Let Boys be Boys

Boys, what can we do with them?

They are noisy, boisterous, rowdy, busy and can't sit still for long. They are curious, inquisitive and just have to touch, feel and explore their surroundings.

How inconvenient.

You know, sometimes I wonder if adults have forgotten the wonderful wildness that boys bring with them. There has been such an increase in the number of boys diagnosed with ADD and ADHD that it seems like an epidemic. Is it possible that we've forgotten what being a boy is like?

Not all boys want to sit in front of a computer game. They are bursting with physical energy that has to be used up before it explodes out of them in a way that doesn't fit 'indoors.' Then they find themselves in trouble.

Then boys get to school and find themselves cooped up in a classroom for hours...

Boys learn differently from girls. Girls seem to absorb learning just by listening but boys love to experiment and experience. They learn from doing instead of listening. They learn from acting out their wild fantasies and burning up the energy that can block their concentration.

That's where I have a problem with the restrictions being put on the way boys play and the toys they are allowed to play with. Well, specifically toys like guns.

While a gun wouldnt' be my first choice of toy for my son, I don't think that playing cowboys and indians or cops and robbers is going to turn him into an aggressive teenager or adult. It's only a toy and that's how kids use them. It's a prop for their imaginations. It's a tool for burning their energies. It's not real.

I think we need to let boys be boys. Let them do what comes naturally to them instead of interfering and making their childhood into something safe and sanitised with no opportunity to experiment. I wonder if the teen boys of today would be so angry if they had been allowed to act out their games when they were small? I wonder if they'd choose knives and guns now if they'd been allowed to play with the toy versions as children? I wonder if controlling their innate boy behaviours as kids has made them miss out on something they should have learnt years ago?

I think we need to let boys be boys. It's our job to give them a safe environment in which to learn. It's not our job to stop them playing the way nature intended them to.