Growing up a boy: how to win back your place under the sun

In the process of growing up, boys face many challenges. And one of them is the need to build and consolidate your individual status in society. How can a boy join the children's team? How to defend your rights and interests? How to become popular among children? We will tell you about it, and also give advice to parents on how to raise boys and prepare them for adulthood.

Children's collective: features and rules of survivalWhen we talk about a place under the sun, we mean a certain comfortable position of the child in the social environment.

It's different for everyone:

• calm and quiet children are happy to communicate in mini-groups of 2-3 people without a clear advantage of any of the participants;
• pronounced extroverts and active children love noisy companies. They feel organically in the chaos of multifaceted communities and often provoke it themselves;
• child leaders strive to manage the team, dictate their own rules of the game and keep order.

If a child cannot find his place in the team, he experiences an extremely unpleasant range of feelings — from disappointment and a drop in self-esteem to unwillingness to be friends with anyone at all.

How boys' collectives are created

Children are extremely selective about who and how to communicate with. The first attempts at this can be observed since the age of 3. Let's consider the criteria of differentiation in children's groups:

1. Gender. Boys tend to communicate more in purely male or mixed groups.

Girls also prefer to communicate with their girlfriends. From the age of 5, children have a desire to protest the imposition of friends of the opposite sex by their parents. And this situation continues until about 12 years. 

With age, gender segregation increases so much that boys who dare to be friends with girls can be ridiculed, deliberately ignored and even kicked out of the team. Learn how to teach a child to find a common language with peers - at Dmitry Karpachev's transplant-free online master class "What every parent should know".  

2. Gaming. Children who love outdoor games languish from boredom in the company of quiet people.

And vice versa. Active fuss will tire a calm child after 10 minutes, and all other actions in the company of a fidget will be given to him with great difficulty.

At the same time, it is impossible to reduce the essence of game segregation only to the type of temperament, since both choleric and melancholic people can play the knockout with equal pleasure. The main thing is to find a company by interests.

3. Organizational. The boys' teams are distinguished by their cohesion and stability.

Controversial issues are resolved together, and the opinion of friends prevails over the opinion of authoritative adults who are related to this group (parents, teachers, educators). 

Autonomy manifests itself in the denial of external rules and the predominance of internal rules — those that are established specifically in this group. Acceptance or non—acceptance of the rules of the collective is the determining factor for its participants. 

4. Hierarchical.Each member of the group has its own role.

There are central places and periphery, there are subgroups of interests, as well as situational intergroup unions. If a child cannot take a comfortable position for him, then the team loses its attractiveness for him.

The struggle within the collectiveThe individual status in the group depends not only on the boy himself, but also on the status of the microgroup to which he belongs.

It is important not only to declare your position, but also to defend it. Children who do not know how to protect their own interests gradually reduce their individual position in the team to the point of rejection. 

By the way, you can leave the team for various reasons:non-inclusion (despite the acceptance by other members of the group, the boy never accepted its rules);

• exclusion (the boy was in the group, but he was excluded);
• off (the boy left the group himself). 

Each of these causes contributes to the appearance of certain emotions. In the first case, it is the predominance of the individual factor of development, in the second — loneliness and isolation, and in the third — self-sufficiency.

Also read: What you need to know about childhood age crises. Crisis of 3 years in a childWhat to do if the boy does not fit into the team

Despite their diversity, boys' groups are formations with a clear social structure and a vertical of power.

You cannot influence a team that does not accept your son. The only thing in your power is to help the child find common ground with the group and join it in a natural way.

What you will need:Respect the way of life, hierarchy and traditions of the collective.

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• To express a desire to become a participant in it.
• Determine your position.
• Become a part of a microgroup of interests.
• Be able to defend your opinion, thereby earning respect from other participants. 

Confrontation between childrenIt happens that children cannot find a common language within one group.

If this is a confrontation between the leader and an ordinary participant, then a fight cannot be avoided. But no matter what position your child is in, you can always find both the strengths and weaknesses of this situation:

• The leader needs to prove his status, so he must be the first to go into conflict and simply must win in order not to lose credibility.
• An ordinary participant gets a chance to take the leader's place if he turns out to be firmer and smarter. But you will have to try hard, because other children will first be on the side of a more authoritative opponent.

Despite the fact that it is extremely exciting to observe the vital activity of children's groups, parents should not weaken control over the situation. If physical violence and bullying are practiced in the group, then the best solution would be to voluntarily exclude the child and move to a more favorable social environment. 

Learn how to teach a child to stand up for himself - at Dmitry Karpachev's transplant-free online master class "What every parent should know".Right now, click on the "Register" button and get a gift.

How to gain popularity 

Explain to your son that everyone can't like him.

After all, each of us has its own characteristics, and other people may simply not perceive them. However, if you try hard enough, you can always arouse the sympathy of the maximum number of children in the team. This will help your child feel more confident, it is easier to solve or not get into conflict situations at all, and have more friends. 

What will help to gain popularity:A non-trivial hobby.

1. Among boys, no one is surprised by visiting the karate or football section. And what if the child will be engaged in rowing or fencing? A guitar—class music player is a trivial hobby, but a saxophone or drums will arouse the interest of peers. The more other children are interested in your son's hobby, the more points he will add to his popularity rating.
2. Friendliness. Openness to different communication formats and new people gives a flexible and self-confident person. Even if your son has not communicated with some child before, it is never too late to establish communication. Perhaps it is this new friend who will contribute to strengthening his status in the team.
3. Mutual assistance. It is difficult to forget or offend a person who once helped. This is also true in relation to children. By helping others as much as possible, your son will not only receive gratitude, but also earn a certain popularity. Just do not confuse help with serving interests (carrying a briefcase, solving puzzles). 
4. Social activity. Usually, children who have difficulty communicating with their peers avoid situations in which attention will be drawn to them. They are inactive at holidays and children's parties, are not called to the organizers, and even more so do not play leading roles in events. To gain popularity in the team, you need to get out of your comfort zone and still show social activity. You can start small, for example, to help in the organization.

9 tips for raising a boyWe cannot control our children 24 hours a day.

We cannot find friends for them and force others to respect and reckon with him. But you shouldn't be silent observers either. 

All the global work that will help the boy to interact with the social environment qualitatively is carried out at home.

Your goal should be to prepare a little man for all the difficulties and challenges that will come his way. 

Igor Kon — Soviet sociologist, psychologist, physiologist — in his book "The Boy is the father of a man" gives advice to parents on how to help and guide their sons in the process of growing up. The main idea of his recommendations is to avoid typical parental mistakes:

1. Try not to "mold" your son into a real man, because this will only be an external disguise, which may have nothing to do with the true essence of a person. It is better to work on the harmonious development of personality and ensure freedom of choice and self-expression. The child must determine his own type of masculinity. It is in it that he will feel as comfortable as possible.
2. Do not impose the image of a warrior or defender on the child. So he will subconsciously look for enemies and solve issues from a position of strength, which in the end will only bring trouble. Your task is to raise a guy who will be able to defend his rights and interests, be responsible for decisions and cope with responsibilities. 
3. Do not cultivate male chauvinism in your son, constantly emphasizing his difference from the female sex. Words like "don't be a girl" provoke unwanted conclusions in a boy: being a girl is something shameful, unworthy of a real man.
4. A child is not a second chance to realize your own unfulfilled hopes, so you should not expect him to grow up in the paradigm of your life interests. All that is required of you is to create conditions for the boy to choose the best path for himself.
5. Do not feel guilty for the fact that your child is brought up in a single-parent family. This feeling has a number of undesirable derivatives — overprotection, total control, the imposition of their own fears and complexes. A happy childhood with one of the parents is incomparably better than constant squabbles and scandals, when adults artificially preserve an already virtually broken family.
6. Do not deprive the child of friends by entering into a confrontation with his environment. Even if you don't like individual children, imposing your rejection is a bad idea. It is better to prepare the child for the possible dangers that an undesirable environment carries. The interest in bad company will gradually subside if the child has enough love, acceptance and support from the family.
7. Another parental vice is the abuse of prohibitions. If you go too far, then a confrontation will inevitably begin with the boy. Today you have strength on your side, but time is in his asset. You will not be able to control your son for a long time, and in the future, it is quite possible that you will encounter the fruits of an authoritarian upbringing. 
8. Do not practice physical punishments. First, you set a bad example (strong versus weak). Secondly, physical impact gives an illusory pedagogical effect, for which you can pay. The child will lose a sense of security next to his parents, which will result in dislike and distrust.
9. Be a neutral adviser when choosing clubs and sections first, and then a profession. Your son should have diverse interests, on the basis of which he will be able to make an independent choice of direction for further development. 

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No matter how hard parents try to protect their son from unpleasant experiences, problems and insults, he will still face them sooner or later. This is the essence of boys — constantly fighting for a place in the sun. And this struggle, or rather the skills that it forms, will become the driving force for life success in the future. January 26, 2021 2022-11-27 2021-01-26 Rate the article on a 5-point scale Did you like the article?