Boys Will Be Boys

Disclaimer - I'm opinionated. I'm also wrong most of the time. My ideas change constantly, but this is how I'm currently feeling about being a mother of boys. 

With that said, Americans are too tolerant! Parents are lacking their much needed back bones when it comes to raising children. I constantly hear "Boys will be boys" or "girls will be girls" meaning "Well, she wants to wear a bikini to school and demands to be called princess at all times, what can I do? She's a girl?" or "He broke all our dishes and runs through the house like a banshee...boys will be boys!".

AHHH!!!! Parents, we are not victims. We are in charge!!

As a mother of two active boys, I am constantly reworking my thoughts on how to raise these tiny humans. SURE, they need a physical outlet and yes, they LOVE anything that shoots, BUT we are their parents! We can decide how quickly we rush through each stage of boyhood. We can keep some things away for a time until they are older. Heck, we can say "NO" if we want to. 

Dan and I have had conversations about guns and video games since Elijah was born. We do not see eye to eye on these things, but have decided they can do most anything, just on other people's turf. I know, it's pretty oposite of what most other parents say, but it comes down to the fact that I do NOT like guns and we cannot afford a video game obsession. If the boys want to shoot some cans with uncle Jesse, that's great! He's a very responsible teacher and would be a great mentor to the boys in that area (and others as well!). If the boys want to stay up all night playing video games, awesome! Do it at someone else's house on their big screen TV because we just can't afford all the gadgets.

In the mean time, we love providing our boys with an outlet, a way for them to just. be. boys. You can keep your kids active by including them in daily activities like washing dishes and have them help with the cooking or yard work. They don't know it's a chore yet, so take advantage!! It's a great way to spend time together while also working their little hands and their brains.

We've also found that foam swords are a huge hit in our house (pun intended. now you know how funny i am.). We create an entire scene where the girls or I are in trouble and we need a protector! The boys loves playing out the story and adding to the details and building characters with accents and everything.

We've also gotten into Imaginext and Rescue Heroes. These toys/shows are great because the bad guy is always a natural disaster and the guys have to work together as a team (instead of one guy being the best with freaky evil vilans).

We also recently got a punching bag. The boys beat it up, jump on it and throw it at each other. It's the perfect way to get out aggression without hurting anyone at all!

Boys will be boys and they need to be rough and tumble every day or they will never fall asleep at night.  I just think sometimes parents allow a little too much too fast. These boys are first our babies and so need to be carefully brought up so they can someday be respectful loving men.