Supporting Our Sons

Boys and School

From kindergarten through sixth grade, boys spend more than 1,000 hours a year in school -- environments that are largely feminine with female teachers, and curricula that emphasizes reading, writing and verbal ability, areas where boys develop more slowly than girls. We are seeing that educational environments are not supporting our sons. How are they responding?

Boys are less committed to school and less likely to go to college than girls today.
Boys are three times more likely to be enrolled in special education classes than the typical girl.
Boys are more likely to be held back and more likely to drop out all together.
Boys are four times more likely to be referred to a school psychologist.

Boys and Discipline

Research tells us that boys are more likely to be punished in schools and at home, and when punished are likely to face harsher penalties.

Judges commit boys to the juvenile justice system more than then they commit girls, even for the same crime.
African American boys are three times more likely to receive corporal punishment in school, six Caucasian boys are hit for every one Caucasian girl, and eight Asian boys are hit for every one Asian girl.
Boys are more likely to be hit at home -- a study in Canada showed that boys were 50 percent more likely to be physically abused by their parents than girls.
Boys are also more likely to face verbal abuse by adults in the classroom and at home than their sisters.
One study shows that kindergarteners who are spanked at home are more likely to be physically aggressive at school and much more apt to be bullies.

Boys and Violence

Boys are in pain and they are showing us by acting out:

95 percent of juvenile homicides are committed by boys.
Boys are the perpetrators of four out of five crimes that end up in juvenile court.
Boys under the age of 18 are responsible for close to one-fifth of the violent crime in the United States.

Boys and Their Well-Being

Boys are three times more likely to be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder than girls.
Boys are four times more likely to be prescribed Ritalin.
Currently over one million boys in the United States take Ritalin daily.
Boys mature more slowly than girls and as a result are slower to achieve cognitive milestones than girls their same age.
Boys are slower to develop impulse control than girls.

Boys and Their Emotions

Newborn boys are more emotionally expressive than newborn girls
Boys become less facially expressive with emotions as they age, while girls become more so.
Are boys less emotional? No. Recent research on second graders found that boys were more emotionally stressed when listening to a crying baby, but were less capable in handling these emotions. The result? The boys tried to avoid the source of the emotional conflict.
Studies of parent interaction with both boys and girls suggest that when a girl asks a question about emotions such as "Why is that boy crying?", her mother will give a longer explanation and will more likely ask her daughter to speculate on the feelings behind the emotional response.
Preschool girls have a greater range of "emotion" words (sad, love, angry) than boys and use them more often.

Boys and Their Fathers

Fathers play a unique role in the lives of boys and are particularly important in the development of future success.

In a twenty seven year study of children, the single most important indicator of a child's future income was father attendance at PTA meetings.
Children whose fathers are both emotionally close and highly involved are more likely to go to college and get advanced degrees. They are also less likely to commit delinquent acts.
Research shows that the most influential factor in developing a boy's empathy is having a father who is involved in the child care.
Roughhousing (safe, active play) is highly arousing for boys and is thought to be important to both cognitive and emotional development.
Of all the people in a boy's life, sons identified their father as the person to whom they would least likely confide their true feelings.

Boys and the 21st Century

Are boys being given the tools they need to be successful in these changing times? Here are some of the facts of our culture in this new century:

2.2 million single fathers are raising their children alone (up 62 percent from a decade ago).
In two parent households, fathers are 15 percent more likely to be involved in the child care than they were a generation ago.
Over 65 percent of mothers with children under the age of five work outside the home.
Dual income households make up the majority of where children are being raised today.
Single mothers head 7.2 percent of households.

The world is changing and our concept of boys and boyhood is not. The result? Boys are suffering either silently or violently -- but they are without a doubt suffering. Supporting Our Sons is dedicated to realizing a new vision of boyhood, one that celebrates the unique gifts that boys bring to our world and expands what we give back. For more information visit our About Us section.

Note on Sources: The majority of these statistics have been culled from two books: "Real Boys: Rescuing Our Boys from the Myths of Boyhood", by Dr. William Pollack and "Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys", by Drs. Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson. For further information on the statistics above, feel free to contact us at members@supportingoursons.org.