Boys who are “mollycoddled” as babies and toddlers are more likely to grow into men who will be more successful at work and in their relationships than babies who are taught to be tough.
Dr Sebastian Kraemer, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Whittington Hospital, London, told delegates at the annual conference that if boys are treated in a gentler fashion, it has a permanent positive impact on the developing brain.
“You hardwire in self-confidence that is not based on bluster, a self-confidence that is genuine and doesn’t need to be constantly asserted. In other words, you will have a more confident but less aggressive adult male.”
In a talk entitled ‘The Fragile Male’, Dr Kraemer said that if boys were treated like girls as babies they would become better at self-control. “Boys would act more like girls, not in a more feminine way, but more like a girl in that they would be able to hold themselves together. Boys would be less prone to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and would perform better at school. So don’t toughen up baby boys. It will not make them tough. Boys are more fragile and need to be picked up.”
Right from the start, males are more vulnerable, said Dr Kraemer. When a woman was under stress, either individually or during a war or natural disaster, more girls were conceived. Research has shown that male foetuses are more likely to die in the womb and, once born, are three weeks behind in their development than girls. “More males are lost or damaged in the womb than girls – everything that can go wrong in obstetrics goes wrong to boys,” said Dr Kraemer.
Boys are twice as likely as girls to suffer from reading difficulties, autism and Asperger’s syndrome and to show disruptive behaviour. Boys were more psychologically vulnerable to their parents divorcing or their mother suffering from post natal depression. In adolescence, more girls than boys self-harm and have eating disorders, but boys are more violent, with four out of five crimes being committed by men.