What is happening to our boys?

Introduction

Having only boys and as a concerned parent, there is a book out there that anyone who has a male child in their circle should read be it nephew, child, son, grandson, cousin, or even friend. The title of the book is "boys adrift - the five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men" by Dr. Leonard Sax who is a family physician and psychologist. He has noticed that it seems the boys are not being motivated or encourage in our educational system. It seems that the educational system has become feminized and the only strong male figures in most schools are the gardener, janitor, and maybe the gym teacher. Then, there is also a rush to quickly diagnose boys with psychiatric illness for just being boys, ADHD i.e. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and subsequently start them on medication. There is an epidemic of demotivation of boys across the board not related to social class, race, religion, or economic status of the parents. These boys are not particularly driven and may stay at home, working part-time in dead-end jobs and they are not even bothered by their situation. There are more girls entering university with great grades and graduating with higher honors than boys, it not that the girls are more intelligent than the boys as IQ scores show, but some boys just don't care. The causes are multi-factorial and from toxins, the changes in the education system, to computer games and society, Dr. Leonard Sax explores the causes, effects, and prevention strategies.

The School System

The current school curriculum from an early age, as from kindergarten seem to encourage females and discourages males, not because of anything rather than their biology, boys would not be able to sit quietly for minutes listening to a particular piece at such an early age. Once boys find school difficult, boring, disengaging, and complicated at such an early age, it is difficult to renege them at a later age, as they have already formed strong biases against it. Boys are more disruptive than girls as that is their biology it is in their genes a similar trend has been found in chimpanzees, male and female chimps learn things differently. While female chimps look at their mothers quietly and copy it, whereas male chimps learn things in groups, by challenging themselves, it is more aggressive and competitive. Some human boys learn things from being competitive, and if they lose or do not win, they respect the winner and try to do better next time. All the physical games that boys are more likely to engage in have been stopped or reduced in the Western world as the school authorities are less than willing to bear both the cost and responsibilities of both legal and treatment, of common playground injuries. Boys are not encouraged to be incentive or spontaneous but encouraged to be dull and repetitive, everything is now based on "feelings and emotions" of which females will find more attractive. Some boys tend to do better in an all-boys environment where the environment is competitive, and the teacher is in tune with a militaristic environment with discipline and firm strict rules, but the writer emphasizes not all boys are like that.

Video games

With computer games, it gives some males the power of his own will. Of which philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche described in his writings as the "Will of Power".  Here man is motivated to be in control of his environment, this is seen as a primary motivating force. Most women will like to be well-liked and to get along with others rather than to be in control. But for most boys, see themselves as having a special destiny in life, that no one but themselves understands, getting along with others is secondary.  It comes across as these boys are highly motivated as they spend hours and sometimes days in front of their computer screens. In an earlier period, these highly motivated individuals would have become four star generals, masters of industry, entrepreneurs, inventors, etc these people are not "people people" but "goal oriented people", they are highly motivated and focused to achieve. But now, all that motivation and energy is channeled towards computer games. Computer games have come a long way since the Space Invaders of the arcade of the 1970's and '80's. Now computer games are more realistic, allowing boys to lead eager and willing subordinates from different countries all over the world at broadband speed, with no lag time and frightening realistic graphics and sound effects. People who are very good on Basket Ball, Soccer, American Football, or Golf computer games believe they are realistic and turn up on the field believing they could be heroes or get a multi-million signing contract, but they do not have the stamina or energy, determination or patience or fortitude. In the computer games they are rewarded for risk-taking, killing, harming, disembowelment, stealing, etc and in a process of positive reinforcement, it encourages such behaviour and has little patience for planning, forbearance, wisdom, tolerance, or restrain. Also playing video games is associated with weight gain and obesity. Research has linked a lot of anti-social behaviour to computer games, and school killings.  

Dr. Leonard Sax

Diagnosis of ADHD

From primary school to especially in the Western world there is a desire to quickly label or to medically diagnose disruptive pupils. This might be because of the pressure on the teachers to get results and the change in the school curriculum system or just to medicalize what is essentially bad parenting. What will be taken as just been naughty in years gone by or sent you to the naughty corner to cool off in a bygone age, will now send you to the clinical child psychologist and started on medication now. Looking at the first part of the DSM III (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual version 3), I am sure a lot of normal boys of a bygone age will fit the diagnosis of ADHD and subsequently be placed on medication.

Diagnostic criteria for 314.01 Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Note: Consider a criterion met only if the behaviour is considerably more frequent than that of most people of the same mental age. A disturbance of at least six months during which at least eight of the following are present: often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat (in adolescents, may be limited to subjective feelings of restlessness) has difficulty remaining seated when required to do so is easily distracted by extraneous stimuli has difficulty awaiting turn in games or group situations often blurts out answers to questions before they have been completed had difficulty following through on instructions from others (not due to oppositional behaviour or failure of comprehension), e.g., fails to finish chores has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities often shifts from one uncompleted activity to another has difficulty playing quietly often talks excessively often interrupts or intrudes on others, e.g., butts into other children's games often does not seem to listen to what is being said to him or her often loses things necessary for tasks or activities at school or at home (e.g., toys, pencils, books, assignments) often engages in physically dangerous activities without considering possible consequences (not for the purpose of thrill-seeking), e.g., runs into street without looking       Note: The above items are listed in descending order of discriminating power based on data from a national field trial of the DSM-III-R criteria for Disruptive Behavior Disorders. Onset before the age of seven. Does not meet the criteria for a Pervasive Developmental Disorder.

Dr. Sax was concern that there were overdiagnosis and the improvement of the patient's condition, once placed on a trial medication did not confirm the diagnosis of ADHD, has it does make changes and makes the child more complaint, but at the same time destroys the child's creativity and motivation areas of the brain. As once the child is "doped up to it's eyeballs", the child is noticed to become more complaint to any suggestions, research has shown in animals, that they consequently become less motivated. Also, there is the effect of drugs on a young developing brain and maybe the problem of future mental illness. I trained as a resident psychiatrist I have seen the effect of medication on patients, from lively disruptive bubbly to withdrawn or lethargic but compliant, and in some instances, the medication causes overweight and later obesity.

Endocrine Disruptors

There in the Potomac River, which runs into the Atlantic Ocean via the North-West coast of the USA, they have found that some of the male fish were beginning to have female eggs and this has been happening across the USA. And these changes were not noticed only in the fish but they noticed that other animals were noticed to being affected including frogs. Girls have been found to maturing earlier and earlier with mature breasts as young as 8 years and starting menstruation early. Boys are born with abnormalities from undescended testis, hypospadias, and small testis, late puberty, also having low sperm count and erectile problems at adulthood. But worldwide, Dr. Sax claims that research has shown that any male exposed to pesticides and western fertilizers will have a reduced sperm count than males who live totally organic.

Alex Jones - Conspiracy Theorist

Now, one of the culprits of these endocrine changes have been attributed to in a lot of the cases to phthalates from plastic they are mainly used as plasticizers, i.e., substances added to plastics to increase their flexibility, transparency, durability, and longevity. They are used primarily to soften polyvinyl chloride (PVC). These have found their way into the water supply and other chemicals from fertilizers to pesticides, some of these chemicals do have estrogenic properties, which reduce the level of testosterone. Also, it is known to affect boys and girls differently. They have also been associated with ADHD in boys. The flood of estrogenic chemicals seen to affect boys as testosterone fuels ambition in males and motivation but not so in girls. Then, it is associated with a high fractures rate in boys from minor injuries, these are known as pathological fractures because it seems the bone is diseased with lower bone density. This is also associated with obesity or overweight.

Failure to Launch

There was a film America romantic comedy which involves Matthew McConaughey (Tripp) and Sarah Jessica Parker (Paula). The Tripp character is 35 years who still lives with his parents. The film encapsulates the situation which is happening across, the US and his best friends Demo (Bradley Cooper) and Ace (Justin Bartha) are also still living in their parents' homes and seem proud of it. Although the Ace character is a software engineer and was earning so much money that he brought the house that he and his mother was living in, and it was that his mother was living in his house as a manner of speaking, but this is a rarity rather than the norm in these situations. The number of over 30 year old boys still living with their parents has reached epidemic proportions while the girls move out and have their own independence, the boys, are just slacking at home, dependent on their parents not wanting or able to be independent. This chapter was full of emails and letters, especially from young women who owned their own houses and had fantastic careers, but found the market of available, capable, and responsible men dry. The number of marriages had fallen and the number of divorces and single mothers had increased. But there is a common trend here, that looks like it getting worst than improve especially in the near future.

Neglection of the forsaken old gods

Dr. Sax insinuated that only a man can produce a man in most cases, a boy does need a man in his life to act as an compass on how men should behave. A boy needs men in his life as to direct him and steer him in the right direction. Men, with who he can discuss and who will mentor him. If these are absent he will take cues from those in the media, 2Pac, 50Cent, Eminem, Homer Simpson, etc. Good manners, have to be taught and the default setting is to be rude and obnoxious. That over the generations there were ceremonies and orders in place to mark the transition from boy to man. Although we of the modern age might laugh and mock condescendingly such traditions, we might have lost something in our modern age. These ceremonies are there for a reason, these traditions have been there for hundreds of years and bear the test of time. Dr. Sax has noticed that the children of immigrants and those who have spend time over seas do not exhibit these trails noticed that children born in the US suffer from depression, lack of motivation and are more likely to have a criminal record, despite what President Trump is saying and the immigration ban. A lot of people who say that if he would really wanted to protect the youth he would allow a lot of strong, determined male figures to enter the country and teach America Youth. There is a deficiency in well playing blue collar jobs, like plumbing, good machines and carpentry, which are now well paying and these jobs could pay as much as the average sales man, doctor or lawyer. These "blue collar" jobs are being done by El Salvadorians in the US and Polish in the UK, because our boys have been discouraged from them. But these boys are not attracted to them because they do not have any good role models.

Conclusion

In the end, the author Dr. Sax, went into various programs and things to combat the causes and he very detailed. He mentions the things you could do, even as a single mother and who does not have a strong male mentor in your child's life, to encourage capable male figures to get involve in your child's life. What you could do when your child is diagnosed as suffering from ADHD. How to prevent exposure to endocrine disruptors. What to do reduce exposure to media and games. He did warn that what he was saying was not "all or nothing", and there are instances in which your son is actually suffering from ADHD or maybe your son is average or below average. But he is also aware that there is an increase in diagnosis of ADHD and there is help at every stage of development so your boy does not fall by the wayside.