The Competition

At some stage of development—there’s no hard and fast rule—girls and boys begin to realize that there are, indeed, differences between them.  Boys want to play athletic activities and video games.  Girls play house and with dolls.  Battle lines are drawn, and at summer camps everywhere one sex starts to tease or mock the other about which one is better.

At this stage of the game, I believe that both sexes are finding that they actually might have some feelings for one another—something beyond the norm—and not know how to cope with these feelings, they decide to attempt to establish superiority.

Boys Rule, Girls Drool

It’s at this stage that the person you believed you understood totally because all that was different was hair length has evolved into someone you could never possibly understand.  She went from being your best friend to being someone that wants to play house with you—more.  She wants to kiss you, you notice that she’s softer than you are, and that she’s not always interested in the things you are.

You also notice that she wants to control you—already.

It’s at this stage that I don’t believe there’s a big problem with modesty in that these boys really don’t know enough about marital relations to look at girls as an object of lust—and yet at the same time they have emotions and mixed desires that they don’t fully know how to process.

This is also a time where you have to watch out for those children that “know more” than others—because they will love to express their knowledge of things that will ruin your child’s innocence, and really confuse them.

The other thing that can happen here is for children to want to “play doctor”, which may entail dropping of drawers to pretend to do an exam.  To me, this is something that should be avoided.

But for the most part, a boy is getting feelings at this stage, but is not—usually—looking at a girl much differently than at the previous stage:

• She’s different.
• She may be “pretty.”
• He may or may not believe he will marry his friend.
• He may avoid girls or say that he hates them if they express emotion at him.

Maintaining purity here means in keeping innocent.  It’s also advisable to encourage boys and girls at this age to not be so harsh to each other and realize what they have to contribute to one another—instead of fueling the fires of animosity toward one another.