list many reasons for this worrying trend. > The roots of boys’ problems are complex. Things that once benefited boys in school, including male teachers, recess and vocational classes, have dwindled in recent years. > Parents, tutors and education experts say boys need extra encouragement to understand the payoff of working hard in school. Basically, they need a bigger reason than letter grades.

ponector 3y ago
In real life not always there is a payoff of working hard. Either at school or at work. Child can work hard, get education, get degree and end as broke person with low paying job. Like being a teacher at school. Are the smartest, the most hard working children the most successful in adult life? Not really
- satellite2 3y ago
  No, you are right you can do everything right and still end up unlucky. That's the hard (awful?) part of life. But that's an individual path. In aggregate there are statistics that can help us choose and recommend which path to follow. And the statistics show that people with an education are dramatically and earn way more successful than people without. Are the smartest, the most hard working children the most successful in adult life? In average yes.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    and you can add: are any dumb and lazy children successful in life? only if they have rich parents. so while working hard doesn't guarantee success. not working at all pretty much guarantees failure.

teucris 3y ago

While I agree (mostly) with the sentiment of commenters, it’s easy for a conversation like this to veer into blaming parents for structural issues. Parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Society expects their children to succeed in specific, somewhat arbitrary systems to succeed in life, but each child is their own being with talents, shortcomings, etc. It’s impossible for a parent to serve both. Parents are making constant trade offs, and if paying to keep their kids on track at school seems to be the best option, then I support that.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Adapt and overcome. Life doesn't serve you on a silver platter. Catering to every single neuro-whatever when the real world doesn't is helping nobody. Semper gumby
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  This attitude is OK at a personal level, but telling a schizophrenic homeless person they just need to adapt and overcome wouldn't be acceptable. There's a lot of mental disorder out there and abandoning the "neuro-whatevers" to figure it out themselves when society is entirely designed for neurotypical thought patterns is an injustice. You don't blame someone with dyslexia for not being able to read, you try to help them learn a skill society assumes they will have. There has to be a middle ground.
- flir 3y ago
  This comment is explaining why wheelchair ramps should be banned.
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dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
I fully share your sentiment. Also, if we are exploring the blaming avenue, I would veer into algorithms that maximize KPIs such as MAU which lead to all kinds of pathological issues such as recommending content that negatively influences mental health (of everyone, but kids, adolescents and the elderly are particularly vulnerable).

UncleOxidant 3y ago

I'm a 60 yo who male struggles with disorganization and distraction. Is this anything new? Sure, there are more distractions now (internet, social media, etc.)

devaiops9001 3y ago

[flagged]

highfrequency 3y ago

> Having to bring his Chromebook to every class was distracting. “I would have 14 different tabs open and be mindlessly going through them,” Henry says. Requiring kids to have laptops out during school seems like a bad idea…

1905 3y ago

Meanwhile the same aged boy is working on a family farm, eating non processed foods, limited screen time, physical active throughout the day and can almost single handedly run the family farm on a daily basis

RajT88 3y ago

So - people say 'yes this is a thing for older boys/men as well', but my experience has been that it is worse among adolescents. So - I used to play a lot of Destiny. Really loved running raids, some of the best fun I have had playing videogames. A raid requires a group of 6, all working together, sticking to their assigned role and being focused enough to improvise if a teammate falters. To get a group of 6, you either need to know a bunch of folks, or you have to find random people on the LFG sites. There was a very common phrase in the LFG posts: "No Squeakers". While politically incorrect I know exactly what they mean. Pubescent boys could not focus, and would not shut up. They understand their roles, but just cannot stick to it and often quickly devolve into screwing around. The kids 15-16 seemed a lot better. Young girls (what few there were) were fine too. Even us older habitually distracted men who have trouble focusing were a lot better. There seemed to be something unique to boys of that age.

gumby 3y ago

This phenomenon has been know forever — back in the 60s my paediatrician mother said 12 year old boys are smarter than 13- and 14 yo ones but then the curve bends up, and my son’s school even discussed how they took that into account. What’s fascinating about the article is the focus on KPIs: the parents saw the performance lagging (esp in comparison to daughters) and decided intervention was required. The carpenter knows the wood has its own grain and structure; Michelangelo said that “the sculpture is inside the marble and must be let out” (fissures and seams must be taken into account), but somehow the modern middle class mentality is that the child must be bent in some procrustean fashion to fit the model. This affliction is well known to us programmers who see management setting unrealistic metrics to complex projects.

watters 3y ago

We humans are a bizarre lot. We build complex systems and environments that alienate and marginalize massive groups of people and then, rather than recognizing that as a failure of the system, we frame the problem as one of individual responsibility to adjust. But, the system probably feels like it is still working working well enough for the folks running the WSJ to continue their support of it, so we get articles like this.

pizzafeelsright 3y ago

Boys struggle without a strong father figure.

glimshe 3y ago

Since around 5000 B.C.

em-bee 3y ago

how is it possible to forget to turn in homework? in my school teachers would ask for the homework to be turned in at the beginning of a class. you could forget to bring your homework, or worse forget to actually do it, but it was practically impossible to miss turning it in.

edgarfranklin25 3y ago

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