Community Corner

Family Talk: Kid Crushes

How should a first crush be handled by the parents?

The other day I was having a five minute conversation with a mom of one of my son's classmates after we watched our children enter the school building.

We started talking about the difference between boys and girls and their discussions, or lack thereof, with us (parents) about who they like. Now, my son is only in the 3 grade, but they do have their crushes, as you all know, at this age.

The difference that I have come to see, from speaking to my friends with girls my son's age, namely the moms of his classmates, is that girls will speak to their parents about who they like. And boys, or at least mine, will not say a word about it, but to deny any allegations of possibly liking another girl in the class.

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This mom told me that her daughter confided to her that she had gone up to the boy she liked and asked him if he feels the same for her. The mother, totally amused (it really sounded quite cute), responded to her daughter that she's not supposed to do that, but that she is supposed to have a girlfriend go up to him and ask.

It got me to thinking. Here are two cases where we see the boy, my son, inhibited in speaking about who he likes and his classmate, a girl, who not only speaks about her crush, but is able to go up to him and ask if he likes her back, totally uninhibited.

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And the reactions of the parents are different as well. While I and my husband, try to find out who my son likes, to get him to speak about his feelings, my friend, on the other hand, is trying to have her daughter be less forward with her feelings when it comes to interacting with the boys her age.

I can't help but notice how the male in this case is encouraged to be more uninhibited, while the female is coaxed into acting as if she does have inhibitions, even if she doesn't.

It seems that as a society, we learn, and in turn teach our children, "proper behavior," but are we teaching girls to be inhibited, while the boys are taught to release those inhibitions? Are we fostering gender stereotypes without realizing it?


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