Ryan was eight when he tried to kill himself. He saved up his Ritalin tablets
until there seemed to be enough for an overdose, then knocked them back and
waited to die. Later, after he had been very sick, his mum asked why he had
done it. “Because I’m too naughty,” he said. “I’m just a nuisance to
everyone.”
Ryan is constantly in trouble at school and at home. He has been diagnosed
with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), a “developmental
disorder” involving problems with concentration and self-control. ADHD did
not exist as a medical condition until 40 years ago but is now thought to
affect about 5% of the population. The vast majority of sufferers are male.
Last year I published a book called Toxic Childhood, looking for reasons
behind recorded increases in children’s behavioural and learning
difficulties over the past 20 or so years. I concluded that rapid social and
cultural change – junk food, poor sleeping patterns, a screen-based
lifestyle, marketing pressures, family upheavals – were interfering with
healthy development.
It was clear from my research that behavioural and learning difficulties hit
boys hardest. Educationally, for instance, many now fall at the first fence
and never recover: boys are three times as likely as girls to need extra
help with reading at primary school, and by the time they reach GCSE they
trail behind in almost every subject on the curriculum. Indeed, less than a
century after women’s emancipation, female students significantly outnumber
male ones at British universities.
Behavioural disorders such as ADHD are about four times more likely to affect
boys and so are the emotional, behavioural and mental health problems that,
according to the British Medical Association, now beset 10-20% of our
children and teenagers. As these sorts of problems in teenage boys all too
often lead to school failure, disaffection and antisocial behaviour, there
are powerful reasons for trying to solve them.
So I’m now researching another book to find out why the modern world seems
particularly toxic for boys. It’s already clear that the sort of behaviour
we require from our offspring in an uptight, urban, risk-averse and
increasingly bureaucratic society comes far less naturally to infant males
than to their sisters.
Take the “naughtiness” that is wrecking life for Ryan and those around him.
There have always been naughty boys, but in the past the activities of
scamps, scrumpers and scallywags were usually shrugged off as high spirits.
Fictional rascals, like Huck Finn and William Brown, clearly viewed
themselves as heroes, not suicidal victims.
The big difference between Ryan’s miserable existence and that of youngsters
in the past is that, until the end of the 20th century, much of boys’
boisterous behaviour went unnoticed and unrestrained by adults. There was
time, space and freedom for lads to run off steam. Even when shades of the
prison house did close around the growing boy, the time at the edges of the
school or working day was still his own and the local woods and hills were
his natural habitat.
This is not simply a case of “blue-remembered hills” – the tendency of adults
to romanticise childhood. There have, of course, been periods in the past
when children were mercilessly exploited and probably had little time or
energy to play, but most historical accounts of boyhood, even recent urban
ones, involve a degree of freedom to roam that seems unthinkable today.
There are many reasons behind contemporary parents’ reluctance to let their
children play outside, one of which is a very reasonable fear about
increases in traffic. Another is the far less reasonable and generalised
fear of “stranger danger” which, in today’s highly anxious climate, parents
seem unable to keep at bay, even when they know that child abduction is no
more likely today than it was in their own youth. But perhaps the most
significant reason for most of the parents I speak to is the fear of being
thought irresponsible.
In an increasingly risk-averse society it has become the mark of a good parent
to keep one’s child under careful scrutiny at all times. As “responsible”
parents have increasingly locked their children away, there has been a
change in the attitude of the public to unsupervised children. In the past
few years, communities in all areas of the country have become far less
tolerant of boys’ outdoor play, even when it’s not particularly rambunctious.
A teacher told me recently of a small group of boys who were playing behind
her house during the school holidays, making go-karts from bits of junk. She
was stunned when a letter was posted through her door by a neighbour, urging
her to help to move the children on. “They may be making go-karts today,”
the letter explained, “but they could be vandalising our cars tomorrow.”
Boys have a deep biological need to be out and about. According to
evolutionary biologists, the brains of newborn human babies have not changed
significantly since Cro-Magnon times, so infant males are still born with
the genetic encoding of Stone Age hunters. As they grow their bodies yearn
to rehearse this masculine role: they need to run across fields, clamber
through the undergrowth, fashion tools and weapons, push boundaries, take
risks. If they don’t fulfil these needs, they are likely to suffer in terms
of development: physically, emotionally, socially, cognitively.
Humanity has, of course, come a long way since Stone Age times, not least
because of our remarkable and unique ability to pass on our culture to our
young. Through the ages this has made the human race more civilised, more
democratic and more able to live a peaceful, social existence. Part of the
civilisation process has been finding ways of gradually redirecting boys’
primitive male instinct to hunt (and fight) along channels that suit the
economic circumstances of the day. But it is a gradual process and can’t be
rushed.
Sadly we seem to have reached a stage where adult citizens have “civilised”
themselves out of a sense of shared humanity. In a society driven by
individualism, selfish consumerism and rights legislation, it’s easy for
powerful groups (such as neighbours with no small children of their own) to
assert their rights over those of less powerful groups, and children are the
least powerful members of society. When adults deny children the right to
play – out of fear, risk aversion or sheer intolerance – they threaten the
long-term health not only of those children but of society itself.
Sometimes children realise this for themselves, even if adults do not. When
teachers in Newcastle banned the game of tag, Hannan, one of the teenage
pupils affected, had this to say: “To be honest, adults can be very stupid
at times. They ban everything for health and safety reasons. If they are
going to ban very simple stuff like this, they might as well lock all kids
in empty rooms to keep them safe.
“Kids should be allowed to experiment, otherwise when they grow up they will
make very stupid mistakes from not having enough experiences in childhood.”
Even in the 21st century we still have to civilise our young, balancing
their natural instincts with the requirements of society. This is what
“bringing up” children means. During the first 10 years or so, parents and
teachers have to bring these Stone Age babies up through 10 millenniums of
human culture, civilising, socialising and educating them for the world in
which they will live.
The process has always been more difficult with boys, since prototype hunters
are less naturally inclined to social niceties than their sisters, the
prototype nurturers. And as our urban, technology driven lifestyle moves us
ever further away from our biological heritage, it becomes even more of a
challenge.
The sensible approach – adopted in Scandinavian countries, with their outdoor
forest schools and long period of informal preschool education – is to
acknowledge boys’ biological drives and to take them into account, while
gradually introducing all children to the sorts of behaviour that society
requires.
There is a general awareness of children’s developmental needs among parents,
politicians and the public in the Nordic countries, which means that
everyone takes a more broad-minded and tolerant attitude to the undersevens,
especially boys, and play is valued as an essential part of their early
learning.
Giving boys leeway in the early years pays off long-term. With time and space
to develop physical, emotional and social skills, they acquire greater
levels of self-control and empathy. As time goes by, they can therefore be
expected to behave with greater consideration to their more venerable
neighbours.
Meanwhile, those neighbours, having smiled indulgently at the little lads when
they saw them playing outside as toddlers, are unlikely to feel threatened
by them as they grow up. The early leeway pays off in cognitive terms, too:
despite starting the formal teaching of reading two years later than we do
in Britain, Sweden and Finland regularly top the international league for
achievement in literacy.
The contrast between Scandinavian tolerance of children’s needs and current
Anglo-Saxon practices could not be more stark. In hyper-competitive
hard-nosed Britain, the public, parents and politicians all seem to feel
that there’s no time to waste on running about and playing. Our children,
especially those wayward boys, must be fast-tracked into “sensible”
adult-like behaviour as soon as possible. Since we are not prepared to
provide the safe open spaces needed for play, they also have to be
fast-forwarded into a sedentary, screen-based 21st-century lifestyle.
So from their very earliest years many boys in Britain today have little means
of fulfilling their instinctive need for activity and risk. They are plonked
from babyhood in front of the television (or, in more aspirational
households, Baby Einstein DVDs) to watch other people moving about rather
than getting down and dirty themselves.
At nursery, boys are corralled with a host of other children, mostly indoors
so that energetic play is out of the question. Even outdoors there is often
restraint: toddlers in the nursery down the road from me are exercised on
leads in our local park, three children per nursery worker. This fulfils
health and safety regulations – but leaves their charges with less freedom
of movement than the average family dog.
When proper school starts – which it does in Britain earlier than anywhere
else in the world – children must knuckle down straight away to reading and
writing. But when they are denied the rough-and-tumble activity that
develops physical coordination and control, many five-year-old boys are
simply unable to focus on a book or wield a pencil.
They find class lessons, trying to sit still “on the mat” while the teacher
explains the mysteries of phonics, bewildering and intolerable. (“It wastes
your time, sitting on the mat,” one little boy said to a researcher. “It
wastes your life,” chimed in his mate dolefully.)
So boys who are too immature to settle sufficiently often fail to pick up the
basic skills that underpin the three Rs of reading, writing and arithmetic,
and then tumble into a cycle of school failure, guaranteed to add to their
antisocial tendencies.
As we move further into the 21st century, our young men will need physical
control, emotional resilience and social competence to meet the challenges
ahead; and one of those challenges, unless we act very soon, will be dealing
with the threat to society posed by Ryan and the growing band of “lost
boys”, as they follow the horribly predictable downward spiral of school
failure, teenage disaffection, violence and crime.
If British society is to keep up with the frantic pace of change, we must
acknowledge not just where we are going to but where we have come from.
Every baby born is a link between the future of the human race and its
remote, primitive past; and if boys are not allowed to be boys – for the
first few years at least – a growing number of them are likely to reject the
cultural treasures that we have spent 10 millenniums acquiring.
Sue Palmer’s Detoxing Childhood: What Parents Need to Know to Raise Happy,
Successful Children (Orion, £9.99) is out now
Excellent article. Any chance of it being sent to every MP with "Action Now" stamped across it?
Taking a wider perspective, Richard Rohr has pointed out that in traditional societies (where young children in any case had greater freedom than today's battery children) all boys had to undergoe an initiation ceremony, between ages 12-16, so that they could become men (girls learnt to become women gradually from their mothers). The initiation involved hardship & danger - living in the wild, supervised, at first, by the male elders. We have lost all this and put nothing in its place. Male father figures are very often lacking, and our benighted and stupid government has decreed that 'children don't need fathers.'
Dave, Wrexham,
This is just part of a wider problem in society: At school boys are made to feel inferior to girls by the predominantly female teaching force: always being told to be quiet and sit down. Though at the same time the level of work is not difficult enough to engage alot of boys. By the end of primary four me and alot of my friends could long multiply, divide etc. This was as far as our Math was allowed to progress until high school by which point alot had lost interest altogether.
This new education system is a disaster. It seems to me ,having read alot about the reasons for the transformation of edication in 1979, was because boys performed far better than girls. I think on reflection all these imbecillic, pseudo-academic experts can ask themselves: Was our social science experiment worth it? All they have achieved out of it is a dire education system where emphasis is on mediocrity and hard work (something which suits alot more girls).
Stu, Edinburgh,
The culture of keeping children (boys and girls) safe indoors when they're little is no solution. If they only get out once they hit their teens, they (a) won't know what behaviour is unacceptable - and behaviour acceptable in an eight year old would be seen as delinquent in a 14 year old - and (b) the shock to the previously forbidden may cause them to behave worse than they would otherwise. Also if children are allowed to play outside from an early age, neighbours won't feel so threatened by them because they've seen them grow up, and know them.
Let children be children!
Meg, Pembs,
I can see what Sue Palmer is saying in this article. Boys cannot concentrate because they do not get the opportunity to run around enough. Boys cannot concentrate because a health and saftey obsessed culture is stifling their "genetic" needs. Men (and boys) are the hunters of our genetically programmed hunter-gather dichotomy and we stifle this innate need of theirs at our own peril.
I'm afraid that I think it utter rot.
Certainly most would agree that our culture is becoming far too health and safety "obsessed" as institutions and individuals become more concerned with avoiding law suits against them. However, to claim that boys have a genetic need to run around more than girls has no basis. I study "cro-magnon" archaeology, and their is no sign at all that pre-historic hunters were male. Even if a division of labour fell along these modern gendered lines, foraging is an outdoor activity as well, probably not risk free. Why then should girls fare better at being socialised?
Cambridge Archaeologist, Cambridge,
"no wonder the South African children are known to be disciplined, polite, well educated, hard working and independent in later life." What a shame you had nothing to do with it, all credit to the teachers at your children's boarding school!
Kath, Abergavenny,
While I agree with the general thrust of the article, it’s worth pointing out that teachers and other carers don’t ban games like tag or keep toddlers on leashes because they believe that it’s the best thing for the child, but because if a child under their care falls and chips a tooth they’ll find themselves being sued for damages.
Gav, Belfast,
A fantastic article. Over the last 15 years "male issues" have been the bottom of all the pile for discussion, interest and funding. This being the "punishment" for not allowing feminism to flurish earlier. There needs to be a balance, suffragettes fought for the right to be treated as equals, but now we have many an enlightened "feminist" that, if male, would be deemed to be a sexist pig. Equal means equal, not girls first boys second. Perhaps now in the 21st Century we can acknowledge the differences between the sexes, boys and girls are equal but each need different coaching and learning experiences; and each is as important as the other.
I think Yvonne's remark is typical of the feminised view - everything must be neat and tidy. Remembering my childhood, the children will have a lot more fun in the messier woodland experience than looking at the pretty flowers and manicured lawns, where is the fun in that!
Unreconstructed male, not too sarcastic, bang on!
Equality Seaker, Birmingham,
This is such a good article. I have sent all three children - 2 girls, one boy now 14 to a boarding school 2 hours from home - based on the Gordonstoun style approach to outdoor education. It's a co-ed school set in the bush, and all kids have compulsory hikes, camps over 3 days, beach hikes, assault courses, and the usual school sports throughout the year. It promotes confidence in all the kids, and gives enough "rough and tumble" life to satisfy the boys in particular - although the girls are just as tough!!!!
England treats their children far too gently in this arena - no wonder the South African children are known to be disciplined, polite, well educated, hard working and independent in later life.
Jos Scotcher, Plettenberg Bay, South Africa
There is some confusion especially in new build estates as to what is landscape garden and what is woodland or adventure playground. We bought a home surrounded by a smart manicured and woodchipped landscaped garden now allowed to become unkempt and appears to be woodland to kids. I blame the planners and local authorities for not maintaining areas properly with a clearly defined purpose.
yvonne Rautenbach, Ely, uk
I agree wholeheartedly with Sarah Baker's comments re Cubs. My 10 yr old has had a dreaful school career so far, primarily because of being a stereotypical boy from the word go. He started school at 4 [I was told - he could go to school a year later, which is what I wanted, but that he'd have to start school in Y1 anyway, so would effectively be a year 'behind']. He started school and could not cope. It didn't help that his teacher was unsympathetic and labelled him 'autistic', ADHD, dyspraxic, dyslexic, etc. Any word she felt described him, except for the obvious 'immature' and 'not ready for school'. He still finds it hard to make friends and nothing makes him happier than weekends when we often go to the woods, where he and his 2 brothers [one of whom also has problems with school, but the youngest, a November baby, thrives!] can let off steam. He loves Cubs and camping - lots of outdoor play and mud! It gives him 'supervised independence'. He loves the discipline too.
Alison Jones, Basingstoke, UK
It's not just boys who need to take risks. Girls need it even more since they are more encouraged to be risk averse, and it tends to lead to them being too compliant and lacking in self confidence.
Anne Murphy, London, UK
My 9 year old son and his best friend of the same age play every day after school in our village playing field. It's a huge field, with wild woody parts, and they love making dens, climbing trees, etc. We mums are able to stay at quite a distance, giving them more of a sense of being unsupervised.
After a recent storm, the boys were so excited seeing fallen branches, which they then dragged some way to their den. We were then approached by a local resident who had been watching their activities - and were asked to stop them moving the branches. The boys were upset at having their fun stopped, and I was quite unable to explain to them why. I agree so much with Sue Palmer's article - boys really need space and freedom to explore their environment - particularly after a day spent at school, with the relentless focus on literacy and numeracy.
Fiona, Worcestershire,
When I was at primary school in the 1940's there was certainly no difference between girls and boys ability to read, write, and do maths. of course we had different interests, and boys got caned a bit more.
However at our local country market town council primary school, we had tremendous freedom. Once the war was over my mother took the view that as we had survived the war, everything else was pretty safe.
I was warned not to go near deep water, or any fields with bulls in them. Otherwise I disappeared for hours.
As my father had a two man garage after the war, I learned to drive a Ford van in a small field at age 10,
and also understood the workings of a 4 stroke motorcycle engine. At age 12 went on holiday to London at my aunts' she lived in Wembley, to her horror I went to Picadilly Circus for the day, alone. I never told her till I got back after 4 or 5 hours. Nobody bothered me as I discovered, Regent St, and best of all the Pictures outside the Windmill Theatre.
David Vinter, Louth, Lincs., UK.
"When proper school starts – which it does in Britain earlier than anywhere else in the world – "
I love these well-researched generalisations which always portray Britain as an extreme case. You start school earliest, you have more immigrants etc. etc.
While admitting my ignorance of other countries education systems, I'd just like to say that in Spain children can start school as young as 2yrs 9 months. A case in point being my Goddaughter, born in December 2003 who started school in September 2006.
I personally think it is too young but both my boys seem to have adapted to a curriculum that includes English, Music, Religion, and involves mixing with pupils as old as 12 in the dining room and sometimes the playground.
Brian, Madrid, Spain
Bang on!
A wonderful summary of how society has lost its way in the upbringing of children
Mike Bibby, St Albans, England -not EU
The fundamental underlying problem of both child sexes is this ridiculous idea of "playgroups" as a way of shirking parental responsibility.
The catholic church says - give me a child to the age of 5 and turn it loose on the world .. it will always return to the faith. I call it brainwashing!!
But, it is well documented that the first 5 years of a childs life are where moral standards of right and wrong etc are set. If they cannot get their standards from their parents, and get these from a chlidlike playschool teacher, then you must expect the child (male or female) not to live up to the standards expected.
Also, as mentioned in the article, the protectionist (read big-brother) society denies kids the ability to stray from home to play, and therefore have to make their noises right next to the intolerant neighbours.
You've made your bed .. lie in it. Like Dr Spock's generation in the US - a totally messed up generation.
janda, kuala lumpur, malaysia
Wow!! Do you mean that little boys should be brought up differently to little girls???? What a bold and radical thought. Of course until the 1980s and for about the preceeding 5,000 years that is precisely how they were brought up. But the philistines responsible for that process didn't have the sophistication of the 2-2 graduates in sociology from the University of North Western Barnsley that have dominated UK educational thought since the 80s.
................or am I being too sarcastic?
Unreconstructed male, London,
One cause of the problems this article describes is our materialistic culture. Parents believe they must obtain the best for their children, which requires them both to work long hours, to buy lots of possesions for their kids, a big house, and a place at public school if possible, but not necessarily to be there spending time with them. Why do you think school starts so early here?
What 'manly chores' are left for the average city man?
I agree with Pete, St Albans - kids need to have clear boundaries drawn between high jinks and antisocial behaviour. That's not an easy thing to do - perhaps new parents could use some help? And just to be contraversial, smacking should be taught properly, not banned!
Sam, N.Wales,
I was a nerdy, bookish, quiet, "good" girl my whole childhood, and I still spent my summers riding my bike all day, climbing trees, and swimming, or doing yardwork with my dad (not to mention shoveling snow in winter and sliding down icy things). in my whole neighborhood, parents would set their children outside and let them go and play in the neighborhood, to return home for meals. I can't imagine having to cope with sitting in front of video games and repetitive television all day -- it's stressful spending my entire workday on the computer as an adult. What are we doing to our young boys? The slow extinction of recess periods for children -- even regular gym classes in school -- is appalling. And we're shocked that they're obese or keyed up with unspent energy until they act out? There has to be a way people can band together and make it safe for kids to be outside.
Curtis, Queens, NewYork
anyone agreeing with this article, please send your boys to cubs or scouts and please help lead these sorts of groups. Even with all the health and safety precautions, the boys still get to go camping and they still get to do adventerous activities. And nothing is better for them than a group with a MALE leader, showing them how to use male skills in a responsible way. I run the girl equivelent - brownies - and even the girls (who apparently don't need rough and tumble!) LOVE being chucked outside the hut to run freely round the field, They love camping with fires and adventure courses and anything that gives them freedom. But these organisations only exisit with volunteer workers. I really hope there are some men out there willing to run cub and scouts for my little boy (3 months old) to go to when he grows up.
Sarah Baker, Woking, UK
As an expat mother of four boys born and brought up in various countries I have come to the conclusion that many modern behaviour issues like ADHD stem from the mother's daily life right from conception : hyper-activity seems to be linked to her levels of First World lifestyle stress including over frequent ultra sound tests and adrenalin rushes. The foetus is bombarded with too much too soon. Expecting Mothers need more rest and respect with society's blessing ...to lessen external stimulation .The First World ( what a misnomer in terms of upholding family values!) needs to give Early Pregnancy Leave in preference to Paternity Leave if we really want to give birth to calm babies who in turn have more chance of developing in to well-rounded human beings with minimal neurological short-circuiting.
Fiona Warner, Cairo , Egypt
This article is "bang on". I have a boy of 2 and a half myself and we do "rough and tumble" games, running, jumping climbing, wrestling and usually a fair amount of falling over on his part. Other parents look at me like I'm mad as they wheel their kids past in self propelled cars. I think every parent and teacher must know that boys will behave and learn better indoors if they have had the chance for some mad boys fun beforehand.
John, Carlisle,
At last, an excellent piece.
We as a society are slowley slipping into an abyss by not allowing our youth to develop the way nature intended.
I fear for what this world will be in a hundred years time if we continue this nannying culture, thank God I will not be around to see it.
One thing though, if the child does start to mis-behave, they do need to feel the full force of discipline.
Pete, St Albans, England
Spot on! This subject, although to some degree applied to both sexes, was the single most important reason that we upped sticks and emigrated to Denmark six months ago. We have a son (5) and a daughter (8) and the amount of outdoor, physical activity they receive, cannot compare to that enjoyed in England. My son, especially, can play and hurt himself and not be made to feel too bad that he can't yet understand the equations for damped harmonic motion. Kids here are much more visible in the local neighbourhoods, and teenagers just don't seem to have the capacity to appear threatening. I can't help but think that childrens' education in England has all gone terribly wrong over the last 30 years and that we're helping to nurture ever-increasing social problems...especially among boys.
Bob, Copenhagen,
yo have more or less got it right.Even organised games and sport (the alternative structured risk-taking) has changed. However it can be conceded that throughout most societies any nail that sticks up, stands a very good chance of being hammered down- which allows and could encourage excellence.and leadership qualities
The point about feminised society is the enforced playground
john, nice, france
Boys need to grow up in the countryside with the freedom of woods to explore and to be creative. They also need their fathers around and to be able to do useful "manly" chores. Boys have been stigmatised as "naughty" for too long now. Everyone's "naughty" in the wrong environment.
anne, somerset,
How condescending of you to allow boys to be boys until the age of seven. After that they might threaten you, and must be sat back on a mat so that you can enjoy your feminised Sunday Times urbanity. Well, that lifestyle won't last long without unconventional and resourceful men who still refuse to sit on a mat at your command. Who else are you expecting to protect society from the ravages of nature's variation? Not compliant little girls, that's for sure.
Rob Wilard, Reading, UK