I love my boys, but raising boys can be a challenge. Most of them are born ready to run and take on the world. With their curious nature and go get them attitude, boys can become a handful rather quickly. There are many challenges of raising boys, especially in the society we live in today. While many school systems have started to get rid of recess or at least limit the amount of physical activity in a day, the boys in our world are left being restless with no real way to let out that energy from day to day when school is in session.
That’s where we, the parents, come into play. Here are just a few challenges of raising boys today and what you can do to overcome them:
Be Unpredictable
Boys tend to need to let their curious side win over the, surely you must ensure their safety comes first and it may be difficult to let go but your boys need to be wild. Boys have this need to lead an unpredictable lifestyle at times and you, the parent, need to learn to be okay with this. Allow for some safe, unpredictable learning moments so you can guide your boys to have more self-control while still being unpredictable little humans.
Physical Activity
It has been shown time and time again that overall it’s these boys that require the most energy release. While sure there are many girls born into the world of being energetic too, overall boys tend to have that energetic side hard wired into their systems from birth. If your son is staying in school all day with little to no time to run off that extra energy, you can certainly have your hands full upon their return home. Learn to give your son plenty of time to run after school, this may be helpful to ensure they get homework done and household chores done, perhaps incorporate their chores into an active way so they release energy while being productive.
Emotional Connection
There are many boys that simply have difficulties connecting emotion with behavior or responses. While you can embrace and accept that your son is having a hard time connecting an emotion with a scenario, you also need to work with them so that they become gentleman versus wild creatures. At an age appropriate level start working to bestow the traits of compassion and empathy within your son so that as they mature, they will start to learn how to connect emotions with actions.
Remember that our world in raising boys is much different than the older days, we must adapt as parents in order to raise our boys in a way that makes sense for who they are as an individual and how it will work in the society they are being brought up. Let boys be boys. Let them be physical and silly. Let them have the fun they are meant to have. Don’t try to limit it. It’s ok, boys can be boys and girls can be girls.