Struggling School-Age Boys

It's true, we're living in an old school system in the new age of information. Schools are cattered towards girls, & most teachers are females that aren't trained to teach boys. So our boys are tagged as problematic. I understand some kids do have ADD but it's overly diagnosed. Boys are wired differently. My son's LA teacher suggested that he has an attention problem but... I know my son better that she does. He will not fake interest for a boring subject After doing some reasearch, I found a book that is very helpful to deal with my son's problems at school and also helps in our relationship with him at home. The book's name is Dreamers, Discoverers and Dynamos. the author is Palladino or something like that. Trust me, you'll be so glad you read it. I've already applied some of the tips that Palladino suggests and it's like magic. Boys have different learning styles. Recess should be worked back in the school curriculum ASAP for our son's sake. I have stopped pressuring my son to get all A's and now I make sure he knows how proud I am for just trying the best he can Bs and Cs are good enough, but if he gets and A...it's super! He's trying.

IWhile both boys and girls begin life equal, they are then raised from birth to be different. The boys are treated not by accident to increasingly more aggressive styles to make them tough. They are not given as much mental, emotional, social support for fear of coddling them. Most importantly and not by accident but by intent, they are increasingly given love, honor, and respect, the essentials of self-worth, based on measures of achievement, power, status, etc. This makes boys and later men much more competitive (by design) for this makes them try much harder in order to achieve those feelings of self-worth from peers and society. Those boys or men who do not measure up in some way will not only receive less honor and respect but will receive more aggression from society. In the information age, all of those areas have led to a large decrease in academic learning and in turn ability to compete in the information age. Women are surging ahead.

Since girls and later women are not supposed to be strong this allows for much mental, emotional, social support from an early age along with much love honor and respect simply for being girls. In the information age, this support not only allows girls to mature faster but to do better in academics. This support continues through adulthood and now is showing up in economic advantages for women.

all this happens to girls, too. i don't know what kids you are around that spend too much time on reading and math...that would explain why our kids do so well in math and science compared with the rest of the world...please. wake up and look at the world around you instead of your current method of blind speculation.
oh here's one: maybe girls are just smarter. and maybe a lot of people shouldn't have kids.

My son is 6 years old. At the beginning of the school year I was told he still read at a kindergarten level. I went on a wild search for what was wrong with my son. I found he had a severe phonemic delay ....which also may have been a coincident but he ahd lost his 40% percent of his hearing due to wax accumulation. This probably went on for a few years. Now I am busy sending him off to speech therapy and ...am very sure he is dyslexic. I don't want any label on him but guess what the school teacher says he may not pass grade one. So I am considering having him get his official LDA attached to him so he has a fair chance of making it through the system.

This Christmas I bought an electronic circuilt board meant for 8 years ...he can now configure his own circuit designs yet we toil through school exercises like ' what are ten activities we do in hot weather,....what are 10 foods we eat in the summer.......boring. You know what we really need is alternative learning system based on children's learning patterns. Too young too know where a child's interest lie. I don't think so...As the child at the beginning of this commentary said..why does he need to know about wriiting a business letter. We are still in the same old Little House on the Prairie one room classroom. We need to redesign our school system. It is scary because we don't know where a child's interest lie but for those that are not enjoying their experience in school it is hell . That is where we can start.

This doesn't really have to do anything with the article but... I am a boy and i'm doing good in 8th grade. (straight A's) but just recently i got a detention. Reason being: i forgot my reading book at home for this not School District approved '0' period. we read in here for 20 minutes only because our test scores dropped by 1 point from last year. now i have a 2 hour detention. even my parents think that is dumb. i forgot my boo k at home because i was READING it at HOME. so i was doing EXTRA READING. but no they just have to act dumb. They didnt even give me a chance to explain myself. Also i've noticed that a lot of kids in my so called HONORS classes tap and shake their legs and feet alot. So do i. this is both boys and GIRLS. I dont know whats wrong with these people. Here's another problem with my district:
In all classesHonors/Regular:
Science: they make us learn about the periodic table, chemical reactions of metal ions, astronomy, einsteins theory of relativity etc.
Math: they teach us quadratic function and higher level stuff. Honors: they teach Geometry( i have a regular class in math for having one point under on the last test wtf)
English: how to write a business letter( when am i going to write a business letter at age 13) persuasive essays, fictional narratives( with pre chosen plotsNO CREATIVITY HERE) and other idiotic stuff
History: the only easy stuff like american historical figures
PE : even this is hard: they make us run 2 miles in 8 minutes
Lunch: they give us 3 foods for about 5 dollars(where are we supposed to get this money

And no recess or breaks just lunch and thats only 40+ minutes
ONE WORD ON MY DISTRICT: IDIOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DISTRICT SUCKS ****!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THAT'S WHY THE CHINO VALLEY UNIFIED SCHOOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm glad this is getting some attention. However the point is off mark. Boys can handle everything girls can handle. So what has changed? Public policies that continuously and systematically alienate men and therefore boys. It's hypocritical that women understood that oppressing them resulted in girls being affected and their outcomes in life altered but it is not recognized that the same holds true for boys. I hope we don't go down the road thinking that it is our educational system that is the problem. Surely that can be improved but poor academic outcomes are a result not a cause (one of many detrimental results of the attack against males). The CAUSE is the policies that virtually make it a disease to be a male. Until we reverse the social agendas of many women's groups that claim to be about equality but are actually about advantage then we will see a continuous and more rapid decline in both boys/men AND our society. Equality should truly be equality and not about advantage. Blaming this outcome on biological differences or the educational system is flat out displacing the responsibility from the real cause. Of course you can take this as just another guy using an issue to make a personal point.

I truly feel that the author of this article has made some very valid points. I work in a school myself and yes, there is a lot of truth here. Sadly, we have been forced to set aside actually educating our children and instead teaching only to a test. In today's times, we teach wide instead of teaching deep, and that benefits no one. I also agree that it is past time for us all to look at ourselves and honestly evaluate how our time, and more importantly how our children's time is spent in the home. I admit that I have not personally sat down and researched all the statistics regarding the differences in our boys versus our girls, but based on what I have observed over the years, I certainly am not prepared to just write this theory off as "babble". Nikki R. Callahan, What Do They See in Me, that I Don't See in Myself?, www.eloquentbooks.com/WhatDoTheySee.html

People keep talking about brain differences between boys and girls, and boys being stifled by curricula that favor girls, and boys not being educated "in a way that respects their natural development" - whatever that means!. This "Boy Crisis" stuff is frankly getting tiresome. I have still not seen any convincing evidence that boys, except in extreme socioeconomic conditions, are at a disadvantage in school. If the perceived problem is no recess, parents should demand to reinstate that! If the problem is environmental (e.g., plastics), no policy change will make a difference. Personally, I'm skeptical about this.

My son went to a play centered preschool program, which was part of a lab program at a national university. When our local elementary school assessed him for kindergarten readiness, they were concerned that he didn't have the appropriate skills to start kindergarten. After conferring with his preschool teachers, we elected to put him into school with his age group. Until 7th grade, his teachers called us in every year to talk about how he wasn't reading early enough, wasn't writing detailed enough, wasn't completing his math facts quickly enough. He is now 16, is taking honors and AP classes and reading 1000 pages a month. As a sophmore, scored withing the range that qualifies 11th graders for the National Merit Scholarship competition.

To be fair to educators, they invariably have a short term perspective -- one school year to cover everything the state, county, and district mandate. I had three brothers who were late bloomers and I remembered them every time I had a conversation with school. My brothers carried the feeling of "not measuring up" for a long time. I didn't want my son to feel the same way.

We are drugging our boys without knowing what the real issues are or looking at the whole picture. I know children who have parents who are not parenting and then when children act out, they take them to the doctor and complain that they are ADD.

My nephew was put on medication without proper diagnosis and he was like a zombie while on the medication and did not want to take it. It made his parent happy, but not him. After proper testing (brain scan) they discovered he did not have ADD but in the process developed another disorder from the drugs.

We cannot continue to drug our children and not consider what the outcomes might be. We cannot blame them for reacting to our lack of parenting and reacting to what we put them through. We cannot continue teaching to one style of learning. We cannot allow parents and lay people to diagnose our children and talk doctors into treating something because we are frustrated. We have to look at the whole picture.

I believe the pendulum will eventually swing (I hope soon, for the sake of my son and students) but, in the meantime, we parents have to understand our integral role as the major catalysts of change in this realm. Although I love my profession as a teacher, there is no doubt public education tends to be behind the curve in terms of molding educational practice in light of science and hard data. I know not a single teacher who supports NCLB (which is mostly to blame for this rigorous, academic environment) but until parents speak out against it, things will not change. We owe it to our boys and girls to be advocates for learning environments that mold to their natural needs! Even a simple letter to your child's principal, respectfully stating your concerns, would be a step in the right direction.

As a teacher and a mother of four (3 boys & 1 girl) I think our society has lost touch with what is important. It is much easier to blame others. We as a society are great at the blame game...it is always the schools fault, another child's fault or the state's fault. Instead maybe we should take a minute and look at what has changed drastically over time. If we examine our own families we will find the greatest change may be within the walls of our own homes. TV, Electronics, computers have become our babysitters. Both parents have left the home, leaving children home alone or in the arms of another family to be brought up how they see fit. Remember It Takes a Village to Raise a Child. Well, maybe we should take the mayor out of the picture and start raising our own children again! Our families have replaced family time with time traveling in the car from practice or dance or some other activity. We have lost sight of what it is to relax and enjoy our time we have together. We are too busy to spend time fishing, playing games or just talking. Our children are being brought up in a society where they feel like the universe revolves around them. They feel they deserve to be entertained 24/7. Their lives revolve around electonics that entertain them and parents that serve them. Why on earth do we expect them to be able to sit in a chair for 6-7 hours, have manners and respect those around them....it must be the school fault! Or just maybe we shoudl realize WE ARE RESPONSIBLE for this next generation. Let's stop blaming others and plastic (as stated in this article) and start to look in the mirror and address what our children are lacking in their lives. Shut off the TV, computer & video games and enrich your children's lives with your time and presence. Investing in the lives of your family members is the most important job you have here on earth. No one will remember if you made a big sale, or took them to dinner. You children will remember how you chose to spend your time. Invest in our future by investing into the lives of those who look up to you and love you unconditionally.
There are children that have attention problems and hundreds of other serious problems at school. They sometimes require medications to help better their ability to function in a normal setting. With that said, it is hard to distinguish the children that have problems and children that just have been catered to for they all blend in together. If you sit in on a practice or a classroom you will find that a high percentage of children aren't able to focus, they don't have manners or respect others around them. This is not a problem that can be magically be solved by a prescription, but, I believe it can be solved by bringing back strong family morals and ethics back into the lives of our children. Make the best investment money CAN'T buy invest your time into your family!

I totally agree with this article. That is why I totally threw out state standards and started my own school where we have no textbooks, tests, grades, or desks. Instead, the children explore, go on field trips, and work on their own projects. The results so far have been amazing! See http://www.celebrationeducation.com/

-Heather Martinson

Continued:

What do you say to the parents who watch their happy, energetic children not be able to get dressed in the morning for school or even on the weekends because they don???t know where to begin? Whose children are not able to complete a simple worksheet because they don't know where to begin and even once they get started they don???t complete it because they loose focus. What do you say to the children who are starting to feel embarrassed and not liking school because they feel that they are stupid and not able to do the work? Children who are not able to communicate their thoughts without getting frustrated because their mind is racing and they can???t organize their thoughts the way they would like.

I???m sure that there are plenty of people who use ADHD as an excuse for poor parenting; but without understanding each individual situation, is generalizing and blanket judging really necessary? How can you criticize a parent when you have not walked a minute in their shoes? Are YOU truly qualified to tell a stranger that they are making a mistake by medicating their child?

Are you able to see this same child who is now excited about school because they consider the work fun and sometimes easy? Are you able to see this same child who now has lots of friends and is no longer withdrawn and embarrassed? Are you able to see this same child who is now capable of getting dressed and ready for school without having to be reminded 6 times about what they are supposed to be doing? Are you able to have conversations with this child about how they are feeling and things that are going on in the world around them? Are you able to sit at the kitchen table and do something as simple as put together a puzzle and talk? Do you see the pride and the feeling of accomplishment in their eyes because this was not possible before?

For some parents who decide to medicate their children it has nothing to do with simply "Letting Boys be Boys" but everything to do with giving your child the opportunity to blossom into the person they always were.

I would be nice to see an article that outlines family situations like mine as I am sure other families are in the same situation yet question their decisions based on comments from people who responded to this blog. I am sure they would like to hear from parents who decided to medicate their children and have no doubt in their minds that they made the best decision for their child.

I went through comment after comment and it is just truly amazing and even angered me a bit seeing just how narrow minded people can be. I would be very interested to know just how many of the people who left comments actually have a son who was diagnosed as ADHD. Based on the comments, I really like how just about every parent is divorced and not spending time with their children. There were so many comments about the disbelief that ADHD exists and how Loving your children or Spending time with them, turning off the TV and allowing your child time to play is the simple cure for all. What do you say to parents who are not divorced, don't watch TV at all during the week, eat dinner at the family table, read to their children and their children read to them and who spend every minute they are not at work with their children.

What do you say to a parent who has a child who does not misbehave in school, does not disrupt his class and has plenty of recess and breaks during his day (Art, Music, Recess and PE are all still part of his day). What do you say to parents who monitor what their children eat and teach their children the value of a healthy diet? Parents who only allow their children Organic Milk, Water and a cup of 100% Juice with dinner. These are the same parents who monitor the ingredients in the foods they give their children; so is simply changing the diet going to work? What do you say to the parents who disciple their children and who hold their children accountable for their own actions.