I was sure that it was going to be another girl. When we had our first sonogram the nurse said, “look at that – it’s a…” and I shouted girl! I had seen one of those things before, but I was just so sure that it was going to be a girl. It’s just that I can have empathy with a girl’s problems, but with a boy it’s just so painful – I know exactly what he’s going to be going through and it’s almost too much to bear.

So, you can see the attraction that I had to Peg Tyre’s The Trouble with Boys. Here’s the shocking truth:

“They get expelled from preschool nearly five times more often than girls; in elementary school, they’re diagnosed with learning disorders four times as often. By eighth grade huge numbers are reading below basic level. And by high school, they’re heavily outnumbered in AP classes and, save for the realm of athletics, show indifference to most extra-curricular activities. Perhaps most alarmingly, boys now account for less than 43 percent of those enrolled in college, and the gap widens every semester!”

So what right? Not my kid right? What are we supposed to do about it? Well of course there is no one answer, but Peg brings up a bunch of issues: video games, boy culture, the ways that ADHD is diagnosed. One of the most interesting chapters is about preschool. The criticism is that the hyper pre- schooling of the last several years is ignoring a boys natural need to learn through play. Forcing a 4 year old to sit a desk for hours is not helpful for either sex, but for a boy it’s much worse. We are teaching our young boys to dislike school.

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