Are you stuck with training your son on how to treat girls with dignity, honor and respect? Here are tips on training boys to respect girls and women.
Some young boys often face challenges in developing interpersonal, communication, and interrelation skills. This is usually the case when the interactions involve girls.
You might have realized that your son is either shy or having some self-esteem challenges limiting his ability to interact with girls in school. If that is the case, it is important to ensure that the boy is adequately trained on how to interact with girls respectfully and in a friendly manner.
Life exposures are sometimes considered the main cause of adverse interaction behaviors between boys and girls in a school environment. With the many negative vices occurring in society today, young boys face the risk of being corrupted, hence viewing girls negatively or in a disrespectful manner.
It is therefore important as a teacher, parent, or guardian to first identify issues that could be affecting the behaviors of your boy child since that forms the foundation for getting a lasting solution.
Here are important approaches on training boys to respect girls and women.
Training boys to respect girls and women
- Change Your Mindset as a Parent/Guardian/Teacher
Effective training for boys begins with the perspective that you establish as a parent, teacher, or guardian. Unfortunately, most parents consider boy-girl relationships are ‘romantic’ based on the natural laws of gender. With such a mindset, it becomes difficult to instill new interpersonal and interrelation skills especially when dealing with boys.
First, you should establish that your boy is young and can only engage in platonic friendships with girls. Secondly, you must avoid overthinking by viewing everything as an alarming sign when your boy interacts with girls.
Sometimes natural causes command behaviors between boys and girls. Your role as a parent is to mold behaviors and guide the young boys toward the right interaction paths with girls.
- Emphasize Discipline
Training your young boy on how to uphold discipline is the most important milestone. You will realize that discipline in parenting is multifaceted, hence it entails assorted elements that work collectively in shaping behaviors. In this case, you should train your boy to behave right when interacting with others, irrespective of gender.
You should also train them that some conducts are offensive and should not be subjected to other people. Instilling such behaviors into the young boy’s mind gradually becomes a permanent tendency, which can work positively especially when they interact with others.
- Let the Boy Acknowledge the Value of Others
The main reason behind disrespectful behaviors among boys is the failure to acknowledge the value of other people. As a parent, you should be fast in training your boy to treat others with respect since they are valuable in society. In such a case, it will be easy for young boys and girls to interact positively and without offending each other.
Instances of harassment in schools are an example of scenarios whereby girls may be treated wrongly and disrespectfully. Taking the mandate of a parent and condemning such actions while advocating for individual values is an ideal approach to creating a conducive interaction environment for boys and girls.
- Be Your Son’s Best Friend
One of the main behavioral shortcomings exhibited by boys especially when interacting with girls is a result of limited exposure to parental guidance. In other words, eliminating the element of friendship between you and the boy could lead to fruitless training on how to interact with girls in school.
Being a close friend of your son creates an opportunity for them to open up and share their shortcomings. It is easy to study your son when you are friends with him. Some boys may exhibit fear towards their parents due to the missing bond. Effective training in this case can be enhanced by first creating a friendly environment between yourselves.
- Create Mixed-Up Play Dates
What most parents do not know is that children develop friendship bonds at a young age. In fact, some parents believe that isolating their young boys from girls at an early age is healthy. On the contrary, early age isolation is not only harmful to the interrelation abilities of your child.
Therefore, it would be a good idea to engage your young boy in a mixed-up playdate with other boys and girls. Such interactions enable the children to grow from a friendship perspective. It also enables them to draw specific boundaries when interacting with girls since everything is purely based on friendship.
It is important to contribute to the positive cognitive development of your child from an early age, failure to which he might exhibit adverse behaviors towards others as they grow.
- Apply Restorative Justice Methods
Some unfortunate occurrences subject young boys to trauma and depression. Some young boys may have undergone episodes of crime, such as rape and other offenses. In this case, applying restorative justice is an ideal training approach that can assist them to change their mindset toward others.
In using restorative justice, young boys previously involved in crime and other offenses are made to face their actions and take responsibility. For instance, if the boy was involved in a rape incident, he can be acquainted with the victim of rape in a common forum.
Acknowledging personal faults and responsibility allows them to seek ways that cannot offend others in the future. That way, they will treat others with respect while avoiding committing similar offenses in the future.
Get Professional Assistance from Lifesong Kenya
At Lifesong Kenya, training boys to respect girls and women is one of our core mandates. We believe in transforming young boys to become better in society. We believe in friendly approaches that can assist young boys to adopt behaviors that resonate with respect and decorum.
As a parent, you can consult our experts and get insights on how to train your boy to interact positively and respectfully with girls in school. We always advocate for peaceful coexistence between both genders, without inflicting any harm or emotional damage.
Our restorative and transformative training approaches for boys date back close to a decade ago. We, therefore, fully understand what young boys need, their shortcomings, and how they can be made better people in the society.
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