5 year old boy very much into 'girl' things

Fuzzy_Duck

I think it's lovely that your boy hasn't fallen for gender stereotypes. Sadly it oftens seems that the majority of kids know what they 'should' and 'shouldn't' be playing with and that most likely comes from the attitudes of their parents or their peers, or even commericals on TV.

Encourage his interests; don't make him think they're wrong. Plenty of little boys enjoy dressing up and playing with dolls/ play houses- just as there are plenty of girls who prefer more rough and tumble games. It's perfectly normal.

As he gets older he may find he gets some stick from narrow-minded people, but that's life. I'm a firm believer that bullies will pick on your for anything, no matter how stupid- they'll pick on the differences that make you YOU in an attempt to make themselves feel better. These experiences in life make it all the more important that you encourage and appreciate your son.

Don't worry about his shyness either. He's only 5, so he can get away with sticking his tongue out and staying quiet- I'm sure he won't still be doing that when he's an adult You may well find he has a complete personality change in years to come, or he may remain a bit shy. As long as he's happy in himself it doesn't really matter either way.

Regardless of how much they have in common I'm sure your son and his dad will find things to chat about. There's no harm in you both introducing your son to new things to expand his interests, just be wary of trying to get him to like something he has no interest in, and don't stop him pursuing an interest because it's perceived as a 'girly' choice.

Acc72

elvis86 wrote: »

But I do think that people are being a little unfair in making out like I overreacted in my response to her original post.

In my opinion, you completely over-reacted to the OP and I find it incredulous that you are now apparently looking for some sort of sympathy because not everybody agrees with your opinion (this is of course me reading between the lines and making assumptions on your post etc. etc.).

We all make assumptions (rightly or wrongly) however I found your initial post to be very rude and aggressive.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

My DD always ignored kids from her class in the shops. Turned out she never liked them (having dealt with some of their parents and seen the children's behaviour in school trips, I can completely understand why ), wasn't actually bullied, but was polite enough to make each day at primary school pass pleasantly enough.

Now, seeing how those kids are in secondary school - the type that would pick on someone for being gay, emo, black, poor or just not being the same as them - I think she was showing good judgement at an early age.

Those children may not be actually bullying your son, but they may have the rough, harsh 'that's so gay' personalities that completely repel him.


Your son might like other things not so gender loaded - art, building big things, music, drumming, non contact martial arts, swimming, trampolining, for example.

But at the moment he is very small and it sounds as though he spent most his time in a largely female environment, so it is perfectly normal for him to be comfortable around the toys that would have been around him during that time.



Regarding your OH - well, you could point out that a boy with the ability to communicate with girls is more likely to find it easy to get girlfriends when he's older. When I was at school, there was a lad who was a little softer than the others, sweet, funny, artistic. By the time we were all 18, he'd probably dated 25% of the girls, (mostly the prettiest, too) as he was straight but able to relate to girls in a way the oafs couldn't.


Or that he might not like the alternative, being your son being the Billy No Mates of the class, if he isn't allowed to play with his friends. Or that if it is scary for him, perhaps your OH would like to come up with the money to send DS to a private boys' school. It won't make him happier, but it might stop your OH feeling so threatened.



As you can guess, I have limited sympathy for your OH. Your son sounds lovely and there are no problems other than those in the mind of your OH, who has fallen into the trap of assuming a child will be exactly as you imagined and not a separate person with their own thoughts, feelings and opinions. Children have a habit of doing that.

elvis86

Acc72 wrote: »

In my opinion, you completely over-reacted to the OP and I find it incredulous that you are now apparently looking for some sort of sympathy because not everybody agrees with your opinion (this is of course me reading between the lines and making assumptions on your post etc. etc.).

We all make assumptions (rightly or wrongly) however I found your initial post to be very rude and aggressive.

I'm not looking for sympathy. Why would I want sympathy? There's nothing wrong with me?

I was just pointing out that whilst the OP may now have changed her tune, her choice of thread title and original post suggested (to me, at least) that the main problem she and her OH had was with her son liking "girl" things and not being the "proper" little boy that they had expected. Her OH went as far as objecting to their shy son having girls as friends, seemed pretty unreasonable and unkind to me.

Incidentally, the vast majority of people have essentially agreed with me, that the OP should allow her son to be whoever he wants to be, and that any attempts to force "boy" things on him will do no good.

Very few people have suggested that the OP confiscate his Jesse doll, forbid him from playing with his (girl) friends, and force him to do 100 keepy-ups with his dad before he gets any dinner etc.;)

dibuzz

Kids are all different, mine are so different you would probaly think they weren't even related.
Son no 1 was and is very quiet, wouldn't speak to people and crossed the road if he saw someone he knew so he wouldn't have to say hello which if I'm honest he probably got from me. Neither of us is a people person. He hated sports and PE but we encouraged him to join a karate class which he loved.
Son no 2 has alwasy been a typical boy but even he had a 2nd hand dolls pram for his teddy, much to his dad's disgust.
My daughter has never been girly and plays rugby union, she has worn 2 dresses in over 10 years and isn't into make up etc.
We've had a few comments about her being such a tomboy but why is it relatively ok for a girl to do boyish things but not for a boy to do typically girlish things?
Surely it shouldn't matter either way?

Acc72

elvis86 wrote: »

I'm not looking for sympathy. Why would I want sympathy? There's nothing wrong with me?

What on earth are you talking about ?


I actually said :

In my opinion, you completely over-reacted to the OP and I find it incredulous that you are now apparently looking for some sort of sympathy because not everybody agrees with your opinion (this is of course me reading between the lines and making assumptions on your post etc. etc.).

Please look at the bits I have highlighted.

From your reply above, it is my opinion that you yourself have issues and that you should not take these out on other people.

Oh, and before you say anything I am not implying that these issues are in any way linked to your sexuality.

ska_lover

Cherry_Bomb wrote: »

I going to be 100% brutally honest and say this is not what we we're expecting when we found out we we're having a boy. OH was over the moon thinking about the football games and the rough and tumble boys generally have with their dad but the reality is the total opposite.

Hi Cherry Bomb,

I have to admit, I find some of what you are saying quite difficult to read especially the above sentence.

I think that you have a romantic ideal of what having a family could be like, but it hasn't worked out how you thought and you are dissapointed about that. Kids will pick up on dissapointments from parents, even at such a young age, and these will lead to insecurities in later life. If you go on to have another son that turns out to be more 'boy-ish' then your lad will forever know he is not the 'favoured child' if attitudes of the adults in your house do not change.You say that your lad does not hug his dad or tell him he loves him, and that could well be because he is picking up on his dads feelings towards him

Your lad is a five year old andhe will continue to grow and change for years and years to come. Lots of children at that age enjoy playing with toys etc which are supposedly for the opposite sex, it is normal. Your child is normal. A toy is a toy to them, they don't care as long as it is fun.

Healthy and happy are the only things we should be wishing for, for our kids, the rest is up to them. We cannot push our own behavioral ideals on to our kids - as they could end up resenting us.

I think you need to accept him as he is. Apart from bad behaviour, i.e; screaming inappropriately, at five years old, I would try to put a stop to that.

barbiedoll

OP, your son clearly has excellent taste in toys, Jessie from "Toy Story" is a great role model, she's a strong female who has her own opinions, she's pretty fearless and she has great hair too...what boy (or girl) wouldn't fall in love with her?

My son was painfully shy as a kid, he's an only child and I was a SAHM for 3 years so we were, and still are, very close. I did take him to playgroups and so on but he would rarely leave my side and I worried terribly about how he would get on at nursery and at school. He used to play with the traditional girls toys at my mum's house, apparently he loved the dolls pram and my old dolls with their blonde hair and frilly dresses. Even now he loves dolls but his "dolls" are now wrestlers, Spiderman, and anything from Star Wars. (Of course, we're not allowed to call them "dolls", they're "action figures"!)

My son is still quite shy but he has thrived all through school, despite being a small kid and hating football. Don't be too quick to worry, just because your son was scared at a footie match, my son was the same when we took him. He's never liked the traditional "male" sports, but he loves swimming, dancing and table tennis. His favourite subject at school is drama and apparently he's very good at it. Small children don't have the same hang-ups as us about gender-specific toys, clothes or activities, they just like playing with stuff.

If it's any consolation to your DH, one of my gay friends is mad about motorbikes, he never played with dolls as a kid and he loves football. Not all "macho" men are as macho as they look!

halight

Hi,
I dont have a son (Im male) I have two twin girls. But if i did have a son then i would be at my wits end if he liked Football, Its all a bit simple really a load of men running around a bit of grass, chanceing a lump of cow skin with air in it. And the spitting that goes on! Id lock the lot of them up. And dont even get me started on the amount of money that these people get! all for playing a little kids game! take about bashing the bankers some of the footballers need to live in the real world too!

Sorry rant over!

Now when i was a kid i never liked sport (Im not over waight)
I use to love helping my nan do the cleaning at her house. I still love cooking to this day (Gone off the cleaning a bit now, But i do have a wife for all that stuff)
i never and still dont like video games. I love animal always have done. Iv had many over the years. I keep chickens now.

And its never done me any harm at all. iv turned out quite well i think.
now dont get me wrong im still red blooded! I love women, ( feel free to inbox me with photos and email adds)

Im a bit of a red neck. there is no way if i was running this country that id let some of the other contrys get away with treating us the way they think they can. Whats the point in haveing an army if you can not use it!

Anyway dont worry he will turn out fine.

Gingham_R

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

As you can guess, I have limited sympathy for your OH. Your son sounds lovely and there are no problems other than those in the mind of your OH, who has fallen into the trap of assuming a child will be exactly as you imagined and not a separate person with their own thoughts, feelings and opinions. Children have a habit of doing that.

Although he doesn't need your sympathy, I think that's harsh. I think one of the hardest things a parent has to deal with is coming to terms with the realisation that your child is NOTHING like you. There's a whole 11 year sitcom based around that very fact (Frasier.)

We were blessed with 2 healthy, happy children and no-one can really ask for more than that. But I don't mind saying that I would have found it confusing and maybe even upsetting if we just didn't seem to have anything in common. My husband and I love going to museums and reading and music and going for long walks in the woods. If our kids had hated all those things, I would have felt really lost and it would have taken time to accept that our family life wasn't going to be how I expected it.

Yes, it's about accepting our children as they are, but it's also sometimes about letting our dream of family life go and making a start on what the reality is. Sometimes reality is way better than the dream if we are willing to let it be.