Boarding Schools for Girls

All-boys' schools do not foster an overly masculine environment. Instead, boys in single-sex schools are freer to express their emotions and engage in subjects such as art dance and music, according to new research presented at the International Boys' Schools Coalition in London.

• Abigail Adams of the University of Virginia found that boys often lose confidence in their academic abilities after competing with girls in the early grades.
  
• Girls that age have an advantage in verbal skills and reading ability.
  
• Boys can often benefit from "boy friendly" ways of teaching.
  
• For example, since boys have better spatial skills, better vision, and are usually more impulsive and physically active, they may benefit from hands-on lessons, where they are allowed to move around.

"In the present sexualized atmosphere prevalent in mixed schools, boys feel coerced into acting like men before they understand themselves well enough to know what that means," according to the report.

Tony Little, headmaster of Eton School, said that teachers do not always recognize that boys can be more emotional than girls.

Labels: single-sex education, boys

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A study of 1,000 British men found that 48 percent believe that their male primary teachers had the most impact on their lives. Over 20 percent said their male teachers increased their self-confidence, and 35 percent said their teachers had encouraged them to work harder in the primary grades.

The results are significant because only 13 percent of British primary teachers are men.

Some psychologists have pointed out that with increasingly higher rates of single mothers raising boys, male teachers are often a British child's only male role model.

"Male primary school teachers can often be a stable and reliable figure in the lives of the children they teach," said Dr. Tanya Byron, a clinical psychologist and government advisor.

Labels: teachers, boys

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There is no truth to the myth that that girls are "cattier" than boys, according to a new study from the University of Arizona. Researchers found that boys are just as socially aggressive as girls are, and that both sexes gossip, spread rumors, and intentionally exclude others from their cliques. Many in the field assume that boys are more likely to bully and pick fights in a physical way, but girls are more likely to express aggression verbally or in written communication.

Noel Card, assistant professor of family studies and human development, researched 148 previous studies involving 74,000 children. He and his colleagues found that certain children, especially boys, are more likely to be both socially and physically aggressive.

Professor Card linked physical aggression to problems such as delinquency, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, poor social skills, and lack of empathy. Social aggression was associated with depression and low self-esteem.

This study appears in the journal Child Development.

Labels: boys, social_skills, gossip

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Teenage girls are harder to raise than teenage boys, according to a new British survey of 3,000 parents.

• Three-fourths of the parents in this study say they have more arguments with their daughters, with one-third blaming mood swings, and 27% saying girls were rude, and 12% reporting that girls were aggressive.
• Three-fourths of the parents also believe that girls are more likely to argue with their friends than boys.
• Parents reported that girls are more concerned about their physical appearances, especially their weight and their skin.
• However, 80% of parents believe that both boys and girls are under more pressure to look good today than they were when they were teenagers themselves.

Thirty percent of parents said their teenagers' behaviors "wore them out," and 60% had quarreled with their partners and spouses over their adolescents' problems.

"Females in their teenage years are more prone to mood swings that males, mainly due to the hormonal changes their bodies are experiencing," said Dr. Chris Bundy, a lecturer in health and medical psychology at the University of Manchester. "Both boys' and girls' behavior swings between being more childlike one day and adult the next, and they get confused."

The study was done by the Simple Spotless Skin foundation.
 

Labels: parenting, boys, girls

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