“Every genuine boy is a rebel and an anarch. If he were allowed to develop according to his own instincts, his own inclinations, society would undergo such a radical transformation as to make the adult revolutionary cower and cringe.”
John Andrew Holmes

What happened to boys? Not that “boys will be boys” sentiment where a guy can get in trouble and we let it go. I mean the thought that boys and girls are not exactly alike - beyond genitalia. I’m worried about boys and when I bring this up I usually get ignored. I’m worried that the largest percent of of people diagnosed with ADHD are boys. I’m worried that in 1999 10-12% of boys between 6 - 14 years old were taking it. I don’t even wanna speculate on what the number is now. I have worked with young people for the last 9 years of my life ranging from age 5 up to hell two years younger than me (I’m still young no matter what my birth certificate says). No matter what anyone tries to pawn on the general public I know that boys and girls are different. The things I had to do to motivate them (as a whole) were not the same. I was once let go and told that part of it was that I roughhoused with the boys. Now folks I’m sorry but, the whole roughhousing thing is some garbage to me. Especially in this case: I could just tell most of the girls it was time to do homework and they would do it. The boys were always restless and wanting to run around until I did something. I “L’d” (Like the shape your arms make in the choke hold) one of them out.

I didn’t choke the kid or anything but, I wrestled with him a little bit. When I stopped and he wanted to keep playing I made a deal, you do your homework first and I’ll L you out. You know what happened? Shorty sat down and did his work. The next day he brought his little homeboy and asked me to L him out as well. I said you know the deal. Them little dudes was doing their homework the way an inmate eats food. The funny thing was I’m thinking the prize they get is me L-ing them out and they love it!!! Eventually I had about 6 little boys everyday working hard on their homework with visions of chokeholds dancing in their heads. So was what I did a bad thing? Did I cause disruption and promote unruly behavior? Or an even better question for the modern folks - when you were little how many little boys did you know who could sit still and listen for 6 hours straight? I sure couldn’t and I wasn’t even disruptive. It’s funny how things that our grandmothers and mothers could work out back then that we suddenly need to medicate people for. I recognize that we are a drug taking culture in this country. Adults will take drugs for anything. If I said I have a drug that will make sure your underwear never rides up I would make a fortune. My question is, is it right that we pass this on to our children. Is it really the move that we don’t engage their energy and drug them to put them in a state that’s easy for us to deal with? I have a rule, whenever a child asks to help me with something I give them something to do. I know too many parents who always tell their children not now, you can’t do anything or some variation and then later in life they wonder why their kid never wants to do anything. I submit that you didn’t engage the interest they initially had so you can’t expect them to have kept it into teenage years. I can’t imagine that we are suddenly unable to deal with our kids. Perhaps part of it is that we leave teachers in bad situations, dealing with too many kids without the authority to do much. In that case who wouldn’t rather have some of them sedated? Honestly, I wouldn’t. I remember a young man at a group home I worked with. He was the one you have to get to in the group. When you get him you have everyone else. He’s the leader, pretty intelligent, charasmatic and open to listen to common sense. I had him, he listened to me. He spread my words to the group, not verbatum per se. He could convert the jewel. He understood what I meant and he could translate it…and he would. But I lost him. We didn’t have a disagreement. He didn’t go home. They finally got his meds. From that point on this boy would sleep all day long. From the time I got there until I left he was knocked out and despite what I said the explanation I was given is, “That’s his meds”. Now I don’t know what his diagnosis was but, I do know what his personality was before meds. Post meds, he wasn’t even there. He wasn’t ever a problem and he was very easy to manage. He was a person before now, he was just a body. I don’t know about you folks but, I think the wildest colts make the best horses.