Now, I know everyone is an individual and slightly different from everyone else, but there are stereotypes for a reason. I've always thought it was funny when people said boys and girls come exactly the same and are conditioned to be different. While this can be true to some extent, have they ever watched little kids?!
Someone recently told me of a study done on small children. Not having read the study, I'm not sure of the age group, but I got the idea that they were somewhere in the crawling/barely walking stage. The researchers would put a blockade between mother and baby. The girls reacted by crying piteously. The boys reacted by trying to crawl through or around the blockade. I thought that was an interesting study.
Today, while I was watching a little boy (just crawling), a toy of his rolled under a chair. He never once looked at me to complain, he just tried and tried to get that toy until finally he was successful! He's done it multiple times in the past few days and never looks to me for help. I thought that fit very well with the study results.
Anyone have any examples that agree/disagree with this?
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I remember my oldest niece when she was close to her first birthday. She could sit up on her own and reach a bit. She could also hold her own bottle. If we set the bottle right in front of her instead of putting it into her hands, she cried SO hard! All she had to do was reach!
Interesting to put this study's findings in context of teen males and females, as well as adult males and females. Except where silly people insisted on role reversals that now make things in life very difficult. I don't want to be a go-getter for a reason! Of course, I don't want to just sit there and cry about things either...even if it's what I typically do. I want to take care of what needs to be done without having to be the one who always initiates things.
OK. I'm straying into different territory there. Interesting finding, and I would tend to agree--though I would like to see the stats so I could break down how reliable the results are. :-) You know me and stats!
I know that Samantha had some moments early on where she would cry and reach out for a favorite toy and wait for someone to get it for her... but it wasn't very long before she realized how much she could do for herself and became quite a go-getter independent little stinker. :) I do believe that some of that has to do with having a gregarious 3 year old brother who has taught her everything he knows!
Rebecca is at that crawling/walking stage right now. She is a VERY active kid, so she is more a tom boy that I would like to admit. In fact, while writing this, she discovered my camera and tried to eat my Netflix CD! In any case, she'll try before asking for help, but if Daddy is there, she becomes a total baby. She knows Dad will help her, while Mom is usually busy!
Henry has been pushing cars around our house for months now and at first I was shocked because he'd make a Bbbbuuuuh noise while doing so. He's 1 year old now and literally this has been happening for MONTHS, months I tell you. He's also fascinated with cords and electronics...Sophie, however, didn't catch that cars "went BBbbbbuuuuh" until she was old enough to really mimic what we were saying/doing and she is content not caring really about the ins and outs of our electronics department of our home.
I think it's so hard to lump kids into a category.
Like the example you used, Alayna will try and crawl through ANYTHING to get to me, even if she does scream the whole time. I've seen it, many times.
I once heard that if you were to give a girl and a boy some blocks, the girl would stack them and the boy would put them in a straight line. Jacob ALWAYS puts his blocks in a straight line, Joseph ALWAYS stacks them.
While perhaps there might be things boys vs. girls are more prone to do, I think it is such an individual thing. Like you said at the beginning of your post. =)
I know that study! It was in the Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands book. I finally took your advice and got it last week. You are right! It is soo good! I should have read it a long time ago. Thanks for recommending it on your blog last week.
Yes, Sam tends to try to solve his own problems a bit too much. Like all the different stuff he's able to make a step-stool out of.
I've heard that there are differences in the actual anatomy of the brain between men and women dozens of times. You piqued my curiosity, so I did a quick Google search, and found this:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/heshe.html
"Neuroscience for Kids": Adorable!
It seems that there's no real conclusive evidence one way or the other, as different studies have come up with different conclusions. I think that a lot of the ambiguity is that we just don't know as much about the brain as we do some of the other organs in the body.
Certainly, though, there are some anatomical differences, and since the anatomy of an organ has a lot to do with its functioning, it's not an unreasonable leap of logic to think that there is a difference between boys' and girls' brains.
Sara Lyn,
I remember hearing that study as well! :) But like Leanne said, it looks like there's a lot of disagreement among scholars. I think it's plain as day that not just our bodies but our spirits and our intelligences are different. If we "condition" boys to be "boyish" and girls to be "girly" it's only because something in our spirits inherently knows that there is feminine and masculine, they are different, we should treat them differently, and we all need a little bit of both in our lives. It's the ying/yang principle. We need opposites just as much as opposition. :)
It's funny. I never know which of my posts will be commented on and usually they're the posts I least expect. I thought people would have a lot to say about this post, but wouldn't comment. And again, I was surprised.
I think we all mostly agree while there are trends, everybody's different. Leanne and I had a bit more of a discussion about it last night and I decided that while boys' and girls' brains are mostly likely different, there's probably a spectrum for both and perhaps a bit of that spectrum overlaps between girls and boys. Does that make any sense? What do I know anyway? :) I just thought that was interesting. Like Debra, I've noticed little boys pushing things around like cars as young as seven months old. Never seen a girl do that. But there you go. Doesn't mean there's not a girl out there who doesn't. You could even take me and my little brother. I didn't like dolls or playing house when I was little, but he did so I would play with him. But never of my own initiation. And so it goes...
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