Whenever people start talking about raising a child, there are always two points of view. One is that the boys are easier to be raised; the second one is that the girls are much easier to deal with. But it’s not the question of which path is easier, they are both kind of difficult, the point is that they are challenging in different ways. According to Greer “Masculinity is to maleness as femininity is to femaleness” and that says that maleness is a natural condition (sex), and masculinity is the cultural contrast, something that can be influenced and changed. The same thing is with the girls. So in order to raise a real girl (woman) and the real boy (man) the borders should be settled, or in other words the main difference between girl and boy has to be distinguished.
In order to find out the main difference, many researches have been done which showed that girls and boys care about different things. For example , girls care most of all about relationship, while boys care about actions. Sometimes the difference in raising boys and girls doesn’t become a problem for many parents, for some of them it is almost obvious. So most parents chose definite style of parenting with girls that is, saying in a simple way, talking. The point of view of the parent is following : parent just has to talk to a girl in rational tones and a kid will understand everything and comply. In some cases that will work, but mostly with girls. If we talk about boys, that would hardly help, they need another approach, another way of treatment . Unfortunately, all these things don’t apply about to all boys and girls. Many researches were made in order to find out the difference between boys and girls. And many of them showed the following results: 2/3 of all boys in different situations behave like a normal males, that means they show male behavior, and about 3/4 of all girls act like normal girls usually act. According to these results not all the rules can apply to every girl and boy. There are going to be always exceptions for both of sexes. In order to explain the statement, it is necessary to point out the main virtue that boy and girl has to possess.
Let start with a boy. There is a very popular expression “ to make a man of somebody”, that means a male person is going to become a masculine man. The boy can hear something like that when he is about to become a real man, when he enters paramilitary organization, the cadets e.t.c. where he learns to take part in team sport, to get used to rough way of life and learn to take his punishment “like a man”. The most important virtue of masculinity is courage. A man is supposed to be hard in every sense. He is taught to control his behavior, to keep his body still and his face expressionless. He doesn’t fuss or scurry. He enjoys controlling and manipulating the environment. The real man has to be independent, assertive, dominant, competitive. He likes demonstrate his power to his mates. He also needs to be approved by other men to be successful. Masculinity requires the creation of dangerous situation, actual or symbolic. What a boy has to learn is to become a strong male in order to be able to defend and protect his family from attack by other males. So all that virtues requires from the boy some actions: to protect, to achieve success, to win, to influence. Boys respect action because mere words often "go in one ear and out the other." For boys they are just words which mean nothing and if the person (parent) chooses this tool, so then the time is just wasting and will bring no results. Unfortunately when we talk about action in relation with kids, many parents think that that hast to mean only the spanking of hitting .But in this case talking and spanking are two extremes of one point, but there are something between them, another ways, another steps.
With girls everything is absolutely different. Girls are superior at verbal abilities. They are passive, much more sensitive than boys and supportive in social relationships, mostly in their family roles as wife and mother. They show the warmth in personal relationships, the display of anxiety under pressure, and the suppression of overt aggression and sexuality. From the very beginning the girls are taught to be a homemaker, to make everything beautiful around and be beautiful, to be patient, to take care of dear people, understand and help people, to comfort them. Girls are more nurturant and dependent, more fearful of possible l threats and dangers. Girls prefer dolls, sewing, cooking, dancing, and looking after younger children, always something peaceful. All these characteristics show that girls care much about emotions and relationships.
So all the studies in the field showed that girls acquire verbal skills faster than boys, and when they enter school, girls are always much more mature, let say they are 2 years above boys. That is why there is no surprise that girls respond more to a verbal approach. But boys are more concentrated and interested in actions. They don’t speak much, but they act. Their play is an action. They respect actions more than the word.(there is a saying: man said-man did). And there is known phrase:”Actions speak louder than words”. It seems like boys just play out this bit of human wisdom.
Sources:
1. Alter, Robin.” The difference between raising boys and girls.” Practice In Clinical Psychology. Practice In Clinical Psychology, n.d.Web. 2000-2005
2. Hetherington,Mavis E. and Ross D. Parke. “Gender Roles and Gender Difference. “ Child Psychology. Child Psychology: A Contemporary Viewpoint Updated, 5/e, n.d. Web.
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCpm-aklKYo
4. “Greer: Masculinity"
