12 Things Your Son Needs You to Understand About Him

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Did you realize that there are just certain things that your son needs you to understand about him? These things aren’t necessarily hard, but they are very important.

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I wrote about teen girls in 4 Things You Must Know as the Mom of a Teen Girl, so it’s time to give boys their turn. I was raised in a family of all girls, and other than one family, I think I only babysat for girls, too.

When I found out I was expecting my first son, I will admit that I was scared. I didn’t know the first thing about boys, and I am glad we found out at the ultrasound since I needed the four months leading up to his birth to get over the fear that having a son covered me with.

Having had a daughter first, I felt even more like a fish out of water when he was born. I think I asked the nurses in the hospital how to change his diaper at least 20 times.

He was a fussy baby, but once we got beyond that stage, life became an adventure, and it has remained that way ever since. There is something so sweet about being a mom to a son, and I now have four! It makes me laugh that my sons now outnumber my daughters.

If you have both boys and girls in your family, you know just how drastically different they are. It is so important not to make one fit into the mold of the other, especially where boys are concerned. Boys are not something to be “fixed,” and their unique traits need to be directed rather than squelched. I am so thankful for great friends, who all seem to have several boys, who have opened my eyes to normalcy of my sons when it comes to the male species.

My oldest son is now 12, and he is still teaching me new things every day, but these are among the most monumental discoveries I have made while being his mom.

1. Boys enjoy getting dirty. In many cases, boys don’t even notice they are dirty in the first place.
2. Boys challenge authority more often than girls do. Or maybe it is just that girls are more passive/aggressive in their challenging, which makes it less obvious than when their boy counterparts challenge authority.
3. Boys are more active – even appearing hyperactive during their younger years. This mellows out over time, but boys often seem to be doing something whether they are tapping their pencil, playing imaginarily drums, or making some sort of noise while they do their schoolwork.
4. Boys express themselves physically while girls express themselves verbally. When a girl is upset with her brother, she may call him a nasty name while he will be more inclined to push her down. There is a big difference between acting aggressively because he was made that way and just being a bully. He will need to learn how to handle that aggression in a productive, non-aggressive way just as our daughters need to learn not to slice into others with their words.
5. Just because boys are less verbal, it does not mean they are not thoughtful, not pensive, or not analyzing something. He just doesn’t need to talk about it like girls do.
6. Boys are fearless by nature. When girls test the waters with their toe, boys jump right in only to realize the water is filled with snakes after the fact. Woopsie!
7. Even if their work doesn’t always reflect it, boys are always learning much more than we think they are.
8. Boys like to win because of how it makes them look to others whereas a girl generally like to win because of how it makes her feel.
9. Just because boys aren’t expressing their feelings, it doesn’t mean they aren’t having them.
10. Boys, just like men, will avoid asking for directions or help unless they have to. They will exhaust all possibilities they can come up with first. Don’t take it personally or let it make you get angry. Just accept it as fact and move on.
11. Girls see blood as a cause for sympathy while boys see blood as a trophy to brag about.
12. Clean to boys will rarely look like clean does to their mothers.

I’m thinking I will do a second part to this list in the future. My sons just never cease to amaze me. Boys truly are fearfully and wonderfully made to be the young men of the next generation.

What have your sons taught you?!