The Challenges of Parenting Young Boys Today

Are boys getting a bad rap these days?  We expect them to act and behave a certain way, but are we providing them with the appropriate environment to successfully achieve this behavior?  We know that boys are more active than girls, however, we drive them to school, walk them into class, and then expect them to sit patiently in their seats for hours on end.  At least in previous generations, kids would often have the ability to walk or ride their bikes to school, which would help get some energy out prior to the day starting.  Today we are so worried about safety, that our kids are often driven from door to door.

In that vain, our son’s kindergarten teacher told me on the first day of school that she had been teaching for 18 years and she hadn’t seen a dramatic change in the energy level of boys over the years, however, our expectations of how long they must sit and concentrate in a controlled environment has increased.  As parents, we have become a much more competitive group, expecting an increased level of academics taught at earlier ages.  Thirty years ago,  kindergarten generally meant sending your child to school for the first time, and it was often optional.  The year would be spent playing, learning to be away from mom and dad, learning how to get along with others, and the ABC’s.  Today many children come into kindergarten with a couple years of pre-school under their belt.  Parents are looking for them to learn how to read, which in turn creates a more academic atmosphere with more emphasis on sitting still.

After a few months, some parents in the class started to get calls from the teacher.  Although she understood the high-energy behavior, these boys were too disruptive in class and were causing problems for the other 20 kids that were able to sit quietly and pay attention.  These parents of “high-energy” boys needed to do something, or find somewhere else better suited for their kids.  Some parents, in complete despair, ran to the pediatrician asking if their boys needed to be on meds for ADHD.  The general feedback from pediatricians that year was not to put these boys on Ritalin, but to get them more exercise!  Studies as well as basic observation have shown that boys need more physical activity than girls.  While in the old days, boys could ride bikes to school and then come home and run around the neighborhood for hours, now many are stuck in the “safety” of their family rooms playing computer games. 

Our lifestyles and thinking has changed over the generations and we expect more from our kids than ever before.  Furthermore, many of us don’t have family (grandparents) living in the area to help us with advice on how to raise our kids.  If you are looking for additional support to help with your parenting skills, taking online parenting classes can be extremely beneficial.  OnlineParentClass.com  is a great resource to learn new parenting techniques to address raising children today.  They are low-cost, can be taken at your convenience from any computer with web-access and will provide a great deal of information to help with the parenting challenges we face today.