Leonard Sax Quotations

There's no such thing as a child; there are only boys and girls. Even if you present a 6-month-old male baby with a choice between a truck and doll, he's going to choose the truck.

A lot of 5-year-old boys are not ready to sit still and be quiet. After a year of this, they have decided they don't like school, and once they decide they don't like school, it is very hard to change their minds.

This phenomenon cuts across all demographics. You'll find it in families both rich and poor; black, white, Asian and Hispanic; urban, suburban and rural. According to the Census Bureau, fully one-third of young men ages 22 to 34 are still living at home with their parents ? a roughly 100 percent increase in the past 20 years. No such change has occurred with regard to young women. Why?

If you talk to many people in the Northeast and the West Coast, they don't believe in gender differences, and they are not interested in hearing about it. But I have found that in the South, there is a lot of interest. They have not made up their minds before you begin to talk.

Girls and boys respond to stress differently - not just in our species, but in every mammal scientists have studied. Stress enhances learning in males. The same stress impairs learning in females.

If we fail to provide boys with pro-social models of the transition to adulthood, they may construct their own. In some cases, gang initiation rituals, street racing, and random violence may be the result.