Hello, and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Ken John Payne, the author of Simplicity Parenting and, well, others, other books too. This week I happen to be speaking to a couple of parents about the difference in the way in which we can relate to boys and girls. Now, this is a really big topic, and we spoke late into the evening about it, but I was walking around for a couple of days thinking of it and sort of trying to capture the essence of what we were talking about in that there are some ways in which we relate to our children which have in common, of course, boy, girl, doesn't matter.
You know, that's obvious and clear. But there are other ways, when I was thinking back to the countless numbers of mums and dads I've worked with over the years, there are some hallmarks of where a conversation can begin with a boy that is sometimes different from where a conversation naturally begins with a girl. Now, I've got to say at the outset, this is by no means a fixed thing.
It's just a pattern. It's a pattern that I seem to have bumped into and noticed so many times that I just want to put it out there for your thinking, for your thoughts, without any presumption that this is right for everyone. Where I'm left with this, looking at the patterns, is that with a girl, very often, like with my own two kids, my two girls, they'll often begin a conversation or begin when they're wanting to express something.
It's really natural for them to begin with a really wonderful depth of understanding about where something went wrong or what someone was doing. They go to the kind of feeling motivation behind it. It's not that boys can't go to feelings, we'll come to that in a moment, not at all.
But I've noticed with my own kids and what a lot of other parents have talked about, is that a beginning point for girls, a good deal of the time, not always, but a good deal of the time, is with what they were feeling or what someone else was feeling or the emotional motivation behind what someone did. And then, from there, you can lead that out into a different place, I'll come back to that in a minute. But for boys, what I've noticed over the years, is that for them, the observation, the conversation or what rises to the top, is actually what someone did.
You hear these just uproarious conversations about, he didn't, did he? Yeah, he did. Oh, no. Did he get caught? No, he didn't.
And you hear it over and over, where boys are talking about, really, their first base in this is often not feelings, it's actions. And, you know, you sort of listen to a group of boys talking, when I was teaching often in school counselling, I'd often, you know, like hundreds of times had lunch with whole classes of kids, you know, I would just sit in and give the teacher a break if I was a school counsellor, because I love to do that. And with the boys, they'd all be huddled around their desk, talking about things that they did, and stories of daring do, you know, and, and with girls, they'd be huddled around the desk so often, talking about what she didn't, what, what was she? Well, I mean, that must have really hurt when that was said.
And again, I got to emphasise that this is not a fixed thing, because otherwise, it's just, you know, a straightforward sort of genderist thing to say, but I noticed it over and over and over. But now this is the observation. But here's the I think the main point that I wanted to bring today is that all that's well and good.
But it was always important for me working with boys, for example, being with them in a classroom, wherever it was, I worked in a group home with a lot of boys who are, you know, come from pretty troubled backgrounds, wherever it is, whatever situation it is, with or it's whether it's with your own boys and with your own son, I think it's really important to lead the conversation where it's appropriate from actions into feelings. It's super important that boys start to be able to plumb the depths of their feelings a little bit. My dear friend and close working colleague, Steve Bidoff, who wrote the book Raising Boys, it was the original boys book, the very first one.
And, you know, it's like a Bible to many people who are raising boys. He talks about this at length in the book and in his lectures, where it's so important that we teach boys to express their emotions, that we teach boys to feel their feelings. But what I want to add to that is that if you go too quickly into feelings with a boy, they kind of close down.
And I found it works a treat to join in a conversation about what happened and what they did and they did this and they did that and this happened. And it's great to join in a conversation like that. And then subtly, tactfully draw it down a level into, huh, well, I wonder why I wonder why Simon did that.
I don't know why he did it. He's a crazy dude. You know, I might say, yeah, but he's a good kid.
I wonder why, why that happened. I don't know. It's like it's like he does that kind of stuff because it's like cool and he knows that we think it's really cool.
And can you hear the conversation? Because now you're you've started with the actions and that's perfectly fine. But you've led it towards a more feeling motivation. So you've started with a with a will based, an action based motivation.
But you've led the conversation into a feeling realm that is still safe for a boy because they're talking, they're trying to understand their friend or their own action. And provided a boy is trying to understand an action, they, I found a very, very emotionally literate. You know, we often sort of pigeonhole boys and say, well, they're not very emotionally literate.
I found that to be singularly untrue. But there's just a doorway to walk through. And if you walk through the doorway of understanding the motivation, the feeling or emotional motivation behind an action, most boys will readily join in that conversation.
Now, let's turn to girls. Now, as I mentioned before, their conversations can often begin with feelings and emotions. They go right there.
The problem with that is it can often just cycle round and round and round and not move forward. And the way in which I've experienced both working with my own children and with the girls in the schools that I've worked with for such a long time is to really then talk to them about the implication of that feeling of that emotion and what that means practically. So in other words, you go in and you go in and sort of like it's almost like an inside out of what I was talking about just a moment ago with the boys is that with girls, you can start to talk to them about they might be having a conversation about what someone someone was just totally mean to someone else and that really like totally hurt her feelings.
And, you know, you've got this kind of conversation going on. And then to be able to say to the girls, just sort of as I often did, I just perch on the desk beside them and say, huh, that sounds that sounds really intense. Yeah, it was totally intense.
Well, I mean, what can you do about that? Because and they might say, well, I don't know if we can do anything. And it's like, yeah, but Simone, you know, she's walking around the playground on her own right now or if it's at home, you know, she's in a room on her own. What what do you think? What do you think could be done about that? Well, well, I don't know what we maybe could do.
Like, do you think she would if I said, do you want to just come and hang out like outside with me? Do you think she would be OK with that? And, you know, can you hear the conversation? You see, what you're doing is moving it from a cyclical feeling, emotional stuff, and you're giving girls an action based literacy. I've heard it said often that girls just, you know, they're so into their feelings and yeah, that I get it. I and I agree to some extent.
But moving that forward into action is a wonderful thing. And you can do this for older girls, too. You know, they can be feeling outraged with discrimination against LBGTQ community and a particular person they know who is is so scared about coming out and all this sort of and the conversation and then the conversation is, well, what could is there anything you could do about that discrimination against those people? You know, is there is there a rally coming up? Is there something you can do? Can you get involved in the organizing of it? Maybe you can start a spectrum group in your school.
Actually, I'm not making this up. This was a conversation I had with my daughter, to be honest with you, full disclosure. And she did.
And they they got involved. Both my kids got involved in the spectrum group because they just they couldn't bear the discrimination that society brings. So they decided to take local action on it within their own school.
Do you see how that then can move girls out into action? And it's and it's again, I want to emphasize this is not a fixed thing, but what it does is that it is that it moves girls forward into action and it moves boys forward into feelings and emotions and gives literacy and expression to both. I sure hope that's that's been helpful for you again, as always, at the end of these end of these diaries. I want to encourage you to come on over to the simplicity community.
You can access that and get one month free at this free starter kit at simplicity parenting dot com. And I say it all the time because all the time I get the feedback from parents. Well, that that was that was a much deeper dive into this.
I feel supported and so on. So it keeps the wind in my sails to keep reminding and sending out this message of of our free starter kit and at simplicity parenting dot com. OK, that's it for today.
Bye bye for now.
