Is it a boy? Is it a girl? No, it's Linnea!

[ailbhe]

While I was in Dublin, radegund and I brought her son and my daughter to a playground one afternoon. They played on the swings and slide and so on, and then O's ball was spotted by some of the other kids, and various people used it for various games. After a while, one boy of about 9 and two of about 5 ish I think were playing a form of football with it, and O was watching from the sidelines with interest and some anxiety (he's very attached to his football, and needs to make sure it's safe at all times), and Linnea was joining in.

She ran after the oldest boy, and he kicked the ball over her to the younger ones, and she picked it up and kicked it, and so on. He addressed has as "Buddy" at this point, and played quite hard with her, with lots of teasing (I almost but not quite felt a need to actually intervene - at one point, he was holding the ball out on the ground, telling her to kick it, and then whisking it away yelling "Too slow!" - but he managed to stay just the right side of upsetting her.

He must have heard me saying good girl, because suddenly he asked "What's the girl's name?" and we told him. After that, he kicked the ball gently to her, yelled at the 5-year-olds not to kick the ball too hard at the little girl, stopped teasing her completely, and praised every single kick she did. She had just as much fun with the new way of playing, because although it was less exciting, she did get more actual ball-time.

He knew, at his early age, that boys need to be toughened up with plenty of mean, rough play, and girls need to be treated gently and kindly.

I was amazed by how sudden and complete the change in his behaviour was. I was also wondering why he took on the role of Responsible Adult for all the kids in the playground, whether or not they had arrived with him, but that wasn't relevant to the sex differences issue.

Comments

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Given that she was enjoying the play either way (and that plenty of boys wilt under rough treatment from their peers), I wonder a lot about that difference.

[sierra-le-oli.livejournal.com]

That is a startling change. Although I guess no one should really be astonished by it. :-/

Re: the responsible adult thing. Perhaps he is an oldest sibling who has had it impressed on him that he should take care of the young 'uns? Or something like that. I seem to recall feeling a sense of responsibility towards younger children at that age and the idea of being the big sister had at least something to do with it. *g*

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

To be honest, my assumption for the gender-behaviour change was also that he's an elder sibling; it does sound like the sort of thing you'd expect from a kid who's been told not to play too roughly with his little sister...

[rmc28]

I'm an oldest sibling and tend to take the responsible role even now.

[nitoda]

Some older kids will take responsiblity for younger ones because they understand that role, maybe better than the give and take of playing with their peers ... and it makes them feel useful and good ... it can be a lot easier to do this than to cope with the feelings of being threatened and vulnerable with your age peers, especially if social interaction doesn't come easily to you. But of course, I wasn't there ... so this is sheer speculation and a certain amount of datapointing.

[the-warwick.livejournal.com]

I'm not overly surprised by the change over. Our local group of close friends is split on girls and boys. They're all first children and there has been little gender pushing from most of the parents. The behaviour of the girls is significant;ly different as is their treatment by their peers. The girls are still equally capable of performing the same acts as the boys. The nature/nurture argument doesn't seem to work when applied to how they are treated by their peers though.

[ailbhe]

I've tried a few times, and I can't parse this, especially the second sentence.