Raising Boys: Why Boys are Different – and How to Help them Become Happy and Well-Balanced Men. Steve Biddulph

      In 2017, a researcher called Alan Schore released a wide-ranging review of what we know about boys’ neurological and emotional development.3 Schore is held in awe by most of the child development world. He literally wrote the book on how we develop emotional wellbeing and how the brain and environment interact on a detailed, neurological level to create good mental health. His two massive tomes on the subject were the inspiration behind popular works such as Sue Gerhardt’s ground-breaking Why Love Matters.4 And his new message is that we need to worry about boys much more. The testosterone effects in the womb and the first year of life slow their brain development (especially in the right hemisphere) so much that they are far more vulnerable than girls to anything that goes wrong. It sets boys up for mental health and behaviour problems much later if we don’t maximise calm, responsive, and stress-free environments for them. He included the risk of endocrine disruptors5 such as BPA in our water and food supply in pregnancy, a real concern about the use of daycare in the under-ones and the risks when parents are suffering violence, stress, mental illness, addictions or financial insecurity.

      Schore points out that boys are so far behind girls in their brain development that ‘the frontal cortex, caudate, and temporal lobes (the thoughtful and analytical parts of the brain) are faster growing in girls by as much as 20 months’. And ‘at ages seven to 12 boys lag behind girls by as much as two years in social sensitivity’.6 That’s a heck of a delay, and means we really have to work on boys’ abilities to think through their actions, understand their feelings and those of others, and be soothed and calmed by loving affection when they are upset. And we have to not blame or shame them for not being on the same trajectory as the girls they grow up alongside. The idea of boys as rough, tough and unemotional is completely wrong. They are full of feelings, they care deeply, and they need our help to get along with others. It’s rather scary, but also hopeful – if we get this right, then the shut-down, messed-up men of today might one day be a thing of the past.

      The Full-On Fours

      Boys don’t just develop at a different rate to girls. They also have unique developmental stages, triggered by hormonal shifts, which are only just being understood. The full-on fours is the first of these.

      At around this age, millions of parents around the world notice their boys becoming more energetic, boisterous, and hard to keep quiet. It’s not every boy, and some girls do this too, but it’s a very common and a rather challenging thing. For centuries the answer to this abundance of boy energy was a pretty terrible one. Parents would yell at boys or hit them to make them quieten down. In schools canings and other cruelties were visited on generations of youngsters (including some girls) who could just not bear to be stuck at a desk, who fidgeted or were slow to learn their 3 Rs. A good child was one who stayed quiet and still, and so boys – most of them – were bad.

      Then we began to think more deeply and with a bit more compassion about what we were expecting of boys. And some science came along that appeared to help. In the 1990s Professor Mitchell Harman at the US Department of Aging described a doubling in testosterone from around 40 ng/ml to around 80 ng/ml at this very age. It was a small, and brief rise (especially when compared with the almost tenfold rise that drives puberty in the early–mid teens). I reported this as a possible explanation of the changed behaviour. Many people found this a helpful piece of information, and all over the world people became more understanding of their boys and gave them more scope to be physically active, and were more empathic while helping them learn to get along. Schools and childcare centres took steps to ensure that boys were not cooped up for too long, and built more chances for movement and activity into their day.

      It was never an excuse for misbehaviour, but a message that we needed to help boys find ways to be safely active and physical. Occupational therapists added their input that at four boys are still developing their gross motor brain–muscle wiring, and so it’s more than just letting off steam. Movement is something all children need to grow their brains, but for boys that stage lasts longer.

      However there was one problem – in the years that followed, the findings described by Professor Harman were not corroborated, and other endocrinologists doubted them. In fact, it was still an area that received very little study – the only study I could find began at age six, missing the four-year-old phase entirely. In subsequent editions I reported that this was a controversial finding that we could not rely on. Then some more information came to light. As is often the case with hormones, it turned out to be more complicated. What does happen at four is that boys’ bodies start to release luteinising hormone which tells their testes to start making Leydig cells, which are the little factories for testosterone which will ramp up in puberty. Luteinising hormone levels in four-year-old boys pulsate every day in exactly the way that testosterone levels do in adults, though we do not know why.7 So in a sense, four is the start of the puberty process. Whether this directly or indirectly causes the behaviour changes we have no idea.

      In 2017, Professor Kate Steinbeck, a specialist in children’s endocrinology at the University of Sydney, offered her explanation of the ‘full-on fours’ stage:

      So, is there an alternative explanation for boys’ behaviour at this age, which parents regularly report?

      So, how might being four or five change boys’ behaviour?

      At this age, children learn how to interact with others, understand another’s needs, share, and to deal with new and unfamiliar situations. Boys may respond more physically and be less able to articulate what happened. Learning how to regulate their emotions is an important skill for children to develop. Parents can model good emotional regulation, make sure children have regular daily routines, enough time to practice play and enough sleep. Praising positive behaviour and not overreacting to minor attention-seeking misbehaviour also helps.

      Persistent and distressing behaviours in a child may signal underlying anxieties, reaction to family stresses, or be a result of adversities when they were younger. So, if you are concerned, seek professional advice.

      For all children, we need to prioritise time to play. That could mean space, action and permission to be noisy and boisterous.8

      So, in other words, it is testosterone, but the causes are earlier in life, only coming to the fore through the stresses of being four!

      There is something we need to remember here. For 99 per cent of human history, we were a very physical and lively species – we moved about