Understanding our son's behavior

[cajman]

To begin this, this is something we have been dealing with for about 11/2 yrs. now. Our son, who is 81/2, has a fascination with womens long hair, drawing pictures of them, and playing with our daughters' dolls. Now, he has male figures that he plays with, but he always wants to go get one of their dolls to play with the male figures. At first, we thought this was ok because he played with both sexes of dolls at the same time. Eventually though, he started leaving the male dolls in his room and sneaking into our daughters' room and getting the female dolls. He would then hide them in his pants pockets and wander around with them. It was not until one of our daughters saw him sneaking the dolls that we found out about it. Evertime we go shopping, he now wants to get a female doll. When we tell him he's not going to get one, he would try to sneak them out of the store. We have been trying different things to try to sway him from carrying the dolls around all the time. We have hidden the dolls, punished him for sneaking them, and threw away the ones our daughters did not want. He still would find them and hide them in his room. I am trying to find out if he may outgrow this one day or do I need to take him to see someone. We are at wits end. Please help!

[justadad]

If you take him to see someone you're certifying his behavior as a bonafide problem. That will weigh on him as something wrong with him. I don't think it is. There is a wide spectrum of boy behavior the extremes of which some might find peculiar or inappropriate. I think dad needs to talk to him guy-to-guy and mention it as somewhat odd but don't make an abusive deal about it and then go out of his way to get him some fine boy toys like a nice bike, video games, stereo equipment, BB gun, erector sets, models (plastic/wood kind) are nice, whatever looks cool in the mega-toy store for that matter, make a tree-house for him, play football, and dirt bike in the woods, you know guy stuff: Dad needs to ask him to help change the water pump in the car, help build that deck in the back yard, repair those shingles on the roof (lil' guy will like that last one I bet). Let him jump off the roof if he wants too (one story only). What? Dad knows how to do all that right?. But don't force him to do these things, only make it seductively appealing to him (we have our ways). Dad, get to work on it and teach him straight or wear him out doing other guy things. Did I mention football? If dad needs help on that one I have experience in that matter: it's a delicate operation.

[CLS]

I agree with justadad, it's probably nothing to worry about. Just one of those things that kids do because their kids. My nephew went through a phase around age 5-7 where the ONLY toys he would play with were Spiderman action figures. People would try buying him Batman toys, video games, you name it for birthdays etc., and he always went back to Spiderman. Then one day, he just snapped out of it so to speak. Now he loves those Lego sets, Star Wars, video games, basketball. Granted girl dolls can be a little more "embarrassing" than Spiderman, but it's probably just because he has sisters. Who knows how the 8 year old mind works. Anyways, as justadad said, don't make him feel like his obsession is wrong or bad. Just make him aware of other fun, slightly more appropriate toys. Make sure dad includes him in some "manly" activities on a regular basis. Maybe even convince him dad really needs his help to _____. (Fill in the blank with a regular activity like taking care of the lawn, shoveling the snow, fixing things around the house, etc.)