How to parent a boy

InevitableHulk · 2021-06-07T00:35:38+00:00

I have sons. I’m open and honest with them about pretty much everything. We’ve had conversations about sexism, porn, you name it. Very open conversations. I don’t dance around these issues with them. I also don’t have any traditional gender roles in my house. Nobody is teased or told to “suck it up” for crying. Boundaries are respected. Things like rape jokes are a no-go - and not just because I told them so, but because they know it’s wrong. They can still grow to be men, just without all the toxic BS. And they do know the difference. I’ve been a mom for a long time. Don’t feel daunted. You can raise a good, empathetic human even with all the crap he’ll be exposed to. Empathy is key.

OrangeCatsAreNice · 2021-06-07T01:35:34+00:00

My tips would be to keep your eyes wide open around the preteen/teenager age. Most people go through an awkward phase, and its normal to feel like you dont fit in in school, but you have to be very mindful of how people and specially boys deal with it.

Here are some things to look out for: -Starts spending too much time online -Stops doing any activity outside of school -Becomes too closed off -Seems to have slight disdain for other people (especially women) -Seems to be depressed, has no interest in upkeeping his own appearance -Low grades or low ambition, no plans, no dreams

I think the best approach is to try to make kids build meaningful relationships and have social interaction with other kids.

BasketLow8411 · 2021-06-06T22:02:18+00:00

I have a son. My best advice is to model well and lean in to your relationship. Be there for him, listen to him, love him, and surround him with HVM and women. Don’t shy away from talking about emotions and racism and sexism and injustice. Don’t push him to be something he is not. Help him see his worth and follow his lead as he grows.

NeedMoreCoffee15 · 2021-06-07T15:17:59+00:00

This is something I’m worried about if I ever have children. But I have to say, I think the biggest thing that would have made a difference for me, and especially for my younger brother, is if my mother had lived by standards and boundaries. No matter what you do, he is going to be surrounded by other boys at school. You don’t know what kind of household they come from and what kind of beliefs they hold. But if his response to hearing other boys call women and girls weak, stupid, useless, only good for one thing, is “Nah, my mom is sharp and absolutely not to be fucked with,” he won’t fall into it. Because no matter how much it’s repeated, he’s going to keep in the back of his mind that Mom would eat these boys alive. He might act up to seem cool to his friends or to fit in, but that comes with being a teenager, and they can grow out of that.

It’s important that you take no shit though. Don’t tolerate it from him; the time for him to test boundaries and learn how to behave is early childhood, and you need to be firm in teaching him. But as he reaches the teenager stage, be prepared to come down hard to enforce boundaries. If he is allowed to be disrespectful, he will continue to be. He needs to see that you never let any man (or anyone) disrespect you; there need to be consequences for people who do. If he sees other men being disrespectful, he will think it’s okay, just like my brother did. You didn’t say whether there is a father or father figure in the picture, but if there is he needs to see that man treat you with the utmost respect, and he needs to treat other women with respect. My father constantly insulting my mother, even after the divorce, and speaking poorly of women in general definitely rubbed off on my brother, and now he is just another misogynist gamer like his friends.

Someone else above said radical honesty, and I totally agree. Don’t let him learn about sex from porn. Don’t let him learn about relationships and values from the internet or his friends (who learned from porn). Don’t let the whole sex-pozzy movement be what shapes his ideals. Have those horribly uncomfortable conversations before the rest of the world gets to him.

As for the phone, a lot of people are saying no smartphone until 16/17... perhaps they are a few years older than me, because things changed a lot during my high school years. For one, not having a phone at all is unrealistic. In my case, after the divorce my mom was not letting me go off with my father for the weekend without a way to contact her at my own discretion. And not having a phone at all will get your son left out by friends, because these kids sure as won’t hell pick up the phone to call your house or your cell to reach him. As for the smartphone, we actually used ours in school frequently. We had interactive classroom games, such as trivia to review for a history test. We were allowed to use our phones to look up sources for writing assignments, or entertain ourselves with educational apps like duolingo (or trivia crack in the foreign language of study)- I even read my books on mine. This was all at the teacher’s discretion of course, and we would lose privileges for unapproved uses. My school couldn’t afford to buy enough devices for more than a couple classes to have them at one time, so we had to find other ways. At home, you can choose an internet provider that allows you to restrict certain things to certain devices. Quietly keep an eye on his activity; if he knows you’re monitoring, we won’t trust you and he WILL find effective ways to hide things from you. But I think you’ve got this- you’re aware of the potential problems and already working out a way to raise the best man you can. I think you’ll be a hell of a mom, and every good man raised is a step in the right direction for us.

LetsGetin_Formation · 2021-06-06T21:23:26+00:00

My tips: don’t give him a phone with internet until he’s 17. It will be unpopular but at least he can form a functioning view of women during his adolescence before devolving like the rest of them. I truly believe children 6 - 16 who are in critical stages of cognitive development have no business with smart phones. It’s lazy parenting imo.

CatherineWinkworth · 2021-06-07T22:49:54+00:00

My little dude is 7 now, and here are things I do. Only time will tell if they work!
-Chores are for everyone in the house. Including him. In fact, he does more than his little sister because he's older. We all do chores because we all live here and we help each other out.

-We read books about successful women, female scientists, etc. When he asks why this is important, I tell him that for a long time women were not treated equally but I know that he will always treat women fairly.

-He has learned that you can't roughhouse with everyone. Mom doesn't like it. Some girls don't like it. His sister doesn't like it very often. So I've taught him that we only play in ways that make the other person comfortable. Which brings me to...

-Consent. We respect other people's bodies and listen to their words. We don't touch, hug, kiss if the other person doesn't want it. Small kids generally have a hard time with personal space but as they get older you keep reinforcing this and it sinks in, eventually.

-Fill his life with good examples. When he was 4, I kicked out his dad (LVM), filed a restraining order, and never looked back. I hired the most amazing manny who has been a god-sent influence in his life. He's a wonderful example to him of how men are patient, gentle, compassionate, caring, loving. I'm recently engaged to a wonderful man who would never ever yell, do things out of anger, disrespect me or my children, and will be a wonderful example of a calm and gentle provider who treats me like an equal. (We're hoping it will lead to him being able to adopt my kids.)

-When we talk about where is dad is or why he's not in his life, we talk about how he wasn't respectful to mom, he screamed and was mean, and he did not tell the truth. Since its my job to keep everyone in the house safe, I had to get the courts to keep him away until he shows that he can be kind. (And none of this is your fault, of course.) We don't treat people that way, especially people we love and care for.

-Other than that, I just raise him with all the love and affection. I let him cry and acknowledge his feelings, never deny them or tell him to "be strong" or anything. Always acknowledge feelings first. Showing emotions is not a weakness. It is only human. The trick is to not let the emotion make you DO anything stupid, but identifying and expressing feelings is normal and healthy and we do it all the time. He's still super affectionate, and sometimes really sensitive, and I love that about him. (BTW, if you'd like a book recommendation, I love the classic "How to talk so kids will listen, and listen so kids will talk.")

I'm not looking forward to the porn and sex conversations with him in a handful of years, but they will be pretty direct and clear and to the point. I generally try to stay away from shaming my kids, but especially when it comes to this... I want to be able to have open conversations and for them to be able to come to me with questions or concerns. Until then, parental controls on everything.

Noemie_Mathilde · 2021-06-07T06:06:41+00:00

A toolkit from the New Zealand government with tips for parents can be found here: https://www.netsafe.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Online-Safety-Parent-Toolkit-2020.pdf

t3ddi · 2021-06-08T00:51:51+00:00

No video game consoles. I'm not exaggerating when I say almost every middle school-high school aged boy that is a gamer has a pickled brain because of this. It literally cripples boys academically. Girls dont seem to have this problem. Some of my boys have got up in their mom's faces over video games also. Another thing, parental controls on social media... if I had a dollar for everytime my EA or some other person has seen a nude picture of a girl flash on a Sr. High boy's phone during break, I'd have too much money. Its disturbing. Monitor the tech basically.

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Title	How to parent a boy
Author	kreutzwortraetzel
Upvotes	141
Comments	33
Date	June 6, 2021 5:51 AM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/nteudz/how_to_parent_a_boy/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/how-to-parent-a-boy.780386 https://theredarchive.com/post/780386

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