Verbal and physical interaction - Gender perspective
Parents and caregivers can deliberately or unconsciously transfer their own gender biases to their children. From a young age, girls may be praised for their looks, whilst boys are encouraged for their physical strength. Parents may treat girls as more vulnerable while boys may be encouraged to ‘be strong’. Parents may be more overtly physically affectionate towards girls while more stoic towards boys. Therefore, through a system of social incentives and penalties, girls and boys are gradually taught to behave according to the pre-defined, accepted norms of their gender. Often by age three, children can begin identifying themselves as girls and boys, and by age five children can tell you “what girls do” and “what boys do”. In some contexts, girls are treated with greater neglect, for example provided lesser nutritional intake than boys, not provided primary health care, encouraged to take responsibility for household chores, etc. Moreover, social practices like child marriage, early unions and FGM/C further promote discriminatory gender norms (Lundberg, 2005).
Tips for parents:
- Ensure children of all genders are provide with equal and adequate nutritional and health services
- Ensure children of all genders are treated with love and care and grow
- Parents and caregivers should refrain from strongly asserting gender identities on their children, while allowing a nurturing environment that enables learning and growth of individual agency
- Provide children with experiences including toys and games that are stereotypically associated with the opposite gender
- Ensure that parents and caregivers display gender-neutral behaviours or participate in behaviours stereotypically associated with the opposite gender, e.g. fathers cooking in the kitchen, mothers participating in outdoor sports, etc
- Encourage children of all genders to express their feelings and be emotionally open and honest towards children
- Parents and caregivers are encouraged to participate in parenting training and education programs to enable development of their own skills and enhance awareness of their own biases
