Our two oldest children are girls, followed by two boys, currently ages 11 and 8. For the longest time before we had boys, we would hear things like this:
“Girls are so focused. Just wait until you have boys!”
“Girls are so responsible. Just wait until you have boys!”
“Homeschooling girls is easy. Just wait until you have boys!”
“Girls get along so well. Just wait until you have boys!”
There were some prophecies about boys that proved to be true. For example, so far my experience suggests they do, indeed, eat a lot – perhaps more than my girls did. Their feet may be slightly more stinky. And they have an innate ability to tell stories completely in sound effects, without the use of words.
But thankfully, the apocryphal predictions about boys’ inabilities to be capable, responsible, and loving have been proven false.
Now granted, our boys are still young, and there are only two of them, so I suppose I am generalizing a bit. But I’ve noticed in my brief time raising boys that they have an incredible potential for leadership, creativity, and focus, especially when we provide them with the following three things:
1. Give Them Challenges
I always tell people that if I want a difficult task done, I ask my boys. They are mission-oriented creatures. My husband travels a lot, and when he’s gone, the tasks that are most likely to be done regularly and consistently are all the ones the boys are responsible for.
In school, our boys are most likely to be successful and cheerful when they are given tasks that are challenging without being impossible. There’s a balance here, of course, since tasks that are too difficult can cause frustration, but the more threatening enemy is boredom, which stems from lack of challenge.
One great way to provide challenges is to give boys leadership opportunities. Having younger siblings plays well into this since there are a lot of daily opportunities for helping the younger ones.
2. Give Them Space to Work
If I could add one more room to our house, I would designate it as a workshop for the boys. They’re always trying to create mini-workshops around the house and yard. It’s the same way with school – they love having their own space to do their work. When I allow them to create a workspace for themselves, they are more likely to focus and finish.
This isn’t just true of physical space, but also time. Our boys thrive when they are given free time during the day to make things, practice a skill, or read a book. When I designate “free time” (which in our home is also screen-free time) for them each day, they’re less restless and more focused during the other parts of the day.
3. Give Them Structure
Our boys thrive when they have structure. Without structure in their school day, they easily lose focus. Without structure in their day-to-day life, they become listless and destructive. Boys thrive when they know the plan, because that allows them to stick to it.
In homeschooling, I’ve discovered the best way to take advantage of this tendency is by way of lists. Once again, stereotypes suggest girls are the list-loving creatures, and this is true, but it’s also true of boys. If my boys are given a checklist of things they need to accomplish in a given day, they are 100% more likely to complete their work – especially if the end result is more play time.
Boys Are Great
Before I had boys, based on what other people said about them, I imagined them as wild hooligans with no sense of order. Having boys would surely spark anarchy in the home.
So far, our experience has been the opposite. Yes, boys need space to run free and be wild sometimes. They might start hitting each other and wrestling for no apparent reason from time to time. And they have an uncanny ability to mess up their clothes within minutes of putting them on (although I do not believe this is gender-based, because our next two youngest children happen to be girls and they are by far the messiest children yet).
But all in all, the prediction “just wait until you have boys” has proven to be full of promise rather than doom.
(For the purposes of this article, I’ll save the smelly shoe discussion for another day.)
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