Little Girls vs. Little boys

[dragongirl]

I do a lot of volunteer stuff with my son's YM unit and my daughter's Girl Scout troop.

Last year, I was a GS leader, I stuck it out, but was very relieved that no one needed an extra leader this year. But I do fill in when someone can't be ther to run a meeting.

I don't get it. Working with the boys is so easy. They do their thing and that's it. Sure they can be wise asses and they act like wild animals most of the time, they are constantly doing stupid things, but overall I enjoy working with their group.

That's not the case with the little girls. I get a headache after just a few minutes. They are petty, whiny, always complaining about something and demanding attention for every little thing. "Look! I scratched my head !" All the squeeling and screaching drives me bananas.

What is it about the little girls that make them act like this ? How can I deal with them better ?

I've got to run a meeting tonight, so I need suggestions fast !

[Zebra]

I'm guessing a stun gun is out of the question.

[Dung Beetle]

Everyone knows little girls are of the devil.

[Long Time First Time]

I did my stint as a religious education (i.e. Sunday school) teacher for about a decade. I never had classes that were not co-ed, so perhaps the dynamics are different.
These are some tips of stuff I learned via my on the job training -

Gilrs want to know Why they are doing something. Boys, on the other hand, don't seem to care.
If you take the time to explain why you are doing something the girls will get with the program. If you don't, they'll be stuck on that issue.

So if the morning's lesson involved making paper cut outs and coloring them - the boys would either immediately start doing it if they liked doing crafts stuff or immediately running around disrupting everything if they didn't. Once the girls understood that they were making the cut outs so that they could all be pasted on a mural they all seemed happy to participate.

So - suggestion number one - take the time to put whatever activity you will be doing in a broader framework.

Second suggestion - Unless a person's arm is falling off, arteries pumping blood across the room, etc. etc. DO NOT spend a millisecond on their physical pain. I'd teach class in 4 week blocks. On the first week I'd get all the whining - "My arm hurts" stuff. I'd shrug it off with a "That's too bad. Today we're making paper cut outs" type response. When you stop giving the kid what he or she wants ( I didn't see any difference in gender in this crabbing), they'll stop.

[Doctor Jackson]

Working with the boys is so easy.

What is "Jackson trial transcript snippets", Alex

[eleanorigby]

Long time --I completely concur.

I was a Brownie leader--and if I hadn't been pregnant, I would have been doing shots prior to those meetings.

That said, IMO, boys can be just as whiney as girls--and I have 2 sons.


Ignore the calls for attention and keep the pace steady--that'll get you thru.

Now, where is that bottle?

[EmeraldGrue]

I've worked with kids far too often. Boys may be more boisterous and take to killing each other in their spare time, but are easily distracted with a soccer ball or paper airplane. Young girls are the absolute worst. Whiny, backstabbing, sly, nasty, calculating creatures with their little mind games. I guess they grow out of it.

[Witch]

They do???

[Ludovic]

IME, Boys are just as much attention who^h^h^hhounds as girls. Plus they break things. Yeah, girl might try to get to your sore spots and play mind games, but they're not as good at it as adults (even men) are.

[Nocturne]

I like working with both types of children. The girls I teach in general, seem to be more disciplined than the boys, but the boys aren't complete hellions. I've not witnessed any mind games teaching either.

As far as babysitting, I preferred girls. I usually wound up with bruises whenever I had to babysit little boys, but that was probably due to the dynamic of the town I was living in, and not boys as a gender.

[ivylass]

I had a conference with my daughter's teachers a couple of weeks ago. One of the things they brought up was the sniping she was having with another girl, and how the girls would leave notes on the teacher's desk about how "She did this" and "She did that."

I had a good laugh at that. I was a young girl, and I can tell you, other young girls can be right bitches when they want to. And a lot of time, they want to.

I read somewhere about a camp in Israel, and the teenagers were sent out into the desert at night to look at the stars and contemplate their lives. They were given journals to write down their thoughts.

The girls all drifted away, staring at the cosmos and inventorying their lives. The boys said, "F--k this" and got together and made a bonfire with their journals and generally partied down.

Males and females are different. I think SlowMindThinking has the right idea.

[Evil One]

Originally Posted by dragongirl

All the squeeling and screaching drives me bananas.

I thought you said you weren't working with adult females.

[Evil One]

Since there has been absolutely no respeonse after I contributed the above, I must conclude that I have killed the thread.

For the record, I was kidding. I just wanted to see how our female brethren would react to a statement intended as a gentle tweaking.