Moms of girls- do you run into this? - Page 3

[jeca]

I should give them my youngest for just one day. She has more energy and trouble than my son and other daughter combined.

[chfriend]

Originally Posted by Marsupialmom

I have been asked if my son is retarded because he liked babies and was/is gentle with them.
(SP)

That really stinks.

[chfriend]

Originally Posted by abi&ben'smom

My dd(6) is very high-spirited, my ds(8) is very passive and content. But for some reason, when they are playing with their friends (same ages) they turn totally stereotypical!! The girls play quietly with their dolls, coloring, or some kind of pretend. The boys act like wild animals. No matter which set of friends come over, it's the same. As soon as their friends leave, ds is as quiet as a mouse and dd is back to being loud and bouncing off the walls!

Peer pressure?

[the_lissa]

Originally Posted by chfriend

By dividing it up by gender, rather than learning style, the girls are told and expected to sit down and shut up and the boys are expected to need to get up and down and stand by their desk, need more hands on work, run around time.

It's really informative to watch when adults in authority correct the class/individual children.

My observation is that girls are called out with much greater frequency both in class and on the playground .... and this is in homeschool coop setttings and community based classes. The group is allowed to get wild until a girl participates at which point the adult calls the class to order.

Whatever intrinsic differences the adults believe in affect their expectations and how they interact with children. The resurrgence in a belief in inborn differences is affecting how girl-children are treated when they are exuberent. It's particularly problematic since the girl-children notice that they are treated differently from the boy-children. And if they are sensitive in addtion to energetic, it quashes their learning.

And it really sucks that it means that boys and girls sometimes believe they can't be friends because of it.

Exactly. It should go by individual temperament and learning style.

My girl is a hurricane, and my boy is calm and mellow.

[Ruthla]

Boys, in general, tend to be rowdier and more rambunctious, while girls, in general, tend to be able to play calmly (though they do enjoy the rowdiness at times as well.)

Of course, there are plenty of exceptions. Every person is a unique individual with differing amounts of "masculine" and "feminine" traits. I happen to be the mother of a "girly girl", a "tomboy" and an "effeminate boy". Just looking to my own three children as examples, I have the exact opposite experience from the general rule. However, DS is starting to get rather bouncy these days- but really he's no worse than DD2 was at age 6. He's still cabable of quiet play when he wants to.

[loraxc]

I think it's a step in the wrong direction for teachers and other adults to insist that those different learning styles are always associated with gender.

And it cheats the kids out of friendships across genders and opportunities to learn regardless of their learning style.

BTW: I find myself exceptionally disinterested in whether their are intrinsic differences between boys and girls and very interested in not having my dds told they have to "behave" while boys are bouncing off the walls. I have had the experience Demeter has.

ITA with this.

My DD is not really exceptionally active, but she has a strong, wild, loud, and sometimes aggressive personality. I feel her experience at school would be different if she were a boy acting the way she does--as it is, I think she is reined in more than a boy acting the same way would be. She spit at a teacher one day (she was barely 3), and you would have thought she'd pushed the Pope down the stairs.

She has happened to be in a playgroup that is almost all boys since she was a baby, and I have seen the other moms smile at, ignore, or encourage "typical boy behavior" (noisy, aggressive, wild) that I doubt they would tolerate in a girl. "What can I do? He's all boy." They always sound really proud of this.

I'm not saying there aren't some general patterns, BTW, but what drives me crazy is that there are SO many exceptions, and when we start playing "Boys need this and girls need that," we are going to screw over a lot of kids! Why not look at the individual child, for heaven's sake?

BTW, I just had my second child--a boy.My DD is 4, and I am still not one of those moms who says "Oh, I didn't believe in that gender stuff till I had kids." People know this about me. Everyone is now enjoying telling me, "Oh, but you'll SEE now that you have a boy." Well, so far, he is waaaay more mellow and quiet than his sister!

[TEAK's Mom]

Originally Posted by loraxc

ITA with this.

...and you would have thought she'd pushed the Pope down the stairs.

That phrase makes me laugh...

As you know, my dds are very much like yours so I'm nodding along.

[gaialice]

Originally Posted by hattifattener

O But do you ever get the impression, when talking with a mom who has only boys, that they sometimes see raising a girl as one big long tea party?

You know, this happened to me a few nights ago. We went to have a pizza with a friend who has a boy and a girl and she brought along a mother of 3 boys whom I do not know (I have two girls). It SUCKED in a major way. We got there, and first thing this lady said was "Oh, you poor girls you do not know what you're getting into with these wild boys". So the pizza place was fab because it had a play area where the kids could play and not disturb anyone. But the adults totally spoiled the evening because as soon as there was any trouble at all, everyone would start again with this thing about the wild boys, and how the "poor" girls had to "suffer" their company. Well, you can bet, the girls, who normally are very well able to fight their playground battles without coming to mum's rescue started a major pity party. I totally agree with pp, it depends on personalities, my girls are certainly very, very active.

[Aubergine68]

Just wanted to say how much I am enjoying reading this thread.

There are so many interesting comments, so many angles to this issue I hadn't considered.

In particular, I have never run into a situation where I felt my dd was corrected more for the same behavior than a boy was/would be. But since so many of you are reporting this experience, I will be watching for it now!

[Sexybookworm]

I have a little girl and she is as close to a tea party as I would hope for. However, I do have a couple nieces who are "high energy" (or whatever you want to call it) and a nephew who is even lower maintenance and trouble/energy/whatever than my daughter. But, I always assumed that he was this way because his big sister is so high maintenance he became that way by default. Does that make sense?

[chfriend]

I hear that theory on the second one put forth pretty often. But, lots of the moms here report that it's quite possible to have two or more high energy, high needs, sensory seeking kids.

[FreeRangeMama]

I have 3 high energy kids and I am so hoping #4 continues in her easygoing ways because a 1000sqft house and 4 crazy kids sounds exhausting!

[gaialice]

Originally Posted by Sexybookworm

But, I always assumed that he was this way because his big sister is so high maintenance he became that way by default. Does that make sense?

It makes sense, of course, but life often doesn't. I have two very, very high energy little girls.

[honolula]

Originally Posted by NYCVeg

I think that this behavior may in part be due to parents' own unconscious reliance on gender norms, though. I wonder if many parents "tolerate" wildness in boys more because it's "just the way boys are", while they expect their girls to behave in a more docile way. I have actually seen this in one family I know that has a girl and a boy. The boy is allowed to get away with behaviors that the girl never was--and even though the girl has a lot of natural energy, her parents explicit and implicit criticism of any "wildness" (in contrast to what they permit their son to do) has certainly changed the way she manifests that energy. And, on the other side, how many parents of boys sit their boys down and play tea party or dolls with them? Some, I know, but there's definitely a sense that taking boys outside, letting them run, jump, fight, etc. is simply what one "does" with boys.

Hello.

And just because everybody else has an anecdote: I have never met a boy who could keep up with dd2. She sleeps less than I do, wrestles, pounces, bounces, shouts, runs, climbs, takes things apart/inspects them/puts them back together, was late to speak, prefers numbers to letters, "drives" her My Little Ponies, and exhausts everyone in the house, including two extremely high-energy boys (housemate's kids), one who has been diagnosed with ADHD and who once held the title of Most Spirited Child I Have Ever Met... she has all the stereotypical play behaviours of a boy, and believe me, I hear about it constantly.

My older daughter is a free spirit who loves movement and fun like any healthy child, but she can turn it off and on. I lived the tea party life with her for four years until her sister came along and shattered the tea set.

[angela&avery]

yes i get that and I understand it!!!

I have a boy AND a girl and let me tell you.... I think that my boy is harder physically and I dont know if its personality, but he definitely needs more movement time that my dd.

HOWEVER, raising dd is NOT a teaparty!!! LOL She is a handful and I think it is so much more tiring of my mind with her.. that said she was a much busier toddler, while my ds was a much busier 3 year old.

My ds needs that physical time and seems to have problems focusing in school, dd is fine thus far....