Annoyed parent. It really is irrelevant what might cause the aggressive behaviour. Kids need to be taught how to control their behaviour and impulses. They need to learn how to respect others, how to handle confrontation. By leaving them to their own devices and giving them an excuse for their behaviour you do them no favours.

HRS. There is a negative attitude towards boys in schools. Teachers tend to prefer the girls as they are easier to handle and many have no problem making it obvious as generally they are annoyed wit the boys. Boys are getting the raw end of the deal but this happens because they are more active, more impulsive, less able to sit still and colour in all day.

Schools need to take into consideration that everybody is different and cater for individual needs and parents need to stop making excuses for bad behaviour and start teaching their children well.

I agree with you HRS. Our society has come to the point where anything male is seen as fair game, so much so that even the male hormone is now associated with exclusively negative connotations. When was the last time you heard something good about testosterone?

If you walk into any primary school staff room you'll find almost only women. Men now shy away from this environment because they have been successfully portrayed as a threat to women and chilren. There is barely disguised innuendo about why a man would want to spend time with children. We have become so paronoid. If you walked into this 'oestrogen charged' environment you'd feel sorry for boys, boys who have to endure endless verbosity, and non-competitive group work. If you look at the texts children study they're almost always 'female' type texts which concentrate on human relationships at the expense of 'male' type adventure texts. Because males tend to relate to one another through shared experience rather than verbalising their relationship, this is seen as less complex and dumb. Hence, you get the widely held belief that 'female' texts are more sophisticated and that males are poor brutes that need civilising. So in this environment 'feeling' is valued over 'doing', and emotion is valued over logic.

I realise I'm generalising and that there will be exceptions, but I think in general this is true and explains why so many boys are tuning out of class. Class is uncool for boys because education is so 'girlie'. While girlie stuff is without doubt necessary (half of school children are girls), my problem is that education is so dominated by a feminist perspective that boys are tuning out. They tune out because they receive the constant subtext that it's not meant for them. Yet even our so-called experts can't see this.

HRS boys and girls both have hormone issues. Boys get a bit of attitute and can get aggresive at times and girls get "bitchy" and nasty and become drama queens. When they grow up nothing much changes really just they learn to control it. Men suffer every month dont they... PMT! (PMT is very difficult to control") and then when menopause sets in watch out men.

Men that cant control their hormone urges tend to lose their temper and in the extreme rape and do major damage,(this is extreme cases)

I dont believe that parents can teach teenages how to control hormone issues, supporting them and making them understand that what they are feeling is quite normal and will settle may help.

Jolanda, you must be the greatest mother of Oz, , a godess of motherhood, empress of the south ,I read somewhere , you seems to have the answers to all questions/problems great and small. You come across thinking that you are the only parent that teaches their children well,

"adults are not teaching children well" you say

Annoyed parent. Well if you ask my kids they will tell you that I am the greatest mother on Earth.

I will say it again, adults are not teaching the children well! Of course there are exceptions but as a rule society is pushing children in the wrong direction and too many parents are too busy trying to be their children's friend and wanting their children to be popular and are not properly disciplining them and are not teaching them well.

I do have alot of answers to alot of questions and most of what I know I know because I am being told what is happening out there by my kids and from experience. Does that bother you? If you do not agree, put forward why, debate with me, don’t just try to make fun of me.

Education – Keeping them Honest
http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/education/
Our children deserve better

Jolanda,
"New Flash"
I just asked my kids, and they said that I was the greatest mum on the earth. I asked a friends sons thats over who was the greatest mum and he said that his mum was the greatest in the world. so all mums are the greatest according to their children. problem is that it looks like you truely believe that you are the greatest mother of all.

You couldnt possibly learn anything from anybody.

Annoyed Parent,
Hormones may play a part, but I don’t think hormones are everything.

Here is a project that was funded by the Lighthouse project as mentioned in the article.

“The project involves students in Years 6 and 7 from the two primary schools spending half a day a week at the high school, working with a male teacher on repairing and rebuilding motors.

All of they boys involved in 2003 improved their reading levels, some by as much as three school years, and all demonstrated a more positive attitude to school and reading.”

http://www.learningplace.com.au/deliver/content.asp?pid=408

In years 6 and 7 the boys would have very few hormones such as testerone, so the question is, why do those boys in a primary school have to go to a high school to get contact with male teachers so that they can improve their reading. What is occurring in the primary schools that has held those boys back, and how widespread is this.