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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't think parents are screwing up boys as a group, but I think we've socially handicapped boys and that leaves few avenues for raising boys.

If boys are not very good at sports, they get limited on one side by pressure to find other masculine activities, and penned in on the other side by people telling them not to be too loud or aggressive. In the middle is a lot of video games, YouTube, and isolation.

The show Adolescence explores this via a very dramatic situation (a boy who is violent) but I know many non violent, great boys who get stuck here as well.

We need a middle ground where boys can express masculinity without having to be radicalized by the right wing misogynists. You can be masculine without being violent or angry. You don't have to be emotional if that's not who you are or how you express yourself (you need to learn to be emotionally self aware but that's not the same as being emotive and talking about feelings all the time, which not everyone wants to do). You don't have to be athletic to be physically active or "manly."

Signed, 
Mom of girls [/quote]

I have all boys who are now older teens and successful young adults. I realized very early on that my non-sporty boys had to do sports. Why? Because sports is literally the only venue out there for boys that has good male role models, celebrates masculinity without being weird, teaches boys how to control their aggression, allows rough-housing, gives them negative and positive feedback and teaches them to be coachable, and takes them off their screens for hours.

I wish it wasn’t this way. One of my boys was a dancer, but it got too lonely and weird for him, and he switched to a different sport with a lot more boys. Theater was a nightmare, I think some of those adults should never be around children. None of my boys were artistic but I’ve heard that it’s not that different than theater. Chess is toxic, too online, and does not help the physical outlets.

So, my boys were required to do sports. And they were on third- and fourth-teams, not starters, not good. Eventually one of them found a love for the sport and went from being a fourth-level team member at age 10 to a recruited college athlete which was very unexpected. The others just get the physical and emotional benefits.

I tried for years to find boy-positive activities that aren’t sports. In the end I landed on exactly one: robotics team. But that’s not really available to young kids, and at older ages it becomes stratified very quickly between the kids whose parents essentially create at-home robotics labs and those that don’t. I’ve heard that music can have a very good combination of male role models and is the most like sports as far as the benefits I listed above, but I felt I could require daily physical activity or daily music practice but not both on top of school and chores. Also, music doesn’t have the physical benefits.

Personally I think the landscape is very depressing for positive options for boys. I have nieces and they have so many more outlets for positive experiences outside of school. It should not be only sports for boys, but that is where we are.

[/quote]

Not sure if your boys are too old, but all-boys sleepaway camp has been amazing for my son.  Lots of very strong and postive male influences from counselors and older boys.  Sports are a big part of camp- but not in the competitive way like a travel team would be.  They all play together and have fun and celebrate each other; many different skills levels on the playing fields. Plus lots of other skills too they get to develop beyond sports.  [/quote]

We are leaning hard into scouts for our two non sporty boys. We shopped around for a troop where the older boys were good role models.[/quote]

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