John Gray - Children Are from Heaven - Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children

Sometimes if a boy feels powerless to get the trust, acceptance, and appreciation he needs, he may suppress his more masculine characteristics and vulnerabilities and become more like a girl, needing to feel cared for, understood, and respected.

For this boy, it is too painful to continue needing trust and not getting it, so he denies his masculine side and his female side emerges with its needs. When he is smothered with caring, he may react by becoming more needy; wanting to feel cared for instead of needing space.

When a boy is smothered with caring,

he may react by becoming more needy.

This doesn’t mean that a boy with more feminine traits is always wounded on his male side. It could also be that he has a more sensitive temperament, and in many ways appears more feminine. Sensitive boys often have more feminine hormones and lower levels of male hormones, so naturally they express more feminine tendencies.

Some research has shown that gay men, gifted men, and many left-handed men have significant brain differences from other men. Their brains, like most women’s brains, will tend to have billions more neural connectors between the two brain hemispheres. These differences in the brain, coupled with hormone differences, are partially responsible for the making some boys more sensitive. Although these more sensitive boys have more feminine attributes, they are still boys and they still need extra trust, acceptance, and appreciation.

Here are some simple points to jog your memory to remember boys are from Mars and girls are from Venus:

Boys Are from Mars: Boys need more love, attention, and acknowledgment regarding what they do, their ability to do it without help, and the difference they make.

Girls Are from Venus: Girls need more love, attention, and acknowledgment regarding who they are, what they feel, and what they want.

Boys Are from Mars: Boys need to be admired for what they do more. Acknowledge what he does.

Girls Are from Venus: Girls need to be cherished more for who they are. Praise who she is.

Boys Are from Mars: Boys have a greater need to be motivated and encouraged.

Girls Are from Venus: Girls have a greater need for your assistance and reassurance.

Boys Are from Mars: A boy or man is happiest when he feels that he is needed and can provide the support that is needed. He becomes depressed when he feels he is not needed or he is incompetent to complete the task ahead of him.

Girls Are from Venus: A girl or woman is happiest when she feels that she can get the support she needs. She becomes depressed when she feels that she can’t get the support she needs and has to do everything herself.

Boys Are from Mars: Boys primarily need trust, acceptance, and appreciation in order to be caring and assertive.

Girls Are from Venus: Girls primarily need caring, understanding, and respect in order to be trusting and motivated.

The most common mistake fathers make is to offer solutions instead of empathy when their children are upset and need to express their resistance to life. Men love to solve problems and often pride themselves on being a “Mr. Fix-It.” Fathers don’t remember that sometimes children just want someone to understand why they are upset rather than to be offered a solution to feel better right away. When children always get solutions, they eventually stop sharing their inner world.

On Mars, they talk about problems when they are looking for solutions, otherwise their attitude is to not talk. “If there is nothing you can do about it, then just forget it.” On Venus it is the opposite. Their attitude is: “If there is nothing you can do, then at least we can talk about it.” Men generally don’t understand or even comprehend that women can get great pleasure from sharing their pain. On Mars, it may seem inexplicable, but on Venus it is a common experience.

In a similar manner, fathers tend to ignore their children’s problems by offering solutions or making light of them, not realizing that they now feel put down or minimized. Once my daughter explained why she didn’t like being helped with math homework by one of my friends.

She said, “Whenever I have a problem, he says, ‘That’s simple.’ It makes me feel like I am stupid for not knowing.”

When parents don’t sympathize or listen to their children’s resistance to life, children misinterpret our intent. When parents have easy solutions, children may feel as if something is wrong with them or they are making too big a deal out of something, rather than feeling safe and nurtured. Before children even consider how upset they should be, they should first feel safe to experience their emotions. When parents restrain themselves from offering quick fixes, children get the trust and caring they need.

Here are some things a father may say that may invalidate children’s vulnerable feelings:

Don’t worry about it.

It’s no big deal.

So what’s the point?

This is not that difficult.

It’s not so bad.

These things happen.

That’s ridiculous.

This is what you should do.

Just do something else.

Just do it.

I don’t get it.

Get to the point.

It’ll be okay.

It’s not so important.

Just deal with it.

What do you want me to do?

Why are you telling me?

With a greater awareness of how they may unknowingly invalidate their children’s feelings, fathers can more effectively give the support that girls and boys need. Although women can relate to wanting their husbands to listen, they often forget to listen to their children sometimes. Instead of giving children room to be upset or disappointed, they too will try to fix it.

It is fine to be a problem solver when that is what your children are asking for. In most cases, a parent needs to listen longer and say less to have their children share more and listen more. By giving up trying to solve your children’s problems, your job will be easier, and your children will be happier.

The most common mistake mothers make is to offer unsolicited advice when children misbehave, make mistakes, or appear to need help. Women love to improve things in life and around the home. It is not that men don’t want to improve things, but a man’s attitude is “fix it only when it breaks, otherwise leave it alone.”

Women realize that no matter how good it

gets, it can always get better.

When a woman loves a man, her tendency to become “Mrs. Home Improvement” gets focused on him. He often resists her unsolicited questions and advice. When a woman becomes a mother, she then focuses her home improvement tendencies on her children. She needs to remember that just as children don’t need to be fixed, they also don’t need to be improved.

When a mother worries too much or offers too much advice, it smothers children with caring and deprives them of the trust they need. Boys particularly are more harmed by a mother’s tendency to worry, correct, and give advice. A good rule of thumb is, for every correction, make sure you have caught and acknowledged your child for doing something right three times. Three positives to one negative is a good ratio.

For every correction, catch your child doing

something right three times.

Even better than directly correcting children with advice is simply to direct them into the correct behavior. Instead of saying, “You should be nice to your sister,” say instead, “Would you be nice to your sister? I want you both to get along.”