The rise in ADHD and behavioral issues in schools, particularly among boys under the age of five but also in the primary school years, is a consequence of decades of educating boys in an unnaturally restrained environment that is more appropriate for girls. Boys between the ages 3-6 have large amounts of testosterone that makes them highly energetic and aggressive. They are naturally wired to learn through experiential and physical play, and tactile stimulation. Physical play helps them to sublimate their energy into healthier activities. That means that they learn through digging in the dirt, running around, sports, and physical games, and through imaginary play that is physically acted out. They learn about relationships, problem-solving, boundaries, and socialization through role-playing, such as “I am the king and you are the dragon,” or “I am the cowboy and you are the ninja.” Under the age of five, their right brain, or the social-emotional part, is growing intensely. By age 3, 85% of their right brain is developed if stimulated appropriately by the environment. Boys are not naturally wired for left-brain cognitive learning, such as reading writing, and arithmetic, until at least 6 years of age, and even then, their particular learning styles should be targeted.
We have mistaken their natural impulses in many cases for unnatural impulsivity. Boys are naturally impulsive, risk-taking, and physical in their behavior. Although it is a parent’s role to provide structure in the early years, play—and specifically physical play—is the natural way boys learn. The problem is that we have created a system that goes against the grain of boys’ instincts rather than going with the grain and providing some structure to their unique learning style, which is gender related.
When boys are asked to suppress this energy and aggression rather than sublimate it into healthy activity, they develop high levels of cortisol, the stress hormone that is responsible for the hypervigilance we see in the classroom. When it is turned on, the stress regulating system HPA axis sends human beings into a fight or flight mode of threat response, which makes it more difficult to concentrate. This means that when we ask too much of boys, they go into either fight mode, which makes them more aggressive in the classroom and at home, or flight mode, which makes them more distractable, agitated, and squirmy. These behaviors can resemble the symptoms of ADHD, and I fear many boys are being misdiagnosed and medicated for a disorder that they do not have.
Girls learn differently. They are wired to take fewer risks, to be less physical and impulsive, but they also learn best in the early years through imaginary and free play. They have much less testosterone, which makes their energy levels generally lower than boys, and more capable of sitting for longer periods in front of a teacher. Girls can adapt to circle time or cognitive learning at a younger age, although it also goes against their instincts, which are to learn through right-brain-oriented play.
In 2014, the American Psychological Association reported that girls do better than boys in all school subjects. This indicates that some environmental conditions in schools put boys at a disadvantage. Indeed, according to a 2015 study published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, “the current school environment or climate might be in general more attuned to feminine-typed personalities, which make it—in general—easier for girls to achieve better grades at school.”
When we ask too much of boys, they go into either fight mode, which makes them more aggressive in the classroom and at home, or flight mode, which makes them more distractable, agitated, and squirmy. These behaviors can resemble the symptoms of ADHD, and I fear many boys are being misdiagnosed and medicated for a disorder that they do not have.
Young boys have been forced to try to accommodate to what is asked of them, but they often fail and therefore feel like failures. They squirm, push, and hit as a result of the “fight mode,” and they often seem distracted and may even wander in the classroom as a result of the “flight mode.” It is their developing brains responding to a threat that forces them into an unnatural state of restraint before they are developmentally capable. On the extreme end, they may become oppositional and defiant with the teacher, again a survival instinct. But take boys out of that classroom and put them outside on a playground, or a soccer field, or in a garden digging dirt, and you will see how focused they can become. Teach them through play the lessons of sharing, caring, and rules of games, and they can learn quickly and easily. The same boy, who in the contained classroom may have squirmed, hit other children, called out of turn, or wandered around, may become a better listener, and team player, focused on the rules of games, and interested in asking questions about why butterflies form cocoons.
Low self-esteem is another consequence of forcing boys into unnatural learning environments at too early an age. Labeling, shaming, and marginalizing boys who cannot adapt to the learning environment better suited for girls can impact how those children see themselves in the world. Once they begin to see themselves as a failure or a problem child, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy going forward. This label can stick for a lifetime and may have a long-term impact on their identity and mental health. Boys who are highly active and physical learners are punished for their high energy and pathologized in such a way that they internalize their diagnosis, become depressed, anxious, and develop feelings of inadequacy, and hopelessness.
The solution to this gender imbalance at school, which is doing great harm to little boys, is to create educational environments for them that match their learning style and that are more geared toward their natural physical inclinations. For instance, most boys-only preschools and primary schools offer boys the freedom to be educated in an environment that is more in line with their development and their abilities. These single-sex schools can provide them with a peer group who learn in a similar manner rather than setting them up for failure by comparing them to girls who learn quite differently. Single-sex education in the early years has also proven to be a positive experience for girls, who feel more comfortable away from the high energy and aggression of little boys, but are also more likely to try more masculine activities and sports when they are not in competition with boys. Boys educated in boys-only environments are more likely to try more traditionally feminine activities, such as music and the arts when not being compared to little girls.
Boys need multiple play/recess periods per day rather than one recess for 15 minutes, which is common in co-ed environments. Boys can only learn in short spurts under the age of 6, but even into primary school, when given enough time for physical release and physical play, they can more easily sublimate their energies into schoolwork. This can only happen if their time playing is more balanced with their time learning.
By denying the gender-based differences in the way children learn, we are pathologizing and incapacitating boys in a way that will cause harm to them and society over the long term. This puts us in a cycle of misdiagnosing and overmedicating little boys. Educational leaders must take steps to reduce penalization for masculine behavior in school so that the gender disparity in education can begin to become rebalanced, and our boys can once again thrive academically, socially, and mentally.
Erica Komisar, LCSW is a psychoanalyst and author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters and Chicken Little the Sky Isn’t Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety.