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Not a fan of your Dad's tactics. And if you were to head on over to the marriage board I also frequent, you will see a lot of men who were raised like this are lost in this brave new world of gender equality, emotional expression and the like. I imagine you want to him to grow up to be the best HIM. Not some parody of a "man".
Quoting myself, lol. Lest I be misunderstood, I am not suggesting that you should desire to raise a goopy, girly man. Just that one cannot rely on having a good relationship just by looking and acting like a "man". True inner strength and self esteem have been important. But in my view, it becomes more and more so as the old rule book around men's "role" and women's "role" no longer apply.
Also, have you thought about...err..."weaning" him up to older toys? Instead of refusing to buy him toys when you know that he's interested in them, maybe you could buy toys for a slightly higher age group. For example, you could buy that Millenium Falcon Lego set or another more advanced Lego set. Maybe a remote control helicopter...even grown men love those things. For stuffed animals, maybe more realistic-looking stuffed animals (sharks, dinosaurs, whatever) instead of more "babyish" ones? Then, he's still getting what he wants (kind of), but a slightly more grown-up version?
Boys who never grow out of Legos become engineers.
Not a problem. My son is almost 15 and is just starting to realize that girls are pretty cool. He is shy around them, though. He gave up toys around 12/13, but some of his friends still play Lego. It's fine. He will grow out of it in the next couple of years.
Of course not! But think about this. If you restrict him, you are sending a message that is the opposite of growing into a self assured young man. You are giving him the message that he is not ok the way he is. So let's sleeping with stuffed animals. No one is ever going to see that. It is his bedroom, and he should be in charge of his sleeping comfort.
I would seek not so much to deny his interest in toys but to see what other interests can be added. If he in, in fact, immature, recognize that that is no crime. His self esteem needs enCOURAGEment. There is a book called "Disciple for Life" which has a great section on self esteem, even if the rest of the book is probably not applicable to you. It talks about refining the way we, as parents, support self esteem away from the praise model. She is the one who brought out the word "courage" in "encouragement" for me. It rang like a bell. It takes courage to say to oneself, I am fine just the way I am. If I need to decide to make different choices to achieve different outcomes, then that is for ME to do. that is a very powerful bit of courage!
Not a fan of your Dad's tactics. And if you were to head on over to the marriage board I also frequent, you will see a lot of men who were raised like this are lost in this brave new world of gender equality, emotional expression and the like. I imagine you want to him to grow up to be the best HIM. Not some parody of a "man".
Shame is a ****tastic motivation. It may be able to change behavior momentarily. But it does nothing to help a young person grow into a more mature and confident young man. It is more likely to make him brittle because he has to hide himself instead of becoming his best seld.
I had a conversation with my 14 year old. "I'm a gamer. I'm not a jock. That is who I am. I am good with that." (We live in a very jock friendly town.) Not 2 or 3 years ago, I worried about his maturity as well. So ye's he is younger than your son, yes. But at 14, when the jocks make fun of him for being a "gamer", he laughs and says "at least I'm not a douche". When they make fun of him for being brainy, he quotes Stand and Deliver, "tough guys don't do math, tough guys deep fry chicken for a living". You know what? His friends know he plays with Legos. His friends know he plays Magic the Gathering. They play it with him because there are other boys JUST LIKE HIM. There are other boys like your son too. He may need help to find his tribe. Find the balance between accepting who he is and developing all he can become.
While the other boys are playing basketball and soccer, my son is studying Brazilian Jui Jitsu. The jocks don't mess with him or his tribe because he could put any one of them in a rear naked choke in minutes. Do they poke fun at his Anime t-shirts? Sure. He makes fun of their preppy wear. And they all just pass each other in the corridor with very little conflict.
So who IS you son and what does he want to be? Does he want to be a martial artist bad ass? A musician. My son also plays a mean piano. I mean, how "gay" (not being disparaging to homosexuals though I guess I really am. Trying to use the vernacular of the disparagement this family denies) is that? If we, as parents, can encourage the best in our children where they are at, then they can have the confidence to say to the bully, f you and the horse you rode in on. This is who I am, and I am good with that.
IF he has some underlying reason that this cannot be achieved, be it divorce or something completely else, professional help may be appropriate.
He cannot let on what he doesn't know. At 47, I still did not know how my father's death affected me until years later. We don't always know.
I guess then the action you need to take is to draw out of him what activities are worth it to HiM to venture forth.
Great post!! And our sons sound very similar. No matter who the Cubsfan kid ends up being there will be some just like him out there. They may meet up later but eventually it all works itself out. My friends kids use to call mine weird. 6 years later theirs have all the popular partying kid problems and mine are getting their doctorates in Computer Science. Things have a way of balancing out in the end.
Kind of like how we always got some weird knit reindeer sweater from our crazy aunt for christmas?
No, how you can be bothered to buy him things he would like because your own fear he won't be big man on campus and make you look bad is more important than he is.
My biggest fear is that his behavior continues and he is a completely maladjusted social outcast who cannot function in society. He already has it pretty bad in school from a social perspective.
I was kind of shy and bullied in school, I know what he's going through. I did not play with toys as late as he has, but some of the other things he's going through, I did too.
I just want better for him, is it that bad?
If it was my dad, he would have told me to grow up and be a man, sack up. Grow some balls, stuff like that. Shame him into shedding this obsession and be more like kids are supposed to be at his age. I'm not going to do that. But he's going to get it from his peers soon enough. I couldn't imagine what would happen if he had friends over and they saw his room.
Maybe the divorce affects him more than he leads on, I dunno. He never speaks about it, he sees his mom enough and has a good relationship with her. I don't expect him to be able to understand why or how it did not work out with us.
I just have a hard time believing that what is best for him is staying at home and playing with legos and action figures rather than out socializing with his peers in the neighborhood, riding his bike, getting into "kid trouble" with his buddies, like we all did when we were that age.
So you say you were bullied but you want to bully him? That is what you are doing in some not so subtle ways.
And I get that. I had motorcycles, jeeps, etc. But I also didn't sleep with stuffed animals at 14.
I realize there outliers when it comes to maturity, maybe my expectations are just off. I'm honestly also kind of surprised by the responses here, a very disproportionately high percentage of people see nothing wrong with this.
Contrary to some of the other opinions, I agree that there is a problem here. I started dumping things like that soon after starting grade-school. A stuffed animal at ten? I would have been a laughing-stock, as would any of my friends.
Used to be, one started taking on adult responsibilities and behavior by age twelve or so. I think a lot of the problems facing the country today are a result of 'permissiveness' and children not being taught to take responsibility and act like adults.
I'm guessing he lives [most of the time] with his mother? (I don't remember if you mentioned it before.) If so, you're going to have a tough time of it, and there are no easy answers.
My question to the OP would be, how would your son articulate what you think of him? In other words, if someone asked him, 'what is your relationship like with your Dad', or, 'how would your Dad describe you?', his answers might be very telling. Kids are usually very adept at picking up what their parents think of them, even if we don't pressure them, they are very attuned to our thinking.
If you want to grow in your relationship with him, perhaps help him expand on some of his interests by going to an event that centers on his interests such as a Lego convention or Comic Con type of event. A lot of the beliefs about these people are exaggerated. Flurries do not all dress up and have sex with each other. Many of these fandoms are misunderstood. We, as a culture, find no problem with extreme fans in sports (five screaming guys covered in body paint and no shirts in freezing weather comes to mind). But we see those with interests in character-driven things as odd. But I think you will find most are very creative, intelligent, and accepting of others. Just my .02.
No, how you can be bothered to buy him things he would like because your own fear he won't be big man on campus and make you look bad is more important than he is.
Hey, now. That's not helpful.
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