Raising boys…taking risks
Posted under parenting
Raising boys…raising girls…raising children. Are they the same? I’m completely ill qualified to make any kind of judgement since I am the mother of boys, and boys alone. And that’s how it will stay. There will be no more Baby Spuds, for various reasons but not least because I don’t want any Girl Baby Spuds. Girls are great, don’t get me wrong, I am one myself etc etc…I just don’t want to parent Girl Spuds…I’m totally blissed out by my Boy Spuds. I love our family dynamic…one MrSpud, Two BoySpuds, One Coach Potato….and that’s the way it will stay.
So, are boys different? When Bertie, my first born, was about 5 seconds only I read ‘Raising Boys: Why Boys are Different and How to Help Them Become Happy and Well-Balanced Men’ by Steve Biddulph. OH MY GOD! Look at the title, sheesh, way to go and heap on the responsiblity. Scream. I can’t remember much about it, although I distinctly remember that boys are generally not ready for formalised learning until they are 7(ish) and that they need male mentors. I can remember panicking about the ‘male mentor’ thing but life moves on, and we have a fair number around these days. And I’ve cut my hair really, really short…so…I count, right?
In recent weeks I’ve been confronted with the statement that ‘boys do better if they are allowed to take risks’. On TV (thank you St Gareth Malone via the BBC’s Extraordinary School for Boys) and through another Mum of Boys. I vaguely considered this, and then dismissed it as I’m not one of life’s risk takers and, thus, I don’t encourage it in others.
Or I didn’t, until yesterday. Bertie went to school. The sun shone. I thanked the Google gods for giving me a job which is totally flexible, took the day off and kept Diggy out of nursery. We hung out a bit and then headed down the fields.
Our original plan had been to gather some apples to feed to the horses in the field at the bottom of the garden. But a hole in the bag meant we were down to only 2 apples by the time we’d got there, and thus that activity was over pretty fast. We continued…
We got to the stream, shallow but fast and with no clear way across other than a few big stones and slippy bits of concrete. My plan was hand out and watch the water. Diggy’s plan was to spend 2 hours IN the stream, crossing backwards and forwards, leaping from stone to stone, testing the sailing capacities of every leaf/stone/piece of bark around.
I resisted for about 30 seconds and then realised I should just let him DO IT! Most likely the risk involved him tipping over, filling his boots and getting wet…perhaps with a graze. The most likely worst case was he would fall and bash his head. The VERY worst is that he would fall and smack his head and kill himself but, let’s face it, he could do that anywhere.
So, despite my usual reticence, I just let him ‘be’. I didn’t say ‘be careful’, or ‘slowly!’ or ‘mind out!’ and all those usual things mummies say because, let’s face it, what’s the point? I said ‘be careful’ once and Diggy said, in measured tones, ‘Mummy..remember..I’m In Charge’.
Action shot: arrghhhh….
So, was I right to let him take a few risks? Should I let him? But is it limited to boys…should girls be ‘allowed’ or indeed ‘encouraged’ to take risks? Do we need more risk takers?
