When Boys Go Aggro!

Okay, this is a long one, but it's important. Political correctness aside, boys and girls, across cultures, play and learn differently. I've coined the term “creative play” to differentiate play styles. All, or most, child development texts teach about “dramatic play”, which is very female-centric. “Creative play” is less gender specific and, as we've discussed, involves more than just playing with dolls or dressing up and creating “dramatic” situations. Let's talk about boys and aggressive play. Attacking enemies, battling bad guys, winning wars, and rescuing strangers are all part of a boys socio-emotional growth. As I mentioned in a previous blog, they're acting out situations that they KNOW may be socially inappropriate, but doing so in a controlled, safe environment (which the parents should be providing). Based on my experiences working with hundreds of families, parents who steer their boys away from, and/or overprotect them from, violent, aggressive play inadvertently create violent, aggressive boys – boys who have no concept of what it means to be hit, hurt, or bruised. Boys who have experienced little or no physical pain, aggression from/with other boys, etc. have no empathy because they can't understand what the other person is going through not having experienced it themselves. Conversely, some of the abused boys I've worked with, once I get them “balanced”, become some of the most helpful and empathetic children I've ever seen! Let your boys run, leap, play, and take risks. It's imperative to their growth and directed by their genetic encoding. Boys develop “gross motor” skills (large muscle movements) first, while girls develop “fine motor” skills first; therefore boys need physical, tactile experiences in order to learn things like depth perception, the meaning of pain, the natural consequences of jumping out of a tree, or off the slide, and they need places to experiment, safely, with their own physical strengths and weaknesses. They need to learn their physical boundaries and always, regardless of culture, do this through physical, interactive, tactile play. They often create characters who have strengths that they would like to have themselves, or would like to understand better. They almost never create a character for themselves that is weak. It's always the positive – understanding their strengths. Hopefully parents will follow their lead and build on their strengths, too.