Why do we tolerate trash talking and elitism as "boys will be boys" behavior?

[Anonymous]

Now that my boys are getting older and we are carpooling frequently and spending weekends at various games, I am a bit disturbed by how bad the trash talking culture is with kids this young.
When the dehumanization of another child is fueled by fierce competitiveness, why do we let it slide? The message our kids take in is that “in order for me to succeed, I need to make that other kid smaller. That’s the only way I’ll get bigger. Better. Be the best.” If a child is competing against other teams, and even his own teammates, why must he diminish them in order to enlarge himself? The attitude I get from most parents of boys is they want their kid to engage so he's not a target or bullied himself and it's just a right of passage but I wonder why? Shouldn't we as parents be encouraging less toxic behaviors?

[Anonymous]

I’m a parent of a 4th grade DD who had been warned about how difficult tween and teen girls were and how mean they are to each other. I was always told that boys were straightforward and easy.

It’s been shocking to see girls rally together and be supportive and kind, and to see the cruel, aggressive and constant work boys exert to establish and maintain a pecking order and their place in it. (I just wrote basically the same thing on the special needs thread and it isn’t worth rephrasing) Girl moms talked for years about relational aggression, but now I think it’s who who are really pushing the boundaries of what that can look like.

We have multiple boys at our school leaving because they’ve basically been driven out by this alpha boy nonsense.

[Anonymous]

PP and I meant to add that the parents of these boys are perfectly happy with how they’re acting and there’s lots of talk about confidence or fake sympathy for boys who “can’t keep up with everyone else.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a parent of a 4th grade DD who had been warned about how difficult tween and teen girls were and how mean they are to each other. I was always told that boys were straightforward and easy.

It’s been shocking to see girls rally together and be supportive and kind, and to see the cruel, aggressive and constant work boys exert to establish and maintain a pecking order and their place in it. (I just wrote basically the same thing on the special needs thread and it isn’t worth rephrasing) Girl moms talked for years about relational aggression, but now I think it’s who who are really pushing the boundaries of what that can look like.

We have multiple boys at our school leaving because they’ve basically been driven out by this alpha boy nonsense.

Not against you. I have the same observations

But why do we not believe boys have an emotional life as well as girls?

[Anonymous]

Did you not attend school? This is something that was happening when I went to elementary school in the late 70's/ early 80's. It most likely has happened for hundreds of years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you not attend school? This is something that was happening when I went to elementary school in the late 70's/ early 80's. It most likely has happened for hundreds of years.

This just don’t carpool or better yet homeschool

[Anonymous]

I see it too and I don’t get it. I am raising my boy to be kind and empathetic but I feel like many other parents are teaching their kids to be jerks. Even among so called “progressive” families we are witnessing the creation of bullies and aggressive/selfish behavior that is shocking but not corrected.

[Anonymous]

I haven't found this at all with either my 9 year-old boy or my 11 year-old boy. Their friend groups are really lovely boys and lovely families. Both play sports but neither has an identity formed solely around sports, so maybe that is why. Is it all boys or just a toxic environment around certain sports or activities that you are noticing? I wouldn't paint with too broad a brush.

[Anonymous]

I see this more and more even with rec sports as my son gets older. My boy's team is lovely, but some of the teams they play against are just awful. Lots of intentional tripping, shoving, name calling. My son's coach does an awesome job reminding the boys to stay on the high road and ignore the jerks, but I'm shocked at the level they face.

[Anonymous]

I have two boys and they must have miracled into a really nice grade at all three of the schools, because we didn't see any of this behavior. Then again after fee wee soccer they didn't do team sports, so maybe it's that crowd?

[Anonymous]

I see this with my son, and we talk about it constantly. What lines not to cross, who you can “roast” (friends only,) how to pay attention to make sure you haven’t gone too far, what to do if you do.

He’s still young, so he still listens to my advice on this stuff. Early this school year, he upset a friend by saying the eagles suck (which he knew was untrue, and he thought it was funny). He apologized later in the day (totally unprompted).

I don’t claim to be able to control how he talks to his friends, but we are trying to teach empathy along the way

[Anonymous]

Honestly, I have four boys and yes, there is something that kind of breaks in them during middle school and remains broken during high school. They sort of seal up emotionally because it's just.not.acceptable. to feel things. It's strange and weird and basically the one thing that sort of opened them up weirdly was dating girls and even then it is sort of screwed up that they rely on them for this solely. Their friends aren't safe spaces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that my boys are getting older and we are carpooling frequently and spending weekends at various games, I am a bit disturbed by how bad the trash talking culture is with kids this young.
When the dehumanization of another child is fueled by fierce competitiveness, why do we let it slide?The message our kids take in is that “in order for me to succeed, I need to make that other kid smaller. That’s the only way I’ll get bigger. Better. Be the best.” If a child is competing against other teams, and even his own teammates, why must he diminish them in order to enlarge himself? The attitude I get from most parents of boys is they want their kid to engage so he's not a target or bullied himself and it's just a right of passage but I wonder why? Shouldn't we as parents be encouraging less toxic behaviors?

I am seeing this exact thing with some of the fifth grade boys at my son‘s school. I think it stems from those boys’ own insecurities, which is coming from their own parents being super competitive and making them feel like they aren’t good enough.

One of the kids who does this just recently got moved onto one of my son’s sports teams. It is making my son not enjoy practice or being on this team. It is actually one of the reasons he is moving to a different team next year. This kid is smaller and objectively not as good at the sport as my son. It seems that he wants to make my son feel bad so that he can feel better about himself.

I think this stuff is worse in the more affluent schools/areas. Parents are so hyper competitive and worry about their kids not stacking up. They pass this along to their children, whether they know it or not.

[Anonymous]

Boys bond this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that my boys are getting older and we are carpooling frequently and spending weekends at various games, I am a bit disturbed by how bad the trash talking culture is with kids this young.
When the dehumanization of another child is fueled by fierce competitiveness, why do we let it slide? The message our kids take in is that “in order for me to succeed, I need to make that other kid smaller. That’s the only way I’ll get bigger. Better. Be the best.” If a child is competing against other teams, and even his own teammates, why must he diminish them in order to enlarge himself? The attitude I get from most parents of boys is they want their kid to engage so he's not a target or bullied himself and it's just a right of passage but I wonder why? Shouldn't we as parents be encouraging less toxic behaviors?

I think a big part of the problem is we give kids (boys AND girls) these anemic "be nice, be kind" talks all throughout elementary and middle school. Kindness is defined as something like "pick up a piece of trash on the playground" or "hold open a door for your friend." These things aren't actually hard to do. They barely take any self-sacrifice.

Meanwhile we don't give a competing view of what strength - or even masculinity - looks like. We never tell strong boys "You may be physically stronger than a lot of girls. You have to use your physical strength to serve, to protect, to defend." Or a smart boy "Your brain is a wonder. You have to use it to find ways to help people. Maybe you can invent things, or use your mind to find ways to protect your country/your family/your friends." Or an especially empathetic boy "You really understand other people. You need to use that understanding to encourage and build up others." We need to be casting a vision that's not toxic masculinity, but positive masculinity. That guys can use all of themselves for the purpose of doing good for others in the world.

And there need to be serious consequences. Parents who don't back up schools when the phone call comes that their sons are being jerks help create the problem. Schools that use ineffective discipline methods that put victims and aggressors in the same room to talk it out or some other stupid and harmful consequence help create the problem. Kids who stand by and allow this behavior, because they haven't been taught to defend the weaker (yes, even socially weaker) others are the problem. A society that has a wierd dichotemy between valuing people who are excessively powerful and yet giving people status for victimhood is also the problem. The powerful showcase the takedown behavior all the time and get cheered for it. The victims don't want their victimhood taken away because it's part of their status. So there's no way for someone with perceived power to helpfully stand up for someone else. So that's not shown as a desirable good.