For the Love of Kids 2005 Practical Parenting Conference

Michael Gurian
WORKSHOP TITLE: The Minds of Boys and Girls: Helping your sons and daughters do their best in school and life

WORKSHOP OVERVIEW: If you have questions about how to nurture the minds of your sons or your daughters, this keynote provides exciting tips, inspiration and insight! As "the people's philosopher," Michael will use his ability to mix cutting edge science with stories from people's everyday lives. In this keynote, he provides science-based information on how both girls and boys develop, and answers crucial questions parents and others are asking today.

POSITIVE PRACTICAL PARENTING SUGGESTIONS:

Learn everything you can about how the male brain learns and how the female brain works. Once you understand the minds of boys and girls fully, your intuition and common sense will be a very wise ally. You'll see your own boyhood or girlhood differently, you'll see your spouse as if for the first time, and you'll see your child much more fully. It feels wonderful to see deeply into the minds of boys and girls.
A lot of the brain-centers that children need in order to learn in school later in life are formed and linked during the first three years of life. Be extra careful during this time that your boys and girls are getting enough love and attachment. When children don't get enough attention during these years, boys and girls often end up with equally difficult, but somewhat dissimilar disabilities.
Form a parent-led educational team to augment what teachers and schools are doing. This team will be composed of parents, grandparents (other relatives), friends and other 'co-horts' who can help tutor, teach and mentor your boy and girl through the complex educational and social system we live in.
Make sure not to over-schedule or over-commit a school age child. Over-scheduling can derail healthy development just as painfully as under nurturance. Also, be ready for boys and girls to manifest the stress of over-scheduling in somewhat different ways.
Advocate for your school administrators and teachers to create boy-friendly and girl-friendly learning environments. Children are not just "childhood learners," but also boy-learners and girl-learners.
Provide rites of passage experiences for both boys and girls. Boys will often need more planned rites of passage experiences than girls (because boys do less daily "relating" and verbal-emotional bonding than girls). Churches, synagogues, mentoring agencies, and groups of parents/extended family and friends can create rites of passage.
Children want to learn self-control of feelings (not constant or absent expression of feeling). If a girl (or boy) is constantly processing emotions to the point of depression or internal chaos, teach her to manage feelings by example and technique. If a boy (or girl) very rarely expresses emotion, focus on creating a mentoring/trust relationship with him (and rely on fathers/men for adolescent male emotion-expression whenever appropriate).
Character education (moral and ethical boundaries) help build a strong core self, and thus, a strong, high-expectations learner. Emphasize character education at home, in religious and spiritual communities, in the extended family, and in the neighborhood. Until children leave home, they are "children" and may well need close supervision in order to meet the parents' and community's high standards.
What children eat and drink has a lot to do with how well they do in school. If learners don't get enough water during the day or enough protein in the morning, their brains will not learn optimally. If they eat a lot of carbs just before reading or writing, their brains may become too groggy to perform well. Set up a good nutrition plan for both boys and girls!
Screen time affects learning. Boys tend to spend too much time playing video games. Girls often spend too much time on the Internet, chatting with friends. All children in general watch too much television. Set up a daily plan for homework, chores, and family time that keeps screen time to a minimum (except for educational programming).