Ugly, chauvinistic attitudes in young boy

SuZir

Well-Known Member
Our respite kids spent whole last week with us and that was long enough time that Boyo's chauvinist attitudes and speech started to harrow. He is 7 years old little boy with aspergers. His dad is not part of his life and he lives with single mother with big sibling group where he is a middle kid. One of siblings is with severe special needs. He visits us with his oldest sister, who is ten and quite bossy (somewhat parentified child.) Mom doesn't currently have a boyfriend and dads of the younger ones were apparently not sexist.

You have to understand that in our society chauvinist attitudes are frowned like using n-word in polite company would be in USA. People may think whatever and utter those thoughts in private, but saying things Boyo is saying is big no-no in public. His aspergers of course gets in the way of him understanding that distinction, but doesn't explain where he gets the ideas.

He is likely trying to partly suck up to hubby and our boys and again his disability and age gets in the way of noticing it doesn't work. I mean, I'm sure my boys are fluent in 'locker room talk' but they also know it doesn't fly outside of locker rooms. Nor do they have any real misogynistic attitudes.

Some of it is likely to be lashing out against his know-it-all big sister. But he aims his sexist talk also against adult women (mum, me, teachers etc.) His dad also comes from very patriarchal culture where status of women is weak, but he has never seen his dad (he left before he was born after scoring citizenship and has sent them couple postcards since.) Nor does he have much contact to his dad's culture.

He likes to tell how women or girls can't do this or that or how boys and men are better in this or that. He got really upset when hubby asked me to count something because math, especially mental arithmetic, is not his strongest suite. Apparently girls do not know math. Birds are his special interest and he had a huge meltdown when his big sister picked up the songs of different birds much quicker than he did when Ache taught them to them. Poor boy is close to tone deft (at least if you go by his singing attempts) so it really wasn't a surprise. But because he sees himself as a smart one in the family and birds are his thing, it was a major upset. And especially when Ache told the big sister how quick she was to learn.

Part of it is clearly competitiveness towards big sister and he really seems to think he is much smarter than her. In reality he is not. In tests he performs above average in some tests and not so well in others, but not in real gifted range in any. Then again Girlie, while not tested, seems to show some patterns of thought and leaps in her thinking that make me suspect she may be in gifted range. He is of course advanced in areas of special interests and Girlie on the other hand is more interested in less academical stuff.

Till now we have corrected his misogynist talk rather gently, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Hubby wants to have a serious talk with him how people are allowed to speak to his wife, but I fear that would just strengthen Boyo's sexist attitudes.

He is a sweet kid but this is getting irritating.
 
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Allan-Matlem

Active Member
I think it is great that you have helped him develop a hobby and a special interest , maybe you should leave his sister out of this area. As far as his sexist talk maybe we need input from him to understand his concerns and perspectives about this issue which might throw some light on why he is obsessed with this. Using Ross Greene's CPS - see livesinthebalance.org reassure him that he is not in trouble but you want to understand why he talks about girls or women as he does . so we would begin the ' empathy and info gathering stage by saying - I have noticed that when you talk about girls or women , don't say nice things about them , what's up ? If he says he doesn't know - say to him , take your time and think about it , if he still as difficulty maybe think of some tentative suggestions - the drilling down process = check the Plan B cheat sheet on the site , would include questions like - can you tell me more , is this with all girls , can you give me more examples etc Once we have a clear understanding of his concerns , we can put our concerns on the table and try and help him. Giving him replacement behaviors without dealing with the underlying issue in my humble opinion won't help . I hope this helps . I also recommend finding a mentor, older brother , buddy or buddy-tutor for your son
 

SuZir

Well-Known Member
I also recommend finding a mentor, older brother , buddy or buddy-tutor for your son

This is not our son. We kind of are his 'adult friends.' He and his older sister spend about one weekend and couple weekdays a month in our house. Informally we also tend to look for outings that they would enjoy and if we notice something, we may call their mom, if us taking one or both of them to that outing would be convenient to them. So usually we do see them almost weekly.

While respite agreement is in place to help their mother to cope (care of severe special need sibling is really hard both physically and mentally. That child has respite care in institutional setting 7 days a month) we were matched with these kids also because our own kids are already adults and we can provide lots of one-on-one attention to kids.

I think it is great that you have helped him develop a hobby and a special interest , maybe you should leave his sister out of this area.

With Boyo we were asked to provide lots of male bonding time and husband has also tried to work with some of Boyo's gross motor issues. Husband is sporty, but Boyo is not interested at all. But working through Boyo's special interests have given lots of headway that they have not been able to make with Occupational Therapist (OT) or PT. For example Boyo tends to hate almost any kind of physical activity and starts to complain after very short walks. But on the bird trips he happily walks long distances even through rough terrain (and hubby consciously chooses varying terrains so that he will always have new challenges to his motor skills.)

His Occupational Therapist (OT) and PT also strongly recommended riding bike for balance, but he wouldn't train for long and complained how he would never end. Hubby started to talk about this small bird lake that one can get only with bike. Took him only couple months to train his bike riding to be so good, they could go. And now we were even able to take training wheels out last week!

Also new foods are best to be presented as part of packed lunch for bird trips...

Maybe sneaky, but it works.

These bird trips are between hubby and Boyo. With Ache (my oldest, adult son and reason I'm here) teaching them bird songs leaving sister out of it wasn't a viable option though. We were on the boat and it was raining. Tight space and just trying to come up with something to keep kids occupied didn't leave much possibilities. Especially when it was spontaneous thing Ache came up after Boyo asked him how he could know which bird it had been when they only saw it from distance and without binoculars.

As far as his sexist talk maybe we need input from him to understand his concerns and perspectives about this issue which might throw some light on why he is obsessed with this. Using Ross Greene's CPS - see livesinthebalance.org reassure him that he is not in trouble but you want to understand why he talks about girls or women as he does . so we would begin the ' empathy and info gathering stage by saying - I have noticed that when you talk about girls or women , don't say nice things about them , what's up ? If he says he doesn't know - say to him , take your time and think about it , if he still as difficulty maybe think of some tentative suggestions - the drilling down process = check the Plan B cheat sheet on the site , would include questions like - can you tell me more , is this with all girls , can you give me more examples etc Once we have a clear understanding of his concerns , we can put our concerns on the table and try and help him.

Thanks for the idea. I will check the site.
 
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