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 !
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.
Ugh - girls are a test.
With boys it’s all right there - like a hurricane. Girls use psychological warfare. Much more exhausting.
Pass the bottle would ya?
I wonder if it is easier for a dad to lead a group of girls, and a mom to lead a group of boys? Leading boys in any kind of indoor activity is a bit of a headache for me, even if the group is my set of 3. Outdoors is another matter. Grab the football, and soon we are good to go.
Girls, I have no trouble with. I generally don’t care about some of their concerns, like how pretty their shoes are, but they are always well behaved and participate nicely. Even my if the group is my set of two.
I dunno, but when I was a babysitter, I always found it easier to babysit little boys. Little girls are usually very good at going for your psychological “sore spot” - if you have a hang-over, they’ll TALK LOUDLY and bang things; if you recently broke up with your boyfriend, they ask you why you’re not married - all female grownups should be married. Boys just ran around, read books, yelled at each other, and had inane conversations with you about puppies and aeroplanes.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m a kindy teacher. All I can tell you is this… do stuff with boys and talk to girls.
There are always boys who want to chew your ear off and girls who are too busy to talk but that basic fact holds true for most kids.
Long Time First Time said it well. Boys are easily distracted with an activity, any activity. Girls are easily distracted with talk. With a big group of girls the best way to keep them busy is a problem solving activity that can be discussed to death or an individual activity that can be done (or even enhanced) while chatter is encouraged.
Girls can be at their worst during a competitive activity. Something collabrative is best. I know that sounds horribly un-PC and sexist but girls will rip each other apart and carry a grudge in competitions whereas boys will do their best and move on.
This works 95% of the time…my child is one of those male children who talks nonstop, loves discussions and loathes competition. I often think he is a girl in disguise.
