"The Teen Girl Brain"..(if you're turned off by cable"news".. watch this on your PC)

[SoCalDem]

http://webcast.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/UCSD_TV/11112.rm

This is a very entertaining and enlightening lecture on brain development, and parts of it actually explain a lot of our "problems" with teenagers :)



one funny/poignant part was when she described the "unisex toy" movement in the 70's.. a mother reported that they found their small daughter playing with the truck they had given her.. She had wrapped it in a blanket and was rocking it and saying. "It'll be ok, Truckie".. and another little boy was using his "doll" as a sword :rofl:

[SteelPenguin]

1. Personal Anecdote

We tried to raise our first daughter as gender neutral. Not much of any pink or dresses or dolls. Around her second birthday she started girling up all on her own. Her grandmother gave her a flower dress and she loved it so much she wanted to wear it every day. IF she couldn't wear that it was another dress. Within a week she was wearing dresses at least 6 days a week. She started playing with her baby doll more (we had one, which she showed little interest in previously...prior she had been more into her big dump truck and Thomas train set).

She still likes the trains but she now loves dresses, dolls, purses, shoes, shopping, doing her hair (at 2 and a half) all without us encouraging her (nor did we discourage her).

Kinda makes me feel that my initial hypothesis that gender is primarily genetic is correct.

[SoCalDem]

2. Welcome, Penguin

:hi:

I had 3 sons, and we let them choose what they wanted to play with..

For my sons it was trucks, cars, bikes, scooters, and dirt..lots of dirt..

of course they also liked books & puzzles & games..

Two of them liked GiJoe & Masters of the Universe..the other not at all..

This lecture reinforces my belief that in-utero exposure to hormones is the most important factor ..

[grasswire]

3. but did she watch Disney videos or TV?

We've been kicking that around in this household, where the now teenager became indoctrinated through repetitive watching of Disney videos when she was little, where the extremely traditional roles were emphasized. And in middle school she watched that teen crap. Needless to say, her idea of what a girl should be like were really skewed -- should be fixated on fashion and attracting boys.

[SteelPenguin]

5. no not really

She got the Little Mermaid as a present and watched it once and didn't like it, actually half way through she asked to watch something else. The only other Disney movie she ever showed interest in was Finding Nemo which she likes.

Otherwise when she does watch TV she likes Wonder Pets, Dora the explorer, Go Diego Go, and Sesame Street.

[SoCalDem]

6. My boys never cared much for sesame Street

but loved 3-2-1 Contact & the Electric Company

My oldest was scared to death of the Count. I remember when my mother bought him a Sesame Street sweatchort with the count on it, he would make us turn it inside out, or he would not wear it.. he would look down and say "Scares MEEE!"..

[RedCappedBandit]

7. Parents are far from the only influences on their children

Nothing in development is "primarily" genetic or "primarily" learned. Both aspects have their influences.

[SteelPenguin]

8. Fair enough

genetics. hormones. peers. etc.

Yet she's two and raised at home with a stay at home mother. Yeah they go to lapsits at the library and stuff like that, and plays with other kids in playgroups etc. It's not like we're dumping her at the daycare 5 days a week from 7 till 6 and have no idea what she's taking in.

I think what set her on dresses, honestly, was something as simple as getting the one dress from her grandmother and then putting it on and everyone said she looked pretty. Boom. Done.

1) I like when people gush about how pretty I am and pay attention to me.
2) People gush about how pretty I am and pay attention to me when i wear dresses and do my hair.
3) I want to constantly wear dresses, even when I sleep at night.

I don't think it takes much honestly to push kids in certain directions. I think if she never saw girls wearing dresses, nobody bought her dresses, and if she put one on was ignored, or told to immediately take it off, she'd not be wearing dresses right now. I think all it took was one compliment from Grandma (who I've never seen in a dress) about how pretty she was and that was that.

At the same time though, the same can't be said about my son, or the other little boys we've known. You put a little boy in a little yuppie costume and gush about how handsome he his and he's still gonna try and rip that shirt off, kicking and screaming.

So it's not so much, I think, about the wearing of the dress, as it is a conciousness about looking nice and getting compliments on appearnace. With boys it's I think more compliments about toughness that they appreciate. Something like that. I'm not as sure on that one.

I agree with you wholeheartedly though, and what i've read it's about 50/50 once you're an adult, but I think some core stuff leans towards the one side, such as say prefering self appearance over physical strength compliments, and then how that's applied in the world is all learned (mostly from peer groups). It basically ammounts to a large amount of diversity in learned behaviors to deal with a set of core genetic/hormonal impulses.

[momster]

4. Ball Gowns and Wellingtons

From age 2 to 3 1/2, my daughter wanted to wear nothing but fancy dresses paired with her shiny green Wellington boots. She looked like a lovely little flowering tree growing out of a green glazed pot. When she got older, the Barbies wore the ballgowns. I took back a lot of casual Barbie clothes because if you couldn't meet the Queen in it, my girl wasn't interested. However, right next to Elegant Barbieland was LegoWorld...full of aircraft parts, battlements with cannon, and about half a firehouse. For a long time, if you asked her what she wanted to be, she'd say "A Fireman Ballerina." I could imagine her doing grand jetes into a burning building...

Now a teen, she is a very modern expression of girlhood. She's always the goalie when they play soccer at her school, fences, rebuilt a motorbike with her dad but still does all the girly-girl stuff like swooning over a handsome actor, pretty clothes (esp. shoes) and exploring her emotional range (aka drama queen!) I think she, like many kids raised by the late boomers, has found a good balance between what her genes and society demands and her own sense of who she is in this world. Go on...ask me if I'm proud of her!

[SteelPenguin]

9. Are you proud of her?

;)

I hope my daughter turns out that way. She's on the same path. Fancy dresses and megablocks and trains. Yesterday she 'taught' me how to play chess. I'm still trying to figure out her rules, but I think you win if you can balance your queen on the opposing players rook.

[Iris]

11. Cool!

She sounds like a wonderful individual! I don't even have to ask if you are proud of her; it shows in every word of your post!

[Iris]

10. Every time someone talks about a girl treating a truck like a baby, I think of my brother

who tucked his cars into bed every night in Fisher Price Garage we had and fed them breakfast every morning.

[SoCalDem]

12. One of my sons lined up his matchbox cars according to their color

he's the "GQ" guy in the family.. very much a clothes-guy. He even buys clothes for his finacee :)