Last night my husband and I went to see child psychologist and best selling author Steve Biddulph’s Raising Boys talk.
I read the book and loved it and then a good friend of mine went and saw the talk a few months ago and said she highly recommended it so off we went.
I actually shared an instastory about the talk and had SO MANY messages last night. So many people have seen him and gotten so much out of it so I’m definitely not alone in my thoughts.
One thing I found really interesting was that his Raising Boys talk was a complete sell out. Where as his Raising Girls talk still had a couple of hundred tickets left. LOL. I interpreted that as parents of boys need more help than parents of girls because, in the younger years especially, boys are hard. And girls probably get harder as they get older.
Another thing that was a bit of a sobering statistic is that boys are 300% more likely to die than girls between the ages of 14 – 25 due to motor vehicle accidents, suicide and workplace accidents!!!!!
He also spoke about why boys find school harder than girls, why boys can’t sit still (they’re just wired this way and it’s totally normal) and why we need to accept our boys for who they are even if that is not what we expected them to be.
His key messages (and my top take-aways) were –
- TIME – obvious really but good to hear often. And time means focusing on your child/ren with no distractions so we definitely need to put our phones away more often.
- ROUGH AND TUMBLE PLAY – Who woulda thought that this was actually IMPORTANT? Apparently very much so because it teaches our boys physical boundaries and when enough is enough.
- BOYS ARE ALLOWED TO HAVE FEELINGS – Don’t suppress boys emotions, let them feel so they know how to deal with and navigate their emotions.
- BOYS NEED TO BE TAUGHT HOW TO RESPECT WOMEN – How their Dads treat their mothers is how they will treat their mothers/wives/girlfriends so males especially need to be role models to little boys so they can learn to be respectful of all women as they grow up.
His talk was basically a summary of his book and I highly recommend the book and delving a little deeper. (Steve Biddulph Raising Boys)
Do i feel like I will try to change anything about my current parenting? Absoutely. For one, I will try not to be so harsh on my boys when they’re jumping around and being crazy and just accept that this is the way they are learning about their bodies and movements (and no, I don’t mean let them run riot and be absolute terrors, I just mean if they are playing ‘rough and tumble games’ for example, it’s ok and as long as they have boundaries in place they are actually learning!
Another thing is I will try my hardest to accept them for who they are. I have one who is super smart but also super emotional. I have another one who has no care for learning about the ABC’S or 1, 2 , 3’s but is a social butterfly and that’s fine! They are individuals and I will try my hardest to not try to change them or push them to be something they’re not.
I will also be more mindful of helping them through their emotions by paying attention to their feelings and listening to them talk about them without getting distracted.
Lastly, I will put my phone down more often, yes, I use my phone for work but they will only be little and at home with me for a short time so I will enjoy it while I can!
Let me know if you have seen his talk or read his books and what you got out of them, I would love to hear!
Love,
Anna xoxo