You must have heard the adage — Girls are from Venus and Boys are from Mars. And as a parent, you must have already observed the clear difference in your girl child’s and boy child’s behaviours, perceptions and reactions to things. Therefore, if you are raising a daughter and a son together, there are some points you should pay attention to because, as a matter of fact, boys and girls are unique in their own ways and therefore they deserve different parent handling. Here are a few things that parents need to keep in mind.
· Recognise and accept that there ‘is’ a difference. Parents tend to believe that their daughters and sons are just the same. While it is true to some extent, as both children need similar love, care, attention and resources, you also need to keep in mind that boys and girls are naturally different in several ways. For example most researchers believe that girls reach initial developmental milestones, such as talking, developing hand-eye coordination and controlling their emotions, earlier than boys.
· Identify their differences and help them ‘fill the gaps’. Parenting daughters and sons is all about identifying and addressing their individual needs. In general, from their early years, girls develop their communication and social skills earlier than boys, whereas, boys develop a better spatial and number sense than girls. Therefore, from early on, you should put in more effort in teaching your son about expressing his feelings through the right words and give your daughter toys like building blocks and play ball games with her.
· Set a different discipline strategy for your son. You may have noticed that when it comes to discipline, girls tend to respond more readily to your words than boys. For example if you ask both your daughter and son to pack their school bags, you’ll notice that your daughter does it in much more order than your son. As boys’ hearing isn’t much sensitive for your verbal discipline strategies like praises or warnings by nature, you may have to be a bit more firm with your son to make him listen to you.
· Encourage your daughter to get involved in physical activities. There is a difference that you will see in your children as they grow; usually boys are keener to play outdoors, jump, run, or play with toys like trucks, cars and motorbikes, but not girls.
· You, as a parent, must encourage your daughter to get involved in physical activities be it dancing indoors or playing sports outside. Also, you can gift your little princess a toy car or a Spiderman toy for a refreshing change.
At the end, although each of them has different abilities and personality, both need to be raised with good values like empathy, compassion, respect, confidence and independence. And above all, remember both need your affection, support and — most of all — your unconditional love.
(The writer is Meenal Arora, executive director of Shemrock Preschools & founder-director of Shemford Futuristic Schools)