“Developing language skills appears to be more important for boys than girls in helping them to develop self-control and, ultimately, succeed in school, according to a study led by a Michigan State University researcher. Thus, more emphasis should be placed on encouraging boy toddlers to “use their words” — instead of unruly behavior — to solve problems, said Claire Vallotton, MSU assistant professor of child development. “It shouldn’t be chalked off as boys being boys,” Vallotton said. “They need extra attention from child-care providers and teachers to help them build language skills and to use those skills to regulate their emotions and behavior.”
The study, co-authored by Catherine Ayoub from Harvard Medical School, is the first to suggest language skills have a bigger impact on boys’ self-regulation than on girls’. The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Early Childhood Research Quarterly.
The researchers examined data on children as they aged from 1 to 3 and their mothers who participated in the National Early Head Start Research and Evaluation study. As with previous research, Vallotton and Ayoub found that language skills — specifically the building of vocabulary — help children regulate their emotions and behavior and that boys lag behind girls in both language skills and self-regulation.
What was surprising, Vallotton said, was that language skills seemed so much more important to the regulation of boys’ behavior. While girls overall seemed to have a more natural ability to control themselves and focus, boys with a strong vocabulary showed a dramatic increase in this ability to self-regulate — even doing as well in this regard as girls with a strong vocabulary.”
Read more at Science Daily
All this shows is that boys struggle with both, not that once you teach one the other follows. Where’s the analysis of cause and effect?
There is still so much unknown about early childhood. No one child fits any profile, but the expansion of research and continued study gets us that much closer to help and resources. Cold reading very well could be applied to children with a low rate of mistaken guessing yet we continue to believe that the answers are out there somewhere. As more time passes and more children are born, the DNA chains continue to mutate, thus our search for answers continue to leave us bewildered and frustrated. We continue through each day hoping that we are doing the best for our little future bodies; we continue to try to mold them into what our research suggests and as a result, our little future minds are lost in the process. Boys and girls have their own idiosyncrincies, but in the end, they live, love, and breath as we all do. Nurture each child as if they had no differences from the child next door. Learn what they have to teach us. Cherish them for their good and their bad. Open your mind enough to see that they will never fit any given chart, mold, or study, and that as they grow into the people they become, we can enrich their journey or hinder it. Take research and statistics with a grain of salt and you will find yourself and your children living without the influences of anger, guilt, and fear.
Nicole Winnell
Round Rock, TX
@ Nicole Winnell,
Why is it that we have to study every little thing about ourselves. Just a look around ourselves and we see that those that have studied the most, have made the biggest mess of everything. This is seen in all three levels of life: Physically, Mentally, Financially. Just think about one simple example. If you had a cash ledger and 1.000 pounds is on one side and 200.000 pounds on the other side, you are short 199.000. Everyone knows you are bankrupt if that applies to us individually. Yet those that have studied can tell us, we are not bankrupt, we just borrow more so we can have more debt and pressure. It takes one that studies to do such a thing, yet it destroys us and we are told lies that we are OK because we “studied” it. It really does not make sense does it ?
Hunters are silent.
Gatherers chatter.
Just because one “studies” does not make one knowledgeable. Take your example for example. The fact is clear, one side versus the other. You have “x” on one side, “y” on the other. It really doesn’t matter what the values are, does it? It’s the equation you make from it. One answer very well could be to borrow and make both sides equal. You have every right to come to your own conclusions and to make your own decisions, yes? Searching for answers is always step one. Just remember that the last step, aka “your decision,” is yours and should be owned as such. The steps in between make the difference.
In life, mentality, and finances, there will always be an abundance of research, studies, experiments, and trial/error. Someone somewhere will always believe they are right and you should head their advice, yet in the end we can only hold ourselves liable for our decisions. Good or bad, own them and learn from them. Believe in the decisions you make because no one else can tell you what the right answers are.
There would be no hunters if there were no gatherers.
:0)