thoughts on raising boys and deep talks with my girl....

The following is written by my friend David Thomas on raising boys.. I loved the reminders and tips below and thought you'd appreciate them too: 

"Research shows girls are more attuned to the sound of human voices and seem to actually prefer the sound to other sounds. From birth, baby boys and girls like to grunt and gurgle. The difference is girls prefer people to interact with while boys are equally happy to chatter away at abstract geometric designs. The male brain is wired for activity while the female brain is biased towards the personal.

From birth baby boys are more active and wakeful,, but baby girls show an aptitude in communicating and are more sensitive to relationship compared to boys. One study involving 2-4 day old babies revealed infant boys spent 50% less time holding eye contact with an adult than infant girls. She is wired for relationship. It’s not that he can’t do relationship, but much about the way he engages relationship is different.

These relational patterns are further understood as we study the gender differences in the brain. Our brains are full or white and grey matter, responsible for a range of tasks and processing. The white matter in the female brain is concentrated in the Corpus Collosum, the part of the brain that links the hemispheres and helps both sides of the brain “talk” to each other effectively. This explains why females are stronger verbally than males.

In her book You Just Don’t Understand, Deborah Tannen labels the differences in communications styles of females and males as “rapport” talk and “report” talk. According to Tannen, females use conversation to maintain intimacy, develop rapport and increase connection. Males, on the other hand, talk to establish independence, build status and deliver data.

Researchers generally agree that upwards of 70-80% of all communication is nonverbal. When females talk to each other, they generally stand close together, maintain eye contact and gesture frequently. Males typically keep a greater distance, avoid eye contact and gesture much less often. The differences go on and on. As parents, we want to be strategic, creative and intentional as we encounter these differences.

With boys, it’s always good to talk around a task – build legos, stack blocks, craft objects from wood, shoot hoops, play catch, or walk the family dog. Boys have some of their best conversations side by side rather than face to face. Eye contact can actually feel threatening to boys and we end up with less access to them rather than more.

Secondly, take advantage of bedtime. The window between winding down and sleep is an advantageous window to get access to a boy. His emotional defenses are down and we can have some of our best conversations with him while rubbing his head, scratching his back, or just laying next to him in the dark. Again, we are able to avoid eye contact in a way that often feels safe to him.

Thirdly, learn to read between the lines. Boys take a certain amount of decoding. Throughout his development, he will question his abilities, his ranking in the pecking order of the boy world, his identity, and his purpose. We want to watch for moments where we see evidence of his questioning or doubting himself in his behavior. By 9-10 his brain will instinctively begin to channel all primary emotions (sadness, fear, disappointment) into one emotion – anger. When he melts down and starts hitting or throwing objects over losing a game, missing an important goal, or not being invited to a birthday party, we’ll have to help him put words to his experience so he learns to articulate his experience."

Also, I wanted to share with you a little window into my time with Anna a few days ago...

On Friday afternoon to celebrate the 13th for Anna, the two of us went to a fun deli in the neighborhood on the Ave called Fat Ducks that has some of the best desserts around.  Bill, I think you went there with the boys one time and discovered the bagel dogs there. :) 

Anyway, we took the book Out of My Mind to talk about (which is one of the two books I wanted Anna to read this year before her 13th birthday. The other one is To Kill a Mockingbird which is next on her list.)  

Here is the summary from Amazon of Out of My Mind: 

Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. Always. And there's no delete button. She's the smartest kid in her whole school—but no one knows it. Most people—her teachers and doctors included—don't think she's capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows . . . but she can't, because Melody can't talk. She can't walk. She can't write. Being stuck inside her head is making Melody go out of her mind—that is, until she discovers something that will allow her to speak for the first time ever. At last Melody has a voice . . . but not everyone around her is ready to hear it.From multiple Coretta Scott King Award winner Sharon M. Draper comes a story full of heartache and hope. Get ready to meet a girl whose voice you'll never, ever forget.

Has Liam read this book? If not, it is a MUST! 

As we talked about what she liked about the book, I loved hearing some of her insights and the details that she remembered.  We started into a discussion on stereotypes, and Anna referenced the TED talk she watched recently in her language arts class called "The danger of the single story." (see summary of the TED talk below if you've not watched it.. I think I've talked to you about it Elizabeth, but I'm not sure I've shared it with you before, Bill.)  This is a video that I was first introduced to when I taught at UT with the Urban Multicultural Department, and it was powerful to show this talk and to challenge students to think about stereotypes.  Ever since then, I have shown it every quarter to my students in classroom management at SPU as well, and it has been pivotal in some of the conversations I've had with interns about identity in the classroom and about building relationships with families and students.   

There we were talking about things on such an adult level, and it was amazing to sit there and see Anna growing up before my eyes.   I am so grateful for the deep well that Anna has... I look forward to many more books to read with this girl through the years. 

I know I will learn so much from her! 

and here's our little reader bundled up on the front porch this afternoon.... 

she looks like an Ewok here 

Here is the summary of the TED talk: 

The speaker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, begins by telling us a story about what she would write about as a child. She would write stories that were similar to the foreign stories she would read which contained white skinned children with blue eyes, nothing like her. Until she found African stories is when she realized that people like her could be in stories. If we hear or read stories about a part of the world we tend to perceive that part of the world as the stories describe those places. Those stories we receive make us feel certain emotions, emotions like pity, towards the people that live in those places. Adichie gives an experience of her own about a single story when she heard the debates about immigration in the United States. Immigration in America became equal to Mexicans, Mexicans that were sneaking across the border. When she visited Guadalajara she was a bit surprised to see Mexicans differently than the immigrants that America talked about. She then goes to say, “Show people as one thing and one thing only over and over again and that is what they become.”  That is the consequence of the single story about a person, place, or issue. A single story also robs people of dignity and emphasizes how different people are.  By engaging with all the stories of a person, place, or issue, the trap of a single story can be avoided. Adichie could have looked at the Mexican and the U.S. side of the immigration issue so she would have balanced the stories and not fallen into the single story trap. I agree that the single story makes the differences in people stand out and the single story is an incomplete description.