Playful Parenting; Thoughts on Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Empower Girls and Connect with Boys

I must apologize for taking so loooong in posting about chapter 8 of  Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen. I’ve been posting in conjunction with Daniel Kraft. Here is his post on chapter 8. I am hoping he will continue to post his thoughts on this book because his posts are always thoughtful and insightful. I’m also going to focus more on Lawrence’s suggestions as opposed to my own thoughts because I’m actually having a hard time thinking. Can I blame the pregnancy hormones?

The main issue that Lawrence Cohen addresses in this chapter is this;

Because of the way girls tend to be inhibited from exploring, they need help in spreading their wings, exploring the wide world, and discovering their own power room. Because boys are so often left alone with their feelings and deprived of the comforts of cuddling and nurturing, they need extra help in putting down roots (pg. 132).

In my opinion, there is no doubt that we still treat boy and girls differently from infancy onward. Lawrence discusses some of the studies that support this idea and the fact that there are really only small innate differences between boys and girls and that socialization accounts for a large amount of the differences.

This chapter is particularly poignant for me because during our 12 week sonogram we discovered that there is a good chance we’re having a girl. I know it’s early but we were clearly able to see that our two sons were boys at the 12 week sonogram. Not to mention, I have a strong intuition that this is a girl. It’s been on my mind about how to raise a strong, self-confident, girl in today’s world and for the past four years I’ve strived to develop connection and emotional intelligence for my sons.

My favorite parts of this book are when Lawrence gives specific advice about playful parenting how-to’s. His most important suggestion for playing with boys and girls is to join them first in whatever they are doing even if that means playing Barbie’s or rough-and-tumble play. Then we can gradually lead our children to new ideas, new ways of playing etc.

For example, Cohen gives the example of playing Barbie’s with his daughters. Barbie may not seem particularly empowering right? But it can be the perfect opportunity to challenge sexist notions or stereotypes. Lawrence will play up the stereotypes with one doll and then have another be the “feminity police”. It sounds like fun. I wish I could have played Barbie’s with him when I was young! The other advice he gives is to introduce alternative themes from the typical love and romance.

Cohen writes, “…We have to encourage girls to be adventurous, loud, strong, physically powerful and assertive…This may require, especially for mothers, that we take a close look at our own upbringing and our own inhibitions about wresting or rough-and-tumble play. (pg.137)” For me, I think having a little brother really helped me experience lots of wrestling but I don’t remember ever experiencing this type of play with my mother. My sons have broke me in as far as rough-and-tumble play go. I wonder if it will be harder to do with a daughter? Do you rough and tumble play with your daughter(s)?

How do you encourage your daughter(s) to be adventurous, assertive and strong? I’m sure being a good role model has a big positive influence but I’d like to brainstorm actual games and advice. And I am also wondering how much our cultural princess obsession plays into all of this. Just this morning, I heard a radio station giving away tickets to a princess show and they asked people to call in and have their “little princess” talk on the radio.

The section titled “Connecting with Both Boys and Girls” is almost completely highlighted in my book! I’ll try to pick out a few of my favorite points and advice.

Empathy, emotional intelligence, kindness-these are all learned in close relationship, not from books or moral lessons. And they are learned in play.Unfortunately-catastrophically-some of the things that would help boys connect are considered ‘girly things’: cuddling; playing with baby dolls, reading and writing poetry; practicing music, art literature, drama, singing, dancing. (pg.141)

Some of Cohen’s advice for helping boys (and girls) connect;

• Play simple words games and language games (eg. fortunately/unfortunately, one person starts a story fortunately and the other says the next part with unfortunately. This game often brings out themes of disaster and rescue.)
• Squiggle- one person starts a drawing, making squiggles that don’t look like anything and the other person tries to finish it by making it look like something.
• Emotion games- Make a facial expression or find photographs and have them name the emotion. Ask them to make a certain face and then you respond in an appropriate manner with another facial expression. Fantasy play-have your character express feelings through words and actions.

How do you help your son connect emotionally? What ways do you find yourself challenging stereotypes about boys?

The first thing that comes to my mind is how often my sons have been told by others, “Big boys don’t cry.” Oh God, this is such a pet peave of mine. I always feel like I have to work overtime to combat this stereotype. I’ve gone as far as saying immediately, “Oh, aren’t they being silly? We know that sometimes boys and girls cry, huh?” But usually I just get my son out of the situation and we talk privately.

Other things that come to mind, I made sure we have a kitchen and dolls in the playroom. I think it’s super important that my sons see my husband cook, clean and take care of our babies. I think our generation has come a long way but there is still even further to go. Most women in our culture still do the majority of the child care, cooking and cleaning even when she works outside of the home.

The last thing that I’ll mention is that I try my best to validate my sons feelings even when it may seem silly to me. If he is crying, then he has a reason and I want to know why he is hurting.

Do you have any other thoughts about this topic? I think we could write and talk about gender differences and parenting all day!