News Gender identification - when to start the conversation

[Sideways]

It's about encouraging young children to practice tolerance toward others who aren't considered gender typical.

One of the issues with teaching tolerance that targets this issue (as opposed to just teaching tolerance of differences whatever they be), is that the little kids who are being put in the ‘gender typical’ box, are probably more accurately described as “gender not yet considered let alone identified”. And, to teach ‘gender tolerance’ specifically (as opposed to just tolerance)? You need to teach what gender is in the first place. And I’m not sure that I agree that gender is one of the topics that need to be included in a kindergarten’s curriculum:)

 

[Suzetig]

We are or WERE talking about kids which is a topic that is clearly lacking in both research and unbiased exploration.

What utter nonsense, issues of children, child development and childhood are some of the most well researched in the world. And by unbiased I assume you mean research which supports your position on this issue?

For my own part, I have 10 years of professional training, three post grad qualifications and over 20 years experience in working with vulnerable children and young people. I've more than earned my stripes here - by all means disagree with my position but please don't suggest I've come to that position from a place of ignorance.

Two, children do indeed have a set sense of gender by elementary age.

Gender is a social construct, it's not something that is "fixed" even across societies, e.g. what it means to be a male or female shifts hugely within and across social structures. True gender dysphoria is actually a relatively rare thing - my issue with pushing teaching in early school years is that it suggests that it's incredibly common.

If some children have a fixed sense of gender at such a young age it's usually because they've been raised to believe x marker equals y gender and either they feel that does represent them or doesn't.

The whole point of childhood is that a child's cognitive, emotional and psychological self is developing. Depending on which model of child development you want to draw on children at 5/6 haven't developed a sense of themselves as able to influence the world around them, they have no real sense of object stability and a shaky sense of object permanence - they literally process things in a way that means if something looks different it has changed in some way.

In my experience children are incredibly curious about identity - what makes me a boy, her a girl, why am I your son, her brother, why do girls have babies etc etc. It's part of their developmental make up - my kids want to change their names a hundred times a day but having a fixed sense of who they are is desperately important for all the other developmental stages they go through so no, I won't be changing my child's name every time he/she asks. Nor will I be suggesting that because my little girl likes climbing, playing with trucks and mud that she somehow is the "wrong" gender or that she might be more comfortable living as a boy.

I've never bothered about what toys they play with or what clothes they do or don't want to wear and we don't label behaviours as girlish or boyish. If one of mine expresses some sense of difference we'll talk about it, but at 5 and 6 they won't be formally changing their gender identity.

I do think tolerance needs to be taught, but in a sense of how everyone has differences and the importance of firstly respecting yourself so you can cope with people who are less tolerant. I don't see tolerance as a gender, sexuality, race, physical ability issue - it's an issue of humanity to be respectful of others and can be taught without muddying waters that are already quite hard to navigate.

 

[Justmehere]

But I dont see issues with a conversation starting in school in younger grades so kids learn to think about the idea that they may be different than others and others may be different than them

These conversations already occur.

 

[Scarlet13]

See I just don't think of that as a gender issue at all, people are more than the clothes we wear and t...

So 5 year old children developmentally step into roles to explore identity and social cues.
When I worked with kindergarten children, there was a boy who NEEDED to play Princess Laya. So he needed all of the "princess" trappings. I worked at a liberal school and we all saw this in line with healthy development. Children playing roles learning what it means to wear certain clothes, speak in certain ways, play diff characters. It is all imaginative play. It builds empathy, literacy, and creativity.
And especially with 5 year olds, it should all be received with openess. I would not have corrected that boy saying "No, boys don't wear dresses." That would have been atrocious.
However, I would not have then given him the message about how he could be a girl if he wanted to. That would not be developmentally appropriate. His need to wear princess stuff was more in line with needing to explore a role. Again this is a natural learning strategy that supports empathy, but teachers who place labels in either direction may be undermining the learning process. This reminds me of a conversation I heard on the radio. A mom called in worried about her 5 yr old son. That he liked to wear his sister's clothes, that he cried a lot, that he preferred the color pink, did not play rough, wanted to take tap dance lessons and loved cooking. She was worried he could be gay or transgender. I was at that time a kindergarten teacher and I wanted to call in to tell that my mother, "This is really how many 5 year old boys act! Especially if they are not shamed for doing so. Do not jump to conclusions. He may admire YOU or his sister and want to know what it is like to be you, not because he really wants to be a girl. He may really be a potentially gifted tap dancer (hello Fred Astaire). Also, ALL 5 year old children cry A LOT because their brains are learning emotional regulation. Again, teach them emotional reg skills, not shame because "boys don't cry."
But don't leap to conclusions that these choices equate sexual identification or gender choice.
A very tough, typical boy's boy who loves sports and trucks could choose to be a girl, could be gay. What interests a child is just simply that, an interest and may be interesting to a child for a myriad of reasons.
So I agree with others, that coming to conclusions in either direction is not appropriate and is harmful.
But, creating environments that support empathy, multiple stories, viewpoints and self exploration is the way to go.
When a child says "Pink is a girl's color." I just say, "Pink is a shade of red. Pink and red can be any body's color."
I think it is important to create schools that support trans gender people but without it targeting them or coming to conclusions about children's choices. In kindergarten, that is letting children explore without shame and labels.
In Middle School that is having conversations about gender identity, homosexuality, being human, inclusivity, hateful speech, bias, and bullying. And most importantly, teaching emotional reg skills. It is complex. We do not have conversations in our school about gender issues and identity and we should. In MS this is developmentally appropriate.
But again, not appropriate to sway or influence children's choices in either direction.
I am not even sure if this school district is doing this. Are they educating/training teachers on empathy, child development, and emotional reg skills?

 

[Deleted member 41765]

Apologies to any and all for my tone here yesterday, I was having a rough one, and clearly not capable of expressing myself in a thoughtful manner. While I do have the requisite academic credentials and experience to reinforce my *opinions* it was not my intention to imply that anyone here was ignorant.

 

[shimmerz]

I am actually pretty big on the family unit having the say one what my children or grandchildren are exposed to. I recall when my husband went to school, he was taught a 'new way' of spelling. The guy is absolutely brilliant in so many ways, but I have to be honest... he and the kids that were put in that 'special program' couldn't spell to this day (50 years later), if their lives depended on it.

Then there were my sons. They were taught that 'Yes means no and No means yes'. I was livid! WTF? How am I supposed to be the guiding influence in my children's lives if they were taught such an incredibly conflicting statement? It was insane. I still have no idea what that was supposed to mean to my children/their teachers, but I would have none of it. That was encroaching on my rights as a parent to properly guide my children.

This? I have no problem schools talking about gender when I feel my kids are old enough. That means slightly pre-pubescent to me. By then, I have had the time to make certain that my kids are happy with who they are, that I know how that feels to them before masses of people throw confusion into the mix.

Parents are meant to provide an opportunity for children to be comfortable in their skin. To feel loved, wanted, individual. It is too early for children to have the masses (government/schools/teachers/other kids who are just as confused perhaps with the itinerary) throwing in confusing gender issues that are best presented to children AFTER they have a sense of themselves and when they are old enough to be able to critically think through what is being thrown at them by parties that don't have the child's specific needs in mind.

If the agenda is to teach tolerance, that has nothing to do specifically with gender. It has to do with tolerance. So teach teach tolerance and stop wrapping another agenda into it and call it something it isn't. Tolerance is not calling people fat, stupid, ugly, retarded. It is actually about vive la difference! But then if we taught that, then people who have different ideas about society, work, education, consumerism, would have to be listened to and not called 'mentally ill' or whatever other isolating name is in fashion during that time frame. That wouldn't do, would it now?

I wish people would stop falling for this 'wrap a trendy word in with another' (gender/tolerance) to get them all on board with an agenda that truly, isn't actually as important as perhaps housing the homeless, feeding the poor, having jobs available for people that don't keep them at poverty level.... so many things. How about we just focus on teaching compassion, empathy, individuality as a right, not as a creepy thing. I expect that tolerance would just fall into place after that. For many very real issues.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

I'll be impressed if/when I saw schools teaching the actual facts and life-long effects of a wide majority of the ingredients known to most as food and how significantly those things can change various aspects of our biological make-up....specifically as it relates to our hormones/endocrine system....along with the digestive system...then the respiratory system...then the lymph system...then teach them how to breathe and mindfully consume....then have them teach the other stuff as deemed necessary. Without clear and very accurate knowledge of the most basic of things, the rest of the stuff doesn't seem all that significant, in my informally educated mind.

Oops....forgot to also mention the products being target marketed directly towards children that aren't edible, as well, and are filled with endocrine disrupting stuff that has no required guidelines to inform folks of what it truly is...such as hygiene and cleaning stuff.

 

[Justmehere]

then teach them how to breathe and mindfully consume....then have them teach the other stuff as deemed necessary.

I don’t think the role of the school should be to teach kids how to consume over skills such as reading and math.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

No one suggested they have to replace reading and math with it.....reading and math isn't the topic of what's being asked about in this thread...it's gender issues....just include breath and consumption habits as part of the basics...because it is something very basic that can make or break society as a whole...as we clearly see it in action everyday....or at least some folks do.

 

[scout86]

@Scarlet13 , that was beautifully said! There's no way I could add to it, except to say the kids in your class are lucky!

 

[Justmehere]

@Tornadic Thoughts - The thread is about what age to teach about gender identification in school. You brought up your belief that food consumption and breathing should be the “basics” of what is taught by the school.... and there in lies the problem. Not with your specific opinion per se, but this general tendency to think that the school can be all things to these kids and do it all.

Many adults are going to disagree on what a school should and should not teach - especially when it comes to the identity of a child and sex - and the more we leave all the teaching up to the school to do, the more this disagreement will take greater weight.

Meanwhile, we are ignoring the reality that parents have the primary responsibility to help their children grow into functional adults.

It’s unrealistic to think that government school teachers can be all these things to all these kids. I keep thinking about my friends who are teachers who struggle to get through every day simply managing the classroom and teaching kids how to write and add and tolerate the differences in each other. And now they have to coach identity development and how to consume and how to breathe?

If we want schools to *raise* children, rather than just educate children, then let’s be real that this is the goal. We are talking more about teachers becoming parental replacements when we put this level of responsibility all on the school.

Speaking from my bias as a childhood trauma survivor... I instead think we need to encourage and equip and empower parents to be able to be the best parents they can be more than putting all of this on the schools to teach.

 

[Deleted member 41765]

Speaking from my bias as a childhood trauma survivor...

I have this bias as well, in addition to the bias that my decades of work as an educator has bestowed upon me

I instead think we need to encourage and equip and empower parents to be able to be the best parents they can be

I can speak to this as being a herculean task, and the very one most teachers do not have the time or energy to do (sadly). In addition to this, I've spent an inordinate amount of time over the years mitigating the social/emotional damage done to my students by their family culture (please know I'm not referring to, or implicating any parent who has posted here) in order to clear enough space for any learning to happen. I've grown to believe that teaching the "soft" skills (tolerance, empathy, perseverance etc). has become of equal urgency to the academic ones, which research does support.
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