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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Yes, this. It seems intentional and the parents seem proud of it, which is different than when I was a kid in the 80s and it was everywhere but parents either tried to stop it, were unaware, or made it clear they were embarrassed but helpless to stop it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

At our school, it happens separate from sports but is worse among the “baseball boys”. But I’ve heard from friends at other schools that it’s other sports, so I think the particular sport is irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boys bond this way.

Yup!

[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.

I agree and have seen this too. I have 2 girls and my anecdotal observation is that parents seem very quick to discipline their girls vs boys. I don’t get it. Girls (not all but most in my observation) are quick to be kept in check but parents give boys so much leeway for things like screaming, inappropriate or mean language, being physically rough etc. It’s so dispiriting. There seems to be so much coddling of boys vs trying to make girls tough enough to handle those boys.

[Anonymous]

My DS’s friends, including those on his sports team, are not into this. Nice kids.

The girls in my DD’s class? Really awful and they get it from their moms.

So there’s that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I agree and have seen this too. I have 2 girls and my anecdotal observation is that parents seem very quick to discipline their girls vs boys. I don’t get it. Girls (not all but most in my observation) are quick to be kept in check but parents give boys so much leeway for things like screaming, inappropriate or mean language, being physically rough etc. It’s so dispiriting. There seems to be so much coddling of boys vs trying to make girls tough enough to handle those boys.

Yes! Rather than attempt to discipline boys for bad behavior, my DD and her friends were told by the counselors and the assistant principal that they needed to find a way to manage their reactions because that’s just how the boys were going to be.

To the teachers’ credit, they were appalled. But also stuck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS’s friends, including those on his sports team, are not into this. Nice kids.

The girls in my DD’s class? Really awful and they get it from their moms.

So there’s that.

That’s actually really interesting, because in our grade with very badly behaved mean boys, it’s their moms who have the most social capital in the grade and are part of the more pretty/popular/rich parent clique. The moms of girls are more of a mixed group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I agree and have seen this too. I have 2 girls and my anecdotal observation is that parents seem very quick to discipline their girls vs boys. I don’t get it. Girls (not all but most in my observation) are quick to be kept in check but parents give boys so much leeway for things like screaming, inappropriate or mean language, being physically rough etc. It’s so dispiriting. There seems to be so much coddling of boys vs trying to make girls tough enough to handle those boys.

Yes! Rather than attempt to discipline boys for bad behavior, my DD and her friends were told by the counselors and the assistant principal that they needed to find a way to manage their reactions because that’s just how the boys were going to be.

To the teachers’ credit, they were appalled. But also stuck.

As a 3 girl my mom my next calls would be to the executive principal, the assistant superintendent's office, and the superintendent's office.

The principal's hands might be tied or whatever, but on no account would they be allowed to make my girls think they were the problem.

--3 girl mom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS’s friends, including those on his sports team, are not into this. Nice kids.

The girls in my DD’s class? Really awful and they get it from their moms.

So there’s that.

That’s actually really interesting, because in our grade with very badly behaved mean boys, it’s their moms who have the most social capital in the grade and are part of the more pretty/popular/rich parent clique. The moms of girls are more of a mixed group.

It’s almost like it varies across schools, grades and activities. Like making such broad general statements really isn’t useful at all.

Hmmm.

[Anonymous]

One of our girls got bullied severely by other girls in grade school. She got pushed up against walls, had her hands stomped on, got bruised and hit. All by other girls. Maybe it's time we start also saying that "girls can be girls".

[Anonymous]

I read something recently about how this is age appropriate behavior for children who haven't learned other skills yet.

This isn't where we hand wring and say "Woe is the world."

This is where teaching and modeling come in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I agree and have seen this too. I have 2 girls and my anecdotal observation is that parents seem very quick to discipline their girls vs boys. I don’t get it. Girls (not all but most in my observation) are quick to be kept in check but parents give boys so much leeway for things like screaming, inappropriate or mean language, being physically rough etc. It’s so dispiriting. There seems to be so much coddling of boys vs trying to make girls tough enough to handle those boys.

Yes! Rather than attempt to discipline boys for bad behavior, my DD and her friends were told by the counselors and the assistant principal that they needed to find a way to manage their reactions because that’s just how the boys were going to be.

To the teachers’ credit, they were appalled. But also stuck.

As a 3 girl my mom my next calls would be to the executive principal, the assistant superintendent's office, and the superintendent's office.

The principal's hands might be tied or whatever, but on no account would they be allowed to make my girls think they were the problem.

--3 girl mom

Oh, don’t worry, we escalated after that. And my DD and her 3 friends who were targeted the most will be at another school next year!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS’s friends, including those on his sports team, are not into this. Nice kids.

The girls in my DD’s class? Really awful and they get it from their moms.

So there’s that.

That’s actually really interesting, because in our grade with very badly behaved mean boys, it’s their moms who have the most social capital in the grade and are part of the more pretty/popular/rich parent clique. The moms of girls are more of a mixed group.

It’s almost like it varies across schools, grades and activities. Like making such broad general statements really isn’t useful at all.

Hmmm.

I think what people are saying is that the aggression by boys has escalated beyond what a normal and seems to be sanctioned parents in a way that it wasn’t in the past.

No one is arguing that girls aren’t badly behaved or that some kids are well behaved, just that one end of the bell curve of behavior seems to have changed significantly and for reasons that have to do with people’s specific parenting goals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boys bond this way.

Yes and no. I have two boys. Both athletes and good students.

Boys are competitive. They are hard wired for it. But I think parenting and good communities keep them in their lanes. If there are failures, it's usually because the parents suck or there's a bad peer group of poorly parented students.

I came up in the 80s and 90s. We were way worse then this generation of kids. They all seem really nice these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Because it's not fostered by their parents or society. My boys have an emotional life, because I'm raising them that way. I see other boys getting the message that aggression = good; empathy = weakness. It's sad.