Are boys really that boring!

[Bear2300]

My son is so easy peasy to his needs unlike my daugthers. He is very basic too, even in his school work. I mean my girls will add color my yougnest (12) will try to glitter, paint whatever to make her work stand out. My son, pencil only and he's quite happy with his work. I am a mom who was creative with her children in their younger years. Our craftiness is pretty much gone but I do enjoy seeing colorful notebooking which my son is determined not to use a lick of color without protest.

[Barb_]

Glitter is messy and color is unnecessary. I agree with your son. The beauty of homeschooling is that we can allow self-expression in whatever form it takes.

[Elizabeth86]

My son is pretty boring lol. He can do workbooks all day long. He never complains about writing, but as sokn as the directions say color he melts down. For the record I dont require him to color.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Elizabeth86

[Tanaqui]

You've got a sample size of one. I don't think that's enough boys to make any sort of definitive statement about the entire gender :)

[Selkie]

Neither of my boys were ever into coloring or glitter, but they are far from boring.

[Bear2300]

I am mean mama/teacher and I make him use color pencils in his science notebook.  His sister (17) just told him to not to protest or I will make him do more :D

It's my last year of teaching science at home for him so I am trying to get all I can before he takes Biology outside the home. (done with messy experiments in the house)

[...................]

Boy or no boy, I think it's very important to require preschoolers and k and maybe 1st grades to color something every day becusde it really does build hand strength.

 

After that why?

 

My son has always been pretty compliant and happy with his school as well. It's a huge blessing. I never thought of it as boring lol...

[Guest]

My oldest doesn't like to color for school. I only make her color when there is a specific reason (such as making a scientific diagram easier to read) and then I explain the reason. I did have to let go at one point the personal desire to have her work look really nice and Pinterest-y. That's not her and it doesn't help her learn.

[Elizabeth86]

Neither of my boys were ever into coloring or glitter, but they are far from boring.

Well my boys are not boring, but just boring when it comes to things like this.

[Guest]

That's how all six of my boys are, but our lives are far from boring.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Kinsa

[JudoMom]

Neither of my boys were ever into coloring or glitter, but they are far from boring.

Exactly! Mine never wanted to (in their minds) waste time with unnecessary things like color or glitter on schoolwork. They wanted to finish so they could move along to the important things, like building things or making movies or having Nerf sword battles or drawing what interested them or 100s of other non- boring things.

[HomeAgain]

Yeah, coloring doesn't cut it here, either.  You should see his mapwork when he has to fill in large sections! :lol:

 

But boring?  No.  My boy wants things that are tangible and worth the effort.  He wants more in his day that is active: building, climbing, cooking, making, running...there is nothing boring about what he does each day!

[73349]

Mine doesn't even want to do the pencil drawing. He'll paint, though.

[fairfarmhand]

Many boys just don't care about making things pretty. And that's okay. Not boring. Just different.

 

 

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[fairfarmhand]

By the way, my son uses color and draws. It's always green and brown because he's always drawing tanks and oh yeah, red and yellow as he draws fire from the tanks blowing things up.

 

 

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[JudoMom]

By the way, my son uses color and draws. It's always green and brown because he's always drawing tanks and oh yeah, red and yellow as he draws fire from the tanks blowing things up.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I'm doing some handwriting remediation with the younger two this year, using The Good and The Beautiful.  There are some places for the student to draw pictures.  There have been many battle scenes drawn.  The juxtaposition made me laugh the first time I saw it.

[Jame]

My son isn't one to dress up his work with glitter and paint either, but that's because he'd rather spend his time doing something else; playing with legos or his angry bird block set. Writing is not one of his favorite things to do. Although, when it comes to circling the correct answer, he always has to draw fancy shapes around the answer, lol. 

[ScoutTN]

My boy is hilarious, often infuriating, and Never boring!

 

He does like to draw with gel pens. Mostly star wars or superheroes or something from a book he's reading.

 

Boy clothes are boring compared to girls' clothes, but it is nice to have something be easy!

[Arctic Bunny]

I never thought I would hear someone wish for more glitter use. I was so happy to give those unused craft things away!!!

[Lori D.]

Two non-glitter, non-coloring, DSs here who were incredibly creative and not-boring when it came to imaginative play, building with Legos, making short videos, planning strategies for air-soft wars with their buddies, etc...

 

Perhaps it's time to get more creative with your definition of "creativity". ;)

 

How about opening up the "output" to more than just coloring? Let DS build hands-on of what is being studied, take a photo, print and add to the notebook. Let him do a power-point presentation or create a video*; save on a disk, and slip the disk into the notebook. Perhaps even take a few screenshots, print, and include those in the notebook.

 

* = (LOTS of very creative ways of putting his learning into practice in a video* -- he could make a short documentary, recreate an event of history, do it as a newscast/interview, make a music video, do it as a funny spoof...)

 

Or, maybe DS is a "just the facts ma'am" kind of guy -- wants to do his research, write his paper, print, and be done. If learning is happening with that, then let him move on and use the time he would have spent being bored by coloring on pursuing personal interests and developing meaningful skills and projects. :)

 

If having coloring in the notebook is important to you, another option is to sit with DS while he's working, and YOU do the coloring. And use that together time to discuss the topic. Then you'll have your color, DS will have learned in the way that works for him, and together you made a meaningful memory by working side-by-side and discussing. Go family team!   :cheers2:  

 

 

 

ETA -- PS, just saw your additional post:

 

I am mean mama/teacher and I make him use color pencils in his science notebook.  His sister (17) just told him to not to protest or I will make him do more  :D

 

:crying:  Not everyone is a visual learner, and coloring is not a meaningful way to learn and memorize for everyone. Being forced to do something you dislike or that doesn't match your learning style does not promote learning -- rather the reverse. :( JMO, but color in a science notebook is not a hill I would choose to die on in homeschooling.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Lori D.

[Loowit]

None of my kids enjoyed coloring.  I tried to get them to notebook for school and they hated it.  I would have loved it as a child, so thought they would to, but alas they did not.  I did send them to MIL's house once a week when they were younger for art class.  She is an artist who uses many mediums in her art.  She worked with them on what they enjoy and they brought home some pretty cool stuff, but art never really seemed to be their "thing".  Fast forward a few years and my DD is planning to go into animation and art, and she is very good at it.  My boys still aren't really into art or making things pretty, but that's okay, they have their own things that make the world a 'prettier" place.  My boys also have fine motor delays and dysgraphia so it makes it harder for them to color or draw for long periods of time.

[hollyhock]

I have one son out of four who really liked colouring. When he was 2, he coloured every single morning while the older two did school work. My girl likes colouring, but it took her a while. She didn't like it at all when she was 3, but now at 4 she does some every day.

[nixpix5]

Well having 4 boys told me they are all different.

 

DS1 is the artist in the family. Long, elaborate stories from 5yo on, tons of coloring, painting, sculpting, he is quite arts focused. He loved any assignment that allowed him to be creative.

 

DS2 is the one who hates all things artistic. Do not ask him to draw or color at all. His super amazing neo art class in private school just about gave him an anxiety attack. He still acts like he has PTSD from it and it was 14 years ago. He wouldn't even draw in math when asked to. He just hated it in all forms.

 

DS3 loves color. Just today he was doing a spelling you see copy work rotating colored pencils for each letter. He just thought it would look cool. He loves to embellish his work.

 

DS4 is quite the artist but wants to have free flow creativity. He hates to have to color or draw when instructed to specifically. He will do it, but not his favorite.

 

DD is in the middle. Some days she thinks it's fun but most days she is a get-down-to-business kid. She doesn't want too much fluff. It has to be meaningful and leading to a learning objective for her.

[Rush]

I m boring mummy :laugh:  I hate colouring and any kind of glitters too, but I'm a very creative person with a vivid imagination. My kids are the same and I don't blame them :001_smile:

Edited September 27, 2017 by rushhush08

[boscopup]

My boys aren't boring at all, but they don't like to decorate or color their work either. IF they decorate it, it's usually just making things blow up. Sigh.

 

Their sentences are typically very creative though. I might have to threaten them to get the sentences written, because 2 of the 3 are pencil phobic, but they do have fun with their sentences. :)

 

Mostly, my boys would rather be playing outside or playing with Legos or doing stuff on the computer. They don't want to be doing school. They certainly aren't going to waste time doodling with colors and using glitter. :)

[Garga]

My boys see zero need to spruce up the way their papers look. My constant refrain is, "For goodness sake, man! At least make it legible!" If I can get them to write legibly and skip lines when appropriate, I feel we've had success.

 

I am the kind of person that likes my papers to look good. I like them to be legible with centered titles and with neat spacing and so forth. They just want to slap the information on the paper and move on with their day.

 

My rules are "legible" "dated" (because I have to create a portfolio and need to know when they did what work) "skip lines between questions."

 

If I can manage to get that, I'm a happy teacher. Well, maybe not happy, but am a resigned teacher.

 

And I know I'm not the only one with kids who are perfectly fine with messy, scribbly papers because my 15 yo's online Algebra II teacher tells them with CAP LOCKS and !!!! exclamation points to show their work neatly and NOT TO WRITE UP THE SIDE OF THE PAPER.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Garga

[RenaInTexas]

ds10 seldom ventures beyond black and white.

[OneStepAtATime]

I hate glitter.  I hate the feel of colored pencils on paper.  I can tolerate crayon.  My son is the same.  But he and I are plenty creative.  We are just not Pintresty lets color every last little thing creative.  We are creative in other ways.   

 

My husband has no desire to color a single thing.  Ever.  But he is also very creative.  Just not in that way.

 

My daughter is an excellent artist.  She paints/sketches/sculpts/writes poetry etc. etc.  She also hates glitter and colored pencils and won't paint or color her school notebooks or school work unless there is a specific reason something needs to be colored (color coding a graph, for instance).  She has always been this way.  I never forced her to color something she had no interest in coloring unless there was a specific need within the assignment.  She is amazingly creative.  She just doesn't see the point of spending time coloring things where it really isn't necessary.

 

Your son may not be boring at all and may have lots of creativity.  He just maybe isn't in to the same things you see as creative.  

[J-rap]

My ds was/is very creative, although I guess I rarely offered glitter as a craft option!

 

[LMD]

My oldest son was never interested in colouring, he still won't do any neat work... My middle son, age 7, loves drawing, he has a whole folder of detailed drawings of characters he's made up. He has always had a very rich and creative inner life! My youngest son is only 3 but he loves painting.

 

My daughter is arty too, I used to get multicoloured writing assignments :rofl:

[Kiara.I]

My mother taught English at the university level. She actually had to TEACH her first years not to put art on the front page of their essays!

 

Colour doesn't belong on higher level scholastic work except in very specific applications.

 

I truly don't understand the merit in forcing it at younger ages either, except in art class.

 

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[sweet2ndchance]

4 boys and 2 girls here. Only my youngest daughter was into glitter and lots of color for everything. My older daughter was more of a tomboy but did become more crafty when she reached the tween and teenage years but not in the form of art on paper; she likes making jewelry, sewing, weaving and knitting.

 

My oldest son preferred pencil drawings for everything from the time he could hold a writing utensil. He is grown now and actual is pretty talented at pencil and charcoal drawings but his creative side really shines in story writing. He has been writing his own stories and novels, of his own volition, since he was in first grade. I encouraged him to use to color when he was young, but I never made him. My thought was that it was his drawing, not mine, and as long as he was paying attention to detail, who cares if it's in color? Pencil drawings are still art.

 

My next two boys were allergic to pencil and paper when they were young. One ended up diagnosed as dysgraphic, the other just doesn't like to write he'd rather be outside building and doing. But they both are still very creative in their own ways. The older one with dysgraphia has a wonderful sense of humor and is very witty with words, he just needs to type instead of write, which in this day and age is perfectly fine since the shear act of handwriting is very difficult for him. The younger one can build anything and loves being outside with animals and can creatively build what he needs to meet his animals needs.

 

My youngest son, he is only 4 and the only one still at home, he doesn't mind writing, drawing and coloring. Sometimes he uses lots of color, sometimes not but I can already tell that drawing is not where his creativity lies, he is already a master creative problem solver. This is the kid who will amaze you with his ability to figure out how to get the candy you put on top of the fridge, he will take everything apart to see how it works AND put it back together and it still works, he loves rube-goldberg machines and even once he has solved the puzzle, he wants to do it over again and see if it can be solved another way. If that's not creativity, I don't know what is.

 

I guess all I'm trying to say is that creativity isn't just glitter and crayons, creativity comes in many many flavors and styles. I homeschooled my children in order to get to know who they were and build up their unique strengths. That includes finding out where their individual creativity lies.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

In the early years of Saxon math, there are many problems where the student is asked to draw a car or a cat or a dog or some other item for counting.  It might be something like "Draw two red socks and three blue socks.  How many socks are there all together."

 

My youngest very quickly tired of doing realistic representations.  He would do circles or squares, then move onto the math concept.  I was good with that, because the goal was to move the student from counting "real" things to using numbers as representations of things that might not really be there.  This kid is in high school now and does intricate origami (sometimes creating scenes with origami figures from multiple books that he has scaled up or down) and balsa wood towers.  So not boring, just not interested in drawing socks or cats for math if he didn't have to.

 

On the other hand, his older brother is a comic genius with drawings.  He did an illustrated book of Buzz Lightyear and Zurg around 1st grade.  There were some pretty funny math pages where he drew space robots and star ships fighting in the margins of his college calculus notes to help him stay on track in class.  

 

But glitter?  Um, no.

Edited September 28, 2017 by Sebastian (a lady)

[MotherGoose]

I don't think the OP meant her post to denigrate all males as boring :) my boy is not boring at all, he's to busy trying to destroy the house to worry about pretty.

[Rhapsody]

I have one of each!

[goldenecho]

Well, my son isn't...he likes to homeschool using his imagination.  We have toy "classmates" the learn with us, sort of like playing school, only with real lessons.   And he creates elaborate stories and backgrounds for them.

 

But guess what...he likes to draw in pencil too (or dry erase marker...just one color), most of the time, and doesn't like to spend time coloring usually.   I've stopped introducing craft projects cause most of the time he's just not interested (now and then I catch him though...like when we learned about ancient China he spent hours making Chinese words!). 

 

My other older boys (not homeschooled), always made elaborate things with legos (even made working transformers that changed from vehicle to robot...and not from directions!), and one still writes comic strips and makes animated flip books and does you tube videos.   And my middle child loved glitter when he was younger.

 

It's all relative.   Kids show creativity in different ways.

[Guest]

I just looked at your sig...your DS is a TEEN and you're making him color??

[Artichoke]

Well. no offense,  But I did kind of lol at the title.  Mom-in-law,  who is amazing in my eyes, raised three incredibly  un-boring  boys, then we had our three plus the dd who gave as good as she got, and now I have three grandsons :-)   Boring is never a word that I would use  :lol:

Edited September 29, 2017 by Artichoke

[Barb_]

I just looked at your sig...your DS is a TEEN and you're making him color??

Yeah...I wondered the same

[Arcadia]

I am thankful I don’t need to clean glitter or paints off carpets and walls :)

 

My numerous (more than 30) nephews and nieces are not boring. They are perpetually up to mischief as kids. None likes to color. They rather sculpture and/or take wonderful photos. My granduncle makes wonderful furniture for free out of wood scraps and gift people things like handmade rocking horses, child size rocking chair, coffee tables.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Arcadia

[Bear2300]

I guess I should have been more direct.  This post was school related not life related.  Crayons, markers and other elementry related supplies are a thing of the past.  Now it's better quauilyty drawing and color pencils along with a wee bit better quaily paper depending on project.  My DD12 loves to use color pencils and markers still in her science binder but the 17DD and 13 DS just stick to color pencils.  The oldest does it cuz she been doing it pretty much forever and just goes with it now she highlights everything in her college binders/notebooks.

DS13 likes to just read, answer questions, quickie drawing with or without labels and move on. This drives me nuts because I love to dig in on the fun topics like life science and history.  Be quick and boring with mathmatics and language arts.  okay I do use color in english, i do on the dry earase board when we review or diagram (Rod and Staff english)

Plus I am visual and like color.  I also remember in Jr. High doing lots of drawings and making things in our history/geography class and science classes and try to recrate some of the fun stuff and not so fun stuff from that time frame.

 

My son is creative. He has a workbench right next to his desk in his bedroom.  He is all boy with his guns, RC cars and Xbox, baseball and loves nearly anything military.  Just when it comes to school, it's all black n white and hates the grey area which includes color in his notebooks.

[Kiara.I]

I'm a girl and colour in my notebooks isn't happening, except for diagrams that require it, and most don't.

 

So I guess girls are boring too. ;)

 

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[Critterfixer]

 

My son is creative. He has a workbench right next to his desk in his bedroom.  He is all boy with his guns, RC cars and Xbox, baseball and loves nearly anything military.  Just when it comes to school, it's all black n white and hates the grey area which includes color in his notebooks.

He doesn't sound boring to me. It sounds like he prefers the simplicity of black and white drawings. That's fine, and not boring. 

[Guest]

Not a specific kind of creative =/= boring.

[Lori D.]

...DS13 likes to just read, answer questions, quickie drawing with or without labels and move on. This drives me nuts because I love to dig in on the fun topics like life science and history...

 

...Plus I am visual and like color.  I also remember in Jr. High doing lots of drawings and making things in our history/geography class and science classes...

 

...My son...  when it comes to school, it's all black n white and hates the grey area which includes color in his notebooks.

 

That's a great description of people with two different learning styles. :)

 

You are highly visual. DS is clearly not. ;) Nothing wrong with that at all, but it does mean that just because color clicks and makes facts "stick" for *you*, doesn't mean it does anything for *DS*. Adding color and elaborate drawings may be meaningless busy-work for him. For comparison: imagine you take a class in which the teacher is a highly auditory learner, and requires you to make an audio recording each week of the new vocabulary words and terms for the processes you are learning. The teacher requires this because the teacher memorizes and learns great from that technique -- however, it is meaningless busy-work for you. ;) (And possibly burdensome, if required busy-work takes away from your time to learn the terms and processes in the way that works for *you*.)

 

The key here is to come up with a good compromise between what it takes for *DS* to learn and remember, and with what *you* need for required output.

 

For the learning: if it just takes reading/answering questions and quickie black and white drawings for DS to *learn* -- then mission accomplished, and no need for elaborate extras.  :thumbup1:   Is DS doing well on quizzes and tests? In discussion? On papers? Then there is clear learning happening, even without color.

 

For the output: consider what you really *need* for "output". You already very likely have quiz and test scores, a few history research papers, and science lab write-ups. And, of course, the "intangible" output of discussion. Consider what else might be useful as output, vs. what would be nice but not absolutely necessary.

 

For example, college classes often require students to prepare a power-point or slide show and give an oral presentation, so requiring that as output from time to time (in place of some notebooking pages) would definitely be useful practice, plus it is tangible proof of learning. If DS is doing a Science Fair project or 4-H project or other project that will be displayed at a public venue, then putting together a visually appealing tri-fold board that makes it easy for people to understand your project might be a useful form of output to do as a substitute for some notebook pages, as the need for a tri-fold display arises. You mentioned that DS has a workbench in his room, so I would guess he is mechanical/engineering-minded -- nurture his personal interest (which might lead to a career path!) by substituting a hands-on project for History in place of notebooking pages from time to time.

 

I'm not suggesting that you entirely dump the notebooking, esp. if it is valuable and important to your homeschooling. Instead, perhaps reduce the required amount of volume, and then schedule an unpressured block of time with everyone knowing what the expectation of product is. For example: once every 2 weeks, schedule 90 minutes for completing 2-3 carefully-done, labeled, colored pages. Alternate between Science and History, so that once a month 2-3 pages are added to Science, and once a month 2-3 pages are added to History or Geography. By the end of a year, there will be around 20-24 pages added to each of two notebooks. And you will have had the time to produce other forms of meaningful output as well (papers, lab reports, power-point presentation, etc.).

 

BEST of luck in finding the balance that works best for your family! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Lori D.

[sweet2ndchance]

Just some observations...

 

It sounds like you want him to conform to your learning style. Based on his habits and interests, I would guess he is more of a kinesthetic learner. That is why you are getting resistance to colorful assignment requirements. I bet if you had him build a model of some kind instead of draw a colorful picture, he would blow you away with his creativity.

 

I'm also willing to bet money that even though you have fond memories of those junior high coloring assignments, there were plenty of kids who struggled to pass the class because it went against their natural learning style.

 

It has been suggested in the public education community that one reason boys tend not to thrive in elementary school is because the vast majority of elementary teachers are women and women are often visual learners and so they design their lessons to appeal to a visual learner forgetting that most little boys and some little girls are not visual learners.

[2_girls_mommy]

I'm teaching history using SOTW2 at co-op this year. I basically spend a few minutes giving the highlights from a chapter, a few dates, a bit of review and discussion, then we move onto creating a notebook page for their notebooks using suggestions from the AG. We have spent a lot of the time practicing calligraphy this year and making the designs for the edges of illuminated pages. I have plenty of boys in the class that are really into this. 

[drjuliadc]

It is more fun to teach a child with your learning style. I say let the OP whine a little about it. Haha.

 

Out of my 4 kids, my only girl is the only one who likes to be read to so far. I am so thrilled, finally. My youngest, who are twins, just turned two and she just started asserting herself in this regard.

 

Being able to teach the way I want to is just easier. I still teach the other 3 too.

[Guest]

My sons go through phases. They can be so easy that people think I must be a troll and they must be imaginary and then all of a sudden they hit a bump in the road and turn into drama kings for awhile.

 

They tend to be easier to understand than my daughters and the misunderstandings aren't as painful.

 

They are a lot more sensitive than the sonless realize. One of mine is currently recovering from a broken heart. It would be easier if they would cry or draw moustaches on their ex-crushes pictures the way girls do, but they grieve in masculine ways and they heal in their own time.

 

They nurture. My oldest son is sixteen years older than my youngest son and he loves being a big brother. The fact that he's a big scary looking body builder who can and would put somebody in the hospital if they so much as said "Yo mama!" doesn't look like nurturing or protecting if you grew up in an all-female household, but it is when the consequences of longevity make you vulnerable.

 

I only have two girls and two boys so that's not really enough statistical data to answer your question but my off the cuff response is "Absolutely not! They're just different."

 

I never wanted sons. I always said, "When I grow up I'm gonna have a little girl and..." but I sure am glad I got what I got instead of what I wanted.

 

Sons are so much fun. <3

Edited October 1, 2017 by Guest

[misty.warden]

LOL I'm a girl who loves workbooks and hated coloring until I was an adult (I still don't love craft glitter or arts in general) but my son loves all things crafty and creative.