Friday 3 May 2013

An Open Letter on Raising Boys


Hi (Your Name?)

Interesting ideas some people have <LOL>! But good for you for listening and giving it some thought…


You write:
 "Now, about Boys. We had a chat with other parents who HS and their eldest is a boy. They don't think it would be good for him to be HS past, say, 12/13 years since boys will need to be more competative when they go into the world as men."
Mmmm, I don’t know about being “competitive” but I suppose what they are saying is “Men need to have a backbone when they go into the world as men”. I can agree with that. That would be one of your long term goals that in our family is slapped under “We are raising somebody’s husband, father and employer/employee and for that he needs among others…some backbone!”

Firstly, I don’t agree that school is a healthy place to grow back-bone (and definitely not during the very vulnerable teen years). Teens are trying to come to terms with all the changes that are taking place in their bodies (some of it they like; some of it they don’t) – they need to hear that they are “okay” unfortunately this is not the message sent to the vast majority by their peers. And teens are trying to find meaning & direction - their purpose. I love my teens; I love their individuality and I purposely reinforce it. “You want long hair? Great! How about a “bob”? You want to wear your purity ring on your thumb? Cool, we’ll buy a bigger one! Purple skinny jeans? Okay, what about these purple laces too?” “You don’t want to shave? Okay, that mustache is actually kinda sexy!” I think it’s important for them not to feel weird or different in a negative way, it must be a “weird” that they feel confident & cool about as this also grows backbone (confidence).


Secondly, only ONE of my three boys is “competitive” (in a good sense) and I believe it has bit to do with his Concrete Sequential/Concrete Random learning style and Bodily/Kinaesthetic Intelligence. Competition doesn’t motivate all people nor does it grow backbone in all. A quiet, compliant boy can have backbone too. He can gently but firmly stand his ground if he has been taught how to (my father-in-law has a saying: “There is nothing as strong as gentleness”).

Thirdly, there is very little POSITIVE peer pressure among same-aged-school-going teen peers in public school as they are all immature and seeking. Generally, exposing a young homeschooled teen to this is a sure fire way to stunt backbone growth and encourage negative “herd mentality” (depending on the child obviously). This particular little boy does not sound like the compliant round peg, he’ll probably be in trouble on a daily basis building a group of friends with similar “risk taking tendencies”! The “risks” will probably grow as he does…

So how could homeschoolers grow backbone practically?

Boys need an involved father and other godly men to come along side them and mentor them. They need men that they can look up to and imitate. They need to be seen as grown-ups-in-training (get them to work with their mentors). John Eldredge in “Wild At Heart” says: “You’re only a man when another man has said that you’re a man” – they need that affirmation. They need to be given freedom & choices (with the relevant consequences). They need to be heard. They need their questions answered – we often discuss “life” as opportunities present themselves. If they know who they are, what they believe and why they believe it - they will have backbone.


You continue:
"And since their son is quite strong-willed and competitive with Mom (he's 4) they think it would not be a good match for him to spend most of the time with Mom when he's in his teens. So they plan to send him to a boy's school or something like that when he gets older."
This mom needs to get a handle on this little man now. She needs to get an understanding of the strong willed child and how you can get them to be compliant by giving them choices and making them ”feel” in control.
“You can’t make me (but I can be persuaded)” by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias is a good read!
"When I mentioned this to a Mom who is researching HS as an option for their daughter, her response was, 'but girls will also need to go out and compete in the working world, so shouldn't they also be exposed to peer-pressure?' etc."
Peer-pressure is not the way to go about building character, habits & skills that any person needs to function as an effective, happy person. Defining the truths, habits & character traits that you want to develop is the first step. The next is to use everyday situations & real life to start building them or making them real & relevant! In other words “purposeful parenting” – parenting with a goal in mind.

Examples:

We didn’t encourage our toddlers to “smack the naughty table” if they bumped into it and fell – we didn’t want to teach “passing-the-blame” but that we are responsible for our actions & the consequences (if we aren’t careful & bump into the table then the consequence is that we fall – no one is to blame but ourselves)

We taught respect for the meaning of the word “no”. We didn’t just say no as a reflex reaction to every request. We would carefully consider when to say no and then stick to it (nagging didn’t change our mind) and we made sure that it was obeyed. We however also respected a little one’s “no” if we gave them the option to do something or not. We didn’t nag and change the child’s mind either (like sharing a toy). The reason: In many date-rape cases it’s reported that the guy says that she did say “no” but he was sure she actually meant “yes”. In our home no is no, not maybe.

We taught our boys that girls are to be protected & helped. At Sunday School the boys and girls used to split up and the boys would play mean pranks on the girls. I encouraged my boys not to be part of it but to protect the girls instead. It became a fun game as they had to stay one step ahead to intercept…


One of my goals has been to teach my boys to “take pleasure in the simple things” like the first leaves in Spring, a beautiful sunset, the smell of freshly roasted coffee because I believe that if they can find contentment in little things they will find contentment wherever they find themselves one day “out there”.

And of course I’ve taught them to cook up a storm – no potential husband should not be able to do this ;-)))

~Adèle (Officially HS’ing Boys since 1999)

Written and published in response to an enquiry on an Open Homeschooling Forum in 2010

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