Ask DadCentric: Will Boys Be Boys?

We ring in the New Year with another installment of America's Favorite Fatherly Advice Column, Ask DadCentric. Reader Andie D sends the following query:

Ok, I'll bite.  I. need. help.

My 5.5 year old son seems to have been born with no natural empathy.  His main goal in life so far seems to be to do whatever the hell he feels like doing at the moment.  Consequences be damned.  Examples:
Headbutting his friends for no reason (Really - no reason. Unless you count, "I don't know; I just wanted to.") Finding it near impossible to hug without a corresponding tackle. Torturing his little sister by egging her on to do "bad" things and then giggling when she does them.

Is any of this shit a normal "boy thing"?  My hub and I both have talked to him about right and wrong, he knows about our morals and values, can restate them almost verbatim, gets lots of positive reinforcement, and has clearcut consequences for making "bad" choices.  Either something is just not clicking for this kid or it's time to call in the pros.

I want to nip this stuff in the bud now!

Andie, let me answer you with a story of my own. Just this evening, Lucas was on the phone chatting with my parents (whom we'll refer to as "Bubbie" and "Poppa"). It was a lively discussion, with Lucas telling them all about the toys he got for Christmas and his day at school and what he had for dinner. He's growing up so fast, I thought. Listen to him, almost four and carrying on an actual phone conversation with my parents, they must be so thrilled, they only get to see him a few times a year and now they can actually talk WITH him, not at him...

"PENIS!"

Wha...?

He was giggling into the phone. "Penis! Bum! Butt!", he crowed. I quickly grabbed the phone from him and addressed my parents. "Yeah, well, he's punchy, you know, long day at school, up early, don't know where he gets those words from..." Luckily, Bubbie and Poppa were on their speaker phone, which has all the clarity of a speakerbox at the Del Taco drive-thru. "Say goodnight, Lucas," I growled. "I pooped on my head!", he cheerfully replied.

My point? Girls, from what I've seen of my friends' female kids, are decidedly more genteel (although Zoe, bless her little 8 week old heart, is a farter of the first order. Volume and stench.); boys, in my experience, like to run into walls and talk about bodily functions. This does not end at 3, or 5, or 38. As Dennis Miller once put it, boys think farts are funny because they are.

But I think I understand where you're coming from; your son is at the point where his actions are getting others in trouble and possibly causing them injury. What I'd guess (and this is my opinion; child psychiatrists, pediatricians, and Scientologists, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) is that your son's doing this stuff to get attention. When you get upset with him, you're giving him that attention. He wins. One thing that I've heard works (and with a little sister in the house, I'm sure I'll have ample opportunity to test this theory) is that when your kid hits/tackles/headbutts another, the first thing to do is check on the other kid - immediately give that child, not the offender, the attention. When your daughter does something bad and your son is the root cause, talk to her first about what she's done, and then address him (or perhaps don't - reacting to his behavior, and giving him that attention, might be reinforcing it).

We're dealing with listening issues in our house these days as well; anyone have any advice and/or war stories they'd like to share? Feel free to comment below...

Comments

[mr. big dubya]

Heh, heh - you wrote farts.

[Whit]

Listening is the thorn in my side.

My oldest is actually pretty sweet and gentle to everyone but his little brother. They both find farts to be top notch material.

The listening, or lack of, vexes me. It vexes me greatly.

[Bill]

I wrote about the "penis" issue recently with my 5 year old Jack. "His working theory of the known universe is an adapted version of Copernican Heliocentrism called Copernican Phalliocentrism in which everything revolves around his penis; in other words his penis is the center of the universe." It seems harmless right now, but who knows with 5 year olds as I can see you know...

[landismom]

Well, my 4.5 year old is getting in trouble at daycare, because he and his best friend are getting up, shaking their butts at the teacher, and saying "shake your booty!"

Hi.lar.i.ous.

If I figure out how to get him to stop, I'll come back and post about it.

[dgm]

We've got an almost-5 y.o. boy who looves to tackle and rough-house. He and his best bud do it all the time and it is very difficult to get them to stop at the end of the schoolday. The teacher said even though she has them sitting across the room from each other, they will still manage to crack each other up without speaking. We of course don't want him to get in trouble; at the same time, he's just a rambunctious kid who is enthusiastic about EVERYTHING. And it's touching to see how much he loves his buddy--there's a bond there like no other.

So we set limits like, "It's okay to play with your buddy, but when I come to pick you up from school, it's time to go home." And we are sure to give him some extra time to say goodbye, then challenge him to a race to the car. (Sometimes it helps to redirect the energy.)

So I guess I'm saying that on some level, the boy's essence is what it is and you have to figure out how to keep others safe while letting him be himself. Ask yourself how much clamping down you need to do because he's hurting someone or being disruptive, and how much you want him calmer because you just want control.