How Moms Treat Sons and Daughters Differently

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Hey, moms: Next time you chat with your daughter, take note of the words you use. Do you say things like “happy,” “sad,” or “worried”? What about with your son? According to a new study, you’re more likely to use these and other “emotional words and content” with girls than boys.

The study, published Wednesday in The British Journal of Developmental Psychology, analyzed conversations between 65 Spanish parents and their four- and six-year-old children. “Our study suggests that parent-child conversations are gendered, with mothers talking more expressively to their daughters than their sons,” lead author Dr. Harriet Tenenbaum, of the University of Surrey in the U.K., notes in a press release. “This inevitably leads to girls growing up more attuned to their emotions than boys.”

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The researchers also found that fathers use fewer emotional words than mothers, which, they say, “unconsciously reinforce[es] gender stereotypes to their children,” and accounts for why men are generally less emotionally intelligent than women.

Dr. Susan Newman, a social psychologist and the author of “Little Things Long Remembered: Making Your Children Feel Special Every Day,” says the tendency to speak more expressively to girls than boys is generational. “We’ve been raising our daughters to be nurturing and caring, and to do that we use more emotional words,” Newman tells Yahoo Parenting. “The general consensus among parents has been that boys shouldn’t show emotion — they should be tough and strong — so how we talk to them or nurture them mirrors our expectations for them.”

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Still, Newman thinks this imbalance is shifting. “As more women are working, and more men are in care-taking roles, there’s going to be a greater balance in the language,” she says. As the language evens out, so too, says Newman, will our kids’ emotional competency.

But until then, parents should focus on helping their sons express feelings. “If your son wins a game, for example, instead of saying ‘great job,’ say ‘how did this make you feel?’ Mothers should probe their sons to pull out their emotions,” she says. “Parents, particularly of boys, don’t always discuss it when a relative is ill or a grandparent dies, but those are good opportunities to get emotional words and feelings into a son’s life.”

Look out for situations in which you can ask questions about emotions, suggests Newman. Try simple ones: Are you sad or happy? How do you feel? “That will bring out the caring boys in them,” she says.