“What’s needed is something that will engage the spirit of the boy – pull him headlong into some creative effort or passion that gives his life wings.”
Steven Biddulph, Raising Boys.

When our first son was in his early years we did not see any major difference in personality with our first-born daughter. Our oldest two children were thus disciplined the same, read the same books and pretty much played with the same toys. Somewhere around the age of 5 we noticed that he was in fact vastly different in the way he thinks and behaves in situations to the way our daughter would.

Now at 11 we see that he has a very concrete way of approaching his world and schooling. He is able to focus on things that he is actively engaged in what he is doing. But when he was younger he needed to jiggle through his school days. At that stage we often had to do spelling with him jumping from one letter to another on an old sheet where I had written the letters, or play games for maths like hopscotch and stepping stones in those early years. We keep his seatwork quite short even now and alternate the seat time with free time, and he diligently and with a cheerful heart does his work, as he knows he is free to play as soon as he is done with his seatwork.

We set aside the time after our desk time for productive free time, which is when he gets to spend time on his delights. At the moment it is woodwork and science experiments. Recently he made us a hanging bird feeder and a bird box that he hopes will attract some nesting activity soon. His experiments are generally mixing things like bicarb, cream of tartar, Epsom salts and vinegar to see what reaction he gets.

He loves biking so we encourage him in this. More recently he has begun to take part in mountain biking sometimes riding up to 15 km’s on a Sunday with Dad. He never misses a chance to go fishing with Dad on our boat during the weekends either. This term a dear friend of his introduced him to tying Fly’s for fly-fishing and this is an activity that keep the boys busy when together.

When our second little boy came along we thought we would be in for a similar ride. Why we thought that I don’t know, as after having three children we should have been wiser knowing that they are all such individuals!

Our little one is a delightful boy but is more the “hang from the ceiling fan” kind of boy! He has loved cars, tractors, trailers and trains from 6 months! He also is passionate about tools and how things work and even at his tender age has worked out how to get his video on with the correct channel on the TV, as well as how to take a torch apart and put it back together! Now at 6 this same engineer of a child is creating some of the most amazing lego robots, with motors to boot!

Giving you a glimpse into our boy’s hearts leads me to catering for them in our home.

Creative play and experiments, woodwork and sports equipment make messes. We need to not continually be seeking tidiness, but rather set aside a place for them, a workshop of sorts, where they can mess and create.

I find it of utmost importance to make sure that we never clump them together with the girls. There is nothing wrong with them learning housekeeping skills; this is not what I mean.

God made boys to grow and mature into men who will one day lead their own families and stand up for the those who are not able to stand up for themselves. Moms have the ability and sometimes the tendency to squelch the effervescent boyishness of their sons. Therefore we need to become mature in our handling of our boys knowing that their huge personalities, even the quiet boys, have a purpose in God’s Kingdom, and we must channel their energies into this future purpose.

But at the same time our sons need to learn the other sides to life in the home. So they learn to cook and clean with us and our older son is a budding chef! I hope my future daughter in law thanks me one day! [smile]

To sum up, the things that have been helpful for us with our sons:

Allowing their individual bents, rather than putting them in a mould.

Giving them space of their own for experiments and the like of them.

Not squelching their boyishness but consistently training them in acceptable behaviour.

Seeing them as blessings and future men in God’s kingdom.

Some books to read on raising boys can be found on my parenting books for boys page .

There is also some further information on homeschooling boys here!

“The world no longer needs men who can wrestle buffalo. In the modern world where manual and mechanical labour is less and less important, we need to take that masculine energy and ability and redirect it into another kind of heroic effort.
This means adding language and feeling to the thinking and doing skills of boys.”
Raising Boys, Steven Biddulph


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