No Child Left Behind = All Boys Left Behind
Let's play a little game of make believe shall we? Let's play "house" - and pretend to be a typical American family about five years from now- say in 2014.
In this scenario, Mommy is a CEO, serves on several Boards of Directors, and had her two kids in her late thirties. Daddy is at home full time, cooks dinner, coaches soccer and helps with homework at night. He dropped out of college, after struggling through high school, and can't find a well paying job to justify their childcare costs.
In our make believe game, there are two children. The daughter is getting all A's in school. She is the teacher's pet, class president, plays sports and is in honor's classes. The son likes sports, but hates most subjects in school, struggles with ADHD, and is fumbling. Both have the same amount of attention and opportunities at home, yet the daughter is going to Harvard and the son is going to Community College.
Now, before you get hot and huffy here about gender sexism, bear with me. This scenario is not far from the truth for our upcoming leaders of tomorrow. Since the 1970's feminism has opened up unparalleled opportunity for women to move forward in education and business. Is it perfect? No, but today's daughters are breaking glass ceilings and blazing trails.
However, there are glass shards and dead end roads being inadvertently left for the men, and the boys. In the past ten years or so, the world of education has changed dramatically. The "No Child Left Behind Act" has been a disaster, and instead has turned into "All Boys Left Behind." Our nation's boys are not just slipping through the cracks, they are washing down the Grand Canyon without a paddle, and something must be done about it.
Peg Tyre is author of the book, The Trouble with Boys, a #1 best seller, coming out in paperback this summer. Tyre spent five years researching the current education system from every demographic. She has a powerful, unrelenting story of how our young men are struggling, and describes a giant education gap that will affect every level of American life, in a very short period of time, as these kids grow up.
Currently, boys are being "expelled" from preschool four times more than girls. They are 60% more likely to be held back in kindergarten, and twice as likely to be diagnosed with learning disabilities. Only 43% of young men are enrolled as undergraduates in college, girls are taking more AP classes in high school, and dominating as school valedictorians. In fact, a "dirty little secret" at many colleges and universities is the unspoken "new gender gap." Boys are being admitted to colleges with lesser qualifications than girls to keep the gender balance.
Even though the IQ levels are the same, boys are disengaging from the educational process from their very first moments in a classroom, and steadily falling behind with each passing year. Today 72% of girls and only 65% of boys are graduating from high school.
For struggling families, the child who does the best in school is the one who will be pushed the hardest - nowadays it is invariably a girl. This trend is a massive reversal of forty years ago, where the academic career's of the boys was pushed at the expense of the girls. How can we keep the scales balanced?
Tyre states:
"In some ways its nice to see women on top. But we have to ask who is going to bring up the children and who are these educated women going to marry? In America there are 2.5 million more girls than boys in college, and women tend to marry men of the same level of educational attainment."
If the pipeline that is sending our boys up through the education system is damaged, the catastrophic recession is smashing the other end of the pipe as well- leaving scores of men unemployed, depressed and unsure of where to go next. Statistics show nearly 80% of those losing their jobs from the recession are men. Many of them are helping out at home, and redefining the meaning of "stay at home dad."
Does anyone see the connection here? In our recent lifestyle of 80 hour work weeks, an average father currently only spends 30 minutes a day with their sons. Maybe our struggling boys need their struggling dad's. Maybe both their lives need to be filled with a little more wrestling, games of Spiderman and comic books, instead of endless meetings and boring classroom droning.
Jeremy Adam Smith has written a new book, The Daddy Shift, just released for Father's Day. Smith, a staunch profeminist, spent a year with their infant son as the primary caretaker, and writes a very intelligent and engaging blog called "Daddy Dialectic". He offers a positive spin on the profound importance of men being at home as transforming bread winning into care giving. Check him out on this one minute video:
"Many fathers feel helpless, useless or in the way, when instead fathers can serve as a bridge between the mother and the rest of the world," said Smith. "It is time to come up with a whole new set of rules."
Smith feels that hands-on dads handle stress better when facing issues of unemployment.
"Taking care of my children is the toughest challenge I ever faced, but facing it strengthened me and enlarged my life, and critically, it has helped many of us to survive unemployment,"Smith said.
I asked Smith if he has noticed any differences in how he parents vs. his wife's style.
"Primarily, I think there is not a huge difference between men and women as parents," he begins. "However, I do think father's wrestle more, and while many assume the maternal style is the gold standard, running around playing octopus is how we have fun and relate to each other."
I have great faith that having more men at home can help bring that critical masculine energy back into the nucleus of the family- there may be more sword fighting, squirt guns, and more hours of farting than flash cards. If boys can be empowered by men at home, ideally their ability to perform in school will increase. If more men are paying attention to how their sons are being taught and the obvious deficits they are facing, motivation will occur to take action and address their specific needs.
Let's hear it for the boys. How are your boys faring in school? How are the men out there handling the juggling domestic home front? Let's start a dialogue and your comments are warmly welcomed!
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I saw this problem with my two boys (both very bright). Public school has become an exercise in sitting still for long periods of time. Math has been replaced with group activities and what is essentially vocabulary (we engineers we don't care that you call it the associative property -- we just know that (a+b) + c = a + (b+c) ) All this plays into female strengths and removes the areas in which boys are strong.
Our schools have become group-oriented rather than achievement oriented. Playing nice and pretending to "try" without ever succeeding gets you good grades.
What's the cure?
1. local parental control of curriculum
2. remove credentialing requirement for teachers and replace it with success in the work place and education in the subject
3. allow students/parents to choose which teachers will teach them. Allow different teaching styles and content for different students.
And also do what I did when I taught the gifted kids in elementary school. Every 20 minutes or so, we would all get up and run around the school. It is insane to keep kids still for more than a half hour at most. They've done studies showing that even adults can't keep still and pay attention for more the 45 minutes...yet we are INCREASING the length of classes to 1.5 hours. Here we have all this teacher credentialing education but apparently no one pays any attention to real world findings.
The teacher credentialing program insures that there is this uniform mindset to those who go into public school teaching. Except for the few who are dedicated enough to just plow through all the politically correct group-think and get their credentials, we mostly get people that go along with the educational establishment mindset...and that mind set does not conform with real life!
"Public school has become an exercise in sitting still for long periods of time."
And this is different from the last hundred years of education HOW?
"2. remove credentialing requirement for teachers and replace it with success in the work place and education in the subject"
Because teaching takes no skill or knowledge and anyone who knows anything can teach it to anyone, right?
Apparently all our kids need to know is how to be a cog in the next corporate machine, so let's just provide vocational training from kindergarten on and dispense with all that other stuff.
"Allow different teaching styles and content for different students."
You want a completely relativistic curriculum devoid of any objective content standard? So if Johnny wants to learn only multiplication we will dispense with long division?
Really good teachers are capable of differentiating curriculum for different styles of learners. Somewhere around here there was a great column written about this about a month ago by a Professor/Teacher/Administrator. I'll try to hunt down the link for you.
This guy "gets it":
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-rose
"Public school has become an exercise in sitting still for long periods of time."
It is much different than it used to be even 20 years ago. Ask anyone who has been an educator for a long time. Music, art and anything but the 3 Rs have been cut more and more out of the publc system, including recess. Also, we expect really little kids to sit still for long periods of time (kindergarteners and preschoolers), this is new. 100 years ago preschool was didn't exist and kindergarten was a rarity.
I don't agree with #2. You can't teach if you don't have the ability to create a learning environment. There are plenty of smart people with lots of experience that would be completely run over by a classroom of 3rd graders. I teach knitting to elementary aged children - believe me a room full of kids is a force of nature that not everyone can handle.
i for one do not see the connection between boys failing and No Child left Behind. I see the problem being teaching to the girls and not letting boys be boys. For example, when boys want to play instead of learn, they are taken out of class as being disruptive, but they are acting "like boys" are expected to behave. The books that they read in many programs are chosen to appeal to the girls and are not at all interesting to boys. the classics are no longer read in many schools. as my son used to say as he barely passed through school although he is very bright, I am tired of reading books about girls being raped. The math that they teach now is, in my opinion, a waste of time. I had to teach my daughter, who graduated college cum laude, how to do long division in 9th grade because that was not part of the curriculum. The pendulum has shifted and boys are basically floundering while the girls excel. there has to be a happy balance reached somehow, but at this time, it is not to be.
I'm not really sure what one teacher can do when boys want to "play instead of learn"...how is the teacher supposed to teach the rest of the kids who are there to learn at that time? Classes are large (that's a funding issue), and you really can't let the kids who just feel like playing dominate the classroom. What do you suggest in the here and now (not fantasy in which there's one teacher for every six kids)?
A couple of things -
Your son read multiple stories about girls being raped in school? And that was chosen to appeal to girls?
And, how is the system teaching to girls if your daughter didn't learn long division by 9th grade?
Your post doesn't add up.
First off I doubt the difference in educating boys to girls is due to the No Child Left Behind Act -that was totally irrelevant here I believe. Second I have 3 boys none with attention disorders, 2 have gone through k-12 and my third in junior high. I believe its the teachers. Really. My oldest had a teacher who just didn't like boys -she even said so. Her ration is 5 boys to 16-18 girls because parents of boys withdraw them from her class -as did I when my other two were in 4th grade. I believe schools should go to charter and teachers should be held accountable for their students progress.
As a former teacher, I well remember the early-to-mid '80s when the big push was new evidence that boys got statistically more attention in class than girls, and how we were supposed to adjust our teaching styles to address the inequality. School curricula (materials, methods of instruction and assessment, scheduling of classes, you name it) were criticized as privileging boys and male patterns of thinking; the problems were addressed. The SAT was criticized for "gender bias" against girls, and that was addressed. Now, 20+ years later, the chickens have come home to roost, and we wonder why. Sheesh!
I used to think this was all right wing nonsense, until my son was born 17 months ago. I'm the one who takes him to and from daycare, and takes care of him during the day, when my wife is working overtime as a doctor. It really is striking how often my boy's natural inclinations and instincts are treated as some sort of aberration, by the curricula and faculty we encounter wherever we go. He's a totally normal boy (raises hell like daddy did, loves bashing things, climbing things, pushing buttons, screaming, singing at birds, etc). I'm kind of dazed with the number of times people have either chewed me out passive aggressively, or implied that something was wrong with my boy, when his behavior deviates from the way little girls behave at that age. Girls are phenomenally more "mature", in ways that seem to fit much more cleanly with the values in modern education. We need to stop seeing all aggression and chaos as bad. Little boys are crazy little bastards. You can't snuff it out. They will always want to slay dragons and point magnifying glasses at dismembered flies, as long as little girls want to be princesses and ride ponies all day. Neither gender should be considered the "norm".
I agree with you. But I do place it back on the teachers who just can't seem to handle boys. Boys excel in Math and Science it's just known facts. While girls will do better in Reading and Writing, however that seems to be all the teachers focus on (well duh of course reading/writing is important) but my goodness. For example my son had a project due about a story they were reading in class, the class was to do a poster-board. He did all the required info needed for the project but still got a D because teacher said that it just wasn't pretty enough -her words! Then she pulled out another students poster (a girls) and of course it had colorful whatever on it but the EXACT SAME info that my son's poster had. So let's be careful who we blame not all parents are clueless about their children's education.
I disagree with a statement you made in your recent post. "Boys excel in Math and Science it's just known facts. While girls will do better in Reading and Writing..." This statement is untrue. While it may be true that historically males have excelled in the fields of mathematics and science, it is not because males have some innate ability over females to learn or to do math and/or science. But rather, this differential succes is an artifact of a number of factors, including societal expectations, such as yours.
This analogy underscores the flaw in your logic.
The USA is currently experiencing a decrease in the number of :
1) individuals enrolling in undergraduate programs in science, math, and technology (STEM);
2) students enrolling and completing STEM graduate degrees; and
3) individuals choosing to pursue careers in STEM-related fields.
Instead these programs at US universities are being filled with students from abroad. (Note: this is not a derogatory comment about international students attending US universities.) Using your logic, these facts suggest that international students have innate capacities over US students to learn and do STEM coursework. I hardly think that's the case.
I'm a female PhD scientist and would rather spend every day knee-deep in mud than reading a book or writing a poetry. And I have many female colleagues would happily join me. I find your comment frustrating. I naively thought that we, as a societal whole, were beyond such gross and inaccurate generalizations.
Amen to that!
I am a mom of two year old boy and I grew up in a family of all girls and found the energy and sheer stamina that boys possess fascinating, frightening and fun. I couldn't agree more with your assessment of how people respond to "boy energy" in public places. They either visually belittle you or state under their breath how your child needs a spanking. It seems that society has belittled boys to the point that around every corner is a boy with some disorder. In all honesty I think public schools have become factories and boys just don't seem to fit the mold. We have already decided to send our son to private school.
You know, you should consider trying a Waldorf School. My children have attended since preschool (now in 4th and 6th grade) and we have been very happy. The cirriculum gives boys lots of outlets for their energy and the teachers have a wonderful attitude regarding children. Childhood is respected and honored in a way you don't often see.
The children make wooden swords in kindergarten and then are "knighted" and taught to only use their sword for good (i.e. friendly sword fighting - it really is possible). They also make their own dolls. They have a ton of outdoor time and exercise, especially in preschool/kindergarten.
Yow, it's the HTML formatting that's getting left behind...
I guess it's sheer luck or perhaps my insistence on boundaries, but my twin boys are excelling academically in Middle School. One has ADHD, the other Hi-function Autism. They attend a Magent school within the one of the lowest ranked and 2nd largest school districts in the nation...LAUSD (Los Angeles). From my observation, too many boys are over scheduled with sports and allowed to play endless hours of video games. Parents are not up to snuff on their homework assignments, and allow their boys to blow them off. Many times there are no FATHERS in the house. What it really comes down to is that the adult men not involved enough, and the mothers are under extreme duress.
I push my boys to excel. It's not that complicated. Minimum electronic media (I don't care how much they b!tch and scream, I'm the MOM!), paying attention, and for goodness sakes, encourage them to read quality books (So should you in order to set a positive example).
By the way...Hooray for the girls! Let's just keep on top of the boys (Yes Dad that means YOU too). It's the parent's/Guardian's responsibilty, not the school district's.
Kudos to you for taking the stand on the video games!!! Too many boys waste their childhood on that garbage, and too many parents just roll over and let them -as if they have no power to stop it. Parental responsibility needs to take a front seat, schools can't do everything.
Thank you so much Beegood. I know a couple of wonderful boys that have attended the Waldorf school (like your kids). I am SO impressed with them and their parents are extremely happy.
In my own situation, living in an expensive city like LA, it's out of our reach. So, I need to work harder with my kids. But believe me, if I won the lottery, that's where I'd send my sons!
"A guy stayed home for a WHOLE YEAR and wrote a book? Golly. I've been home eight years so far..."
I happen to be reading Smith's book right now, and I just want to say that this comment gets "The Daddy Shift" dead wrong. Most of the book consists of profiles of families around the country, including in Kansas City, Chicago, and Harlem--and these guys and their wives are a really diverse group. Smith doesn't present himself as the king of the stay-at-home dads, and his book isn't exactly a memoir; he briefly writes about his experiences taking care of his kid mostly so that the reader can really get inside the head of a stay-at-home father. But the most important parts of the book aren't about him at all. It's a very surprising, nuanced book, and I would actually argue that it's only incidentally about stay-at-home dads. It's real topic is how relationships between men and women, fathers and children, are changing, in both good ways and bad.
great article. a positive male presence in the lives of boys has been shown by researchers to greatly impact success of boys (higher school completion rate, lower incidences of delinquency, etc). see this article for more information http://www.examiner.com/x-4793-DC-Marriage-Advice-Examiner~y2009m6d14-Fathers-husbands-surrogates-we-need-you
Having volunteered countless days in my son's classrooms from kindergarten through fifth grade I've seen first hand that many young boys have different learning styles than young girls. More of the boys tended to be whole-body learners; they needed to move more to learn. Jump around on carpet squares with letters on them to learn their letters, etc. The schools in my area don't have the resources to do much for the whole-body learner, they are given worksheets and told to sit down and work. They are bright youngsters but their learning style is being worked against, not with.
Ahh, there's were a Waldorf school excells - they approach all subjects from all sides (through physical movement, art, music and wonderful stories). It is not very well known yet in the US, but I hope it soon is. I have been extremely happy with my kids school experience. Yes, it is a private school, but these are my kids!
That's really cool. I've read about Waldorf education but the closest one is about a 90 minute one-way drive for me. Every single private school in my town and within a 30 minute one-way drive is a religious school from a religion my family doesn't practice. These schools are even more conformist than the public schools.
A guy stayed home for a WHOLE YEAR and wrote a book? Golly. I've been home eight years so far, with about 9 more to go before my homeschooled daughter goes off to college. I should do a screenplay...maybe a miniseries. Lumping full time fathers together as laid-off underachievers is a bit of a stretch, but I've pretty much given up on getting any sensible recognition from the media. Yes, I do have a BA, and my wife's working on her PhD, so run with that tidbit if you wish. She's also a public school teacher, and that says a lot about what NCLB is doing to all kids when families like ours homeschool. It does seem to be a growing trend among professional educators. Polling the teachers we know, while NCLB is indeed evil, there's another important trend that is impossible to legislate away -- increasing parental distraction. More and more parents are more and more clueless about just how many hours Jimmy spends on video games. More and more parents put tv's in their kids' bedrooms, and of course, in their SUVs. More and more parents live in homes with very few books. Some yet-unborn anthropologist will one day trace the beginnings of this massive shift in ability back to the early 21st century.
I think the fact that you are homeschooling speaks volumes about the disaster that is NCLB.
Thank God America wasn't "homeschooled". The only reason our democracy survived for two centuries was public education. Every single classmate of mine who was homeschooled either doesn't measure up on exams, or spends half the day bragging about homeschooling and ripping on public education. They also lack a lot of the socialization and humility that kids learn when they are forced to learn in groups. They're conceited, don't usually know more than one point of view on anything, and tend to be totally clueless in group settings. I'll never forget living in the dorms at the University of Wisconsin, and getting together with half a dozen buddies to help "teach" the homeschooled dudes how to interact with women, without getting arrested. It was just pathetic.
This is so not true. My homeschooled kids are more well read, more knowledgeable and were accepted at top colleges where one got the Regent's award. Homeschooling varies by family but some of us do it because we want more rigorous academics. My kids learned calculus before they went to college. They (unlike their public school counterparts) know geography.
It just burns me up, these people with no experience homeschooling who group all homeschoolers together and make completely unsubstantiated assertions which are absolutely contradicted by research on homeschoolers.
Hey, homeschool dad, i totally agree with you about parental distraction and the lack of books in many homes. Our house is overflowing with books. My husband and i both grew up in houses that contained lots of books and we would enjoy taking one off the shelf and flip through them when we were bored. Our son in an infant but already he likes the little board books. (incidentally, my husband is the SAHD too)
There's a lot of truth in this. I'm amazed at how these kind of analyses of boys' education problems rarely include the big elephant in the corner: VIDEO GAMES. For whatever reason, boys love them and girls don't, at least not in the same numbers or with the same passion. These games eat up huge chunks of time, encourage aggression and require none of the skills required by academic learning.
I've seen parents who bring their kids to my office - moms and dads equally - encouraging boys as young as THREE to sit down and hypnotize himself with a handheld or computer video game. Boys who want to run and jump are instantly put into a trance by these games, and parents LOVE It. The kids do this for years, then parents wonder why they can't concentrate on school work.
When parents bring little girls to the office, for contrast, they encourage them to be quiet by having them color or sharpen pencils or draw pictures for others in the office. Boys could do all these things, and would enjoy them, but parents invariably pull out the Gameboy instead. Parents are programming boys and girls to be the way they are. It's not some big social conspiracy. It's the parents themselves.
You're blaming this on VIDEO GAMES?
You're clearly a clueless woman. I am a dude. I was expressly forbidden from playing video games. Whatever problems those boys had, were the same ones I had. Blaming it on stuff you didn't like to do as a little girl is not only seixst, but totally clueless.
By the way, video games rock. It's not our fault you were only exposed to the ones that freak out sheltered, closeted twits like you. Video games are about as diverse as non-video games, at this point. You need to throw out that Commodore 64 and start catching up to the 21st century already.
I help take care of a nine year old girl whose parents are basically deadbeats. She LOVES video games, as do all her little friends who come over to play with her. You do NOT speak for many people out there.
The same skills used for video games can be harnessed to learn number facts and spelling. Clearly kids like this rote stuff and it is appropriate at early levels. But we don't teach memorization of math facts because it might harm the little darlings' "creativity". This is utter bunk. I defy anyone to do calculus if they have to spend their time figuring out what 6 times 3 is or don't recognize the factors of an expression.
Why so abusive, dude?
I raised two sons, now 18 and 24....believe me, they played video games and still do. How many sons have you raised to adulthood, doood?
I limited the video time just like I limited the tv time, and made sure they read books and kept up on their homework. I have observed scores of boys growing up and yes, video games are a problem. They're also a boy phenomenon. No need to be abusive, although I've found it common behavior among young male gamers.
I see parents teaching their 3 year old boys to play video games. It's the one thing that keeps them quiet. I don't see parents doing this with little girls. Excuse me for not having your wisdom, but I've actually raised three kids and watched dozens more grow up. Yes, I will always stand by my belief that VIDEO GAMES are the great unexplored problem behind boys' educational deficits. I've seen it. I still see it everywhere I go.
The entire premise of the article is absurd. "All Boys"? Really? When you generalize about any group, you are going to be wrong at least 49% of the time. Ms Henley has fallen into the same trap as Michael Gurian, though she appears to be more intelligent. As a boy who hated typical boy stuff (but was not gay), I can only imagine how much better my life would have been in today's schools. Instead I was tortured by my classmate and teachers alike, though it was not until many years later that I realized they thought I was gay. I now have a son, 8, who is kind, curious, empathetic, and creative. Though he is not a rough-houser, he does love cars, trains, and gadgets, like any normal boy. But he approaches everything thoughtfully and with care. I am grateful for an educational system which nurtures him rather than calling him a sissie. The problem articulated by Ms. Henley applies mainly to those boys who have been raised by their, presumably proud fathers, to be savages. Our educational system catered to savages for long enough. It is time to get away from blanket generalizations and realize that there are many ways to be in this world. Right now, the conditions Ms. Henley decries as being bad for boys are actually GOOD for some boys--namely, the ones who actually are capable of acting like human beings. How is that a bad thing?
You're right, Carlos. Some parents want to have this both ways. They want to raise little animals, and then they want schools to come up with some magic bullet to get them to sit still and learn. If you raise your kid to be a cowboy, then it's your responsibility to help him find a job on a ranch someplace. Don't rant at the rest of society because he can't be trained for a high paying job.
Besides, a kid who learns a good trade is probably going to make more money and have a happier life than most who go on to be lawyers and accountants. If the kid isn't college material, help him embrace and enjoy the destiny he's been given instead. There's nothing wrong with it. I WISH one of my kids would have become a plumber!
I talked about my experience with my sons down thread.
I assure you, my boys were not "little savages". In fact, my youngest son was so quiet that many of his teachers were afraid he'd be labeled "sissy" and gave me tips on "manning him up". The point that I, and others, are trying to make is it just seems as if we can't win with the boys, no matter where on the spectrum they seem to fall. Granted, there are boys who are doing very well, and ofcourse, there are teachers and schools that seem to have fewer problems with this. Overall, however, I think there IS something going on with this. Maybe it's just that we haven't yet decided what it means to be male. We live in a time of changing perceptions and while I am glad for this overall, I just don't want to see us throw a generation of little boys under the bus.
I think the problem is that boys are playing too many video games and not doing their homework. If boys want good grades they need to care -- and do their homework and study like the girls do. A boy can leave school and go out and get a decent paying job with less schooling than a girl. This is because of the glass ceiling. Men become managers over women just because they are men.
Girls and parents know girls need an education to make any money. That's why girls are doing better in school because they have to.
The modern young-male experience is TERRIBLY emasculating.
How so? Are they forced to wear dresses and heels and makeup? Or is being expected to be empathetic to their fellow human beings now considered emasculation? I have no idea where this comes from, along with the angry rants about women wanting to medicate and emasculate their sons. I think some individuals are looking for a place to grind their personal axes, rather than address the actual topic.
Have you READ any of the required and recommended literature in school curricula? Teriibly fiction-oriented, very little non-fiction, and precious little of any interest to boys. Even the "sports" and "science" articles are usually biographies -- and, more often than not, biographies of female athletes and scientists (because girls are underrepresented). By the time you get to middle and high school, they're reading _The House on Mango Street_, _The Lovely Bones_, _The Poisonwood Bible_, _The Joy Luck Club_, NOTHING of any interest or relevance to adolescent males. Now, let's wonder why they're disengaged as readers, dropping out of high school, or opting out of college...?
AMEN.
I remember being encouraged to read the Iliad. And play cops n robbers, or cowboys n indians, or whatever boys have played since Altamira and Lascaux.
Being shown what death looked like, in nature, and breaking things, and screaming, and trick'r'treating at night, and all those fun things that I never see boys doing anymore.
I'm as liberal as Nader. It's no right/left thing. Little boys LOVE tales of valor, and fighting, and struggle, and heroes, and villains, and games where NOT everyone is a winner. Its so sad having to go into some sort of social closet, over this stuff. As if we're thought criminals.
I'm a pacifist, green, hate guns,etc. Something is seriously wrong with the social roles into which we straitjacket boys
It boils down to the squeamishness inherent in the Left these days. Offending someone, no matter how inadvertently or innocently, is like a felony. We're never supposed to offend ANYONE, about anything, ever. Or else you are some sort of nazi.. We're too sensitive, thin-skinned, and these intellectually dishonest values are affecting our children. This doesn't just hurt boys. Like, when everybody's a "winner", all the time, this basically allows a lot of liberals to avoid that far rougher moment, down the road, when a kid is forced, point blank, to learn, often the hard way, that life is FULL of losers, and defeats. And that DEFEATS, and LOSSES, are often the best way to teach certain important lessons in life.
Is it just me, or has anyone ever heard of a girl being prescribed Ritalin? Boys are just naturally more hyper and agressive than girls, it seems that all the drugs are gven to them to make them act and behave like girls, quiet and submissive.
Yes, because in this country the majority of "diagnostic" when it comes to hyperactivity is done by teachers not doctors... and how many male teachers do you see in Kindergarten and Elementary school, so the problem starts there.
My daughter was - it's not unheard of. Girls with AD/HD are less recognized because like most girls - they are teacher pleasers, that doesn't stop just because they have AD/HD. I believe that Kathleen Nadeau has written extensively about girls and AD/HD. More often also, girls have AD/HD Inattentive type, so they appear to be the classic daydreamers and are not necessarily disruptive - therefore overlooked.
http://www.athealth.com/Practitioner/particles/interview_nadeau.html
I will say this, in our experience you only get a couple year window with the meds and then they lose effectiveness, you have to use that time well to instill new habits that help with executive function (organization) and other deficits.
The problem is that ADHD is a real condition, but all too often, boys are drugged simply for being boys. There is nothing wrong with their (male) level of activity or their (young male) attention span, but because they are not passive and quiet, because they are tactile and verbal and inquisitive, they are drugged. It's not only that girls with ADHD are sometimes not diagnoses, it's also that boy withOUT ADHD are diagnosed as having it and "medicated" accordingly.
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