Parentg a Gay Child | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?
• IS YOUR CHILD GAY?
• EARLY SIGNS TO TELL YOUR CHILD IS GAYTIMOFDIATHE DIFFICULT JOURNEYUNRSTANDG, ACKNOWLEDGG, AND SHARG ONE'S SEXUAL ORIENTATN WH THE WORLD, IS EASY FOR SOME, WHILE FOR OTHERS THE JOURNEY IS LONG AND DIFFICULT.GETTY-IMAGCOMG OUT ISN'T EASYGAY YOUTH OFTEN FACE THEIR SET OF CHALLENG AFTER G OUT ABOUT THEIR GENR PREFERENC.GETTY-IMAGTHE ROLE OF PARENTSAS PARENTS, ALL YOU N DO IS PROVI THEM WH LOVE AND SUPPORT. THIS N START OM AN EARLY AGE IF YOU N INTIFY THE SIGNS OF YOUR CHILD'S SEXUAL ORIENTATN.GETTY-IMAG​DRSG UPIT MAY SEEM STEREOTYPIL, BUT SOME REARCH SUGGTS THAT KIDS SHOW THEIR CLATN BY THE WAY THEY DRS UP. GETTY-IMAG​SPEECHAS PER A STUDY, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE SPEECH OF KIDS WHO ARE CLED TOWARDS THE SAME SEX. THE CHANGE THE TONE N EASILY BE TECTED EVEN WHEN THEY ARE FIVE YEARS OLD. GETTY-IMAG​TOYS PREFERENCEWHEN ROLE-PLAYG, IF A BOY OFTEN TAK THE FEME ROLE OR THE GIRL LIK TO PLAY ROUGH GAM, THEN YOU NEED TO PAY A LTLE ATTENTN. GETTY-IMAGYOU MAY ALSO LIKECOVID: WAYS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR KID'S IMM...
• PARENTG A GAY CHILD
• PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE
• WHEN YOUR CHILD IS GAY

WHEN DO GAY KIDS START “ACTG GAY”?

When do gay kids start “actg gay”?

IS YOUR CHILD GAY?

A Mnota school district is facg a Department of Jtice vtigatn and a private lawsu over s alleged failure to bat antigay bullyg. When do gay children start exhibg telltale signs? A hefty pile of rearch shows that boys as young as 3 years old who break om tradnal genr rol have a high likelihood of beg gay adults.

) The relatnship isn’t one-to-one, however, and ’s certaly not the se that all boys who love Barbie dolls will later intify as gay.

The rrelatn is much weaker the other directn: A disproportnate number of boys who don’t nform to genr stereotyp turn out to be gay men, but lots of gay men played wh G. Thirty of them beme gay or bisexual adults while jt one child om a 34-member genr-nformg ntrol group turned out to be gay. The subjects who strayed the most om nventnally boyish behavr were the most likely to be gay.

EARLY SIGNS TO TELL YOUR CHILD IS GAYTIMOFDIATHE DIFFICULT JOURNEYUNRSTANDG, ACKNOWLEDGG, AND SHARG ONE'S SEXUAL ORIENTATN WH THE WORLD, IS EASY FOR SOME, WHILE FOR OTHERS THE JOURNEY IS LONG AND DIFFICULT.GETTY-IMAGCOMG OUT ISN'T EASYGAY YOUTH OFTEN FACE THEIR SET OF CHALLENG AFTER G OUT ABOUT THEIR GENR PREFERENC.GETTY-IMAGTHE ROLE OF PARENTSAS PARENTS, ALL YOU N DO IS PROVI THEM WH LOVE AND SUPPORT. THIS N START OM AN EARLY AGE IF YOU N INTIFY THE SIGNS OF YOUR CHILD'S SEXUAL ORIENTATN.GETTY-IMAG​DRSG UPIT MAY SEEM STEREOTYPIL, BUT SOME REARCH SUGGTS THAT KIDS SHOW THEIR CLATN BY THE WAY THEY DRS UP. GETTY-IMAG​SPEECHAS PER A STUDY, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE SPEECH OF KIDS WHO ARE CLED TOWARDS THE SAME SEX. THE CHANGE THE TONE N EASILY BE TECTED EVEN WHEN THEY ARE FIVE YEARS OLD. GETTY-IMAG​TOYS PREFERENCEWHEN ROLE-PLAYG, IF A BOY OFTEN TAK THE FEME ROLE OR THE GIRL LIK TO PLAY ROUGH GAM, THEN YOU NEED TO PAY A LTLE ATTENTN. GETTY-IMAGYOU MAY ALSO LIKECOVID: WAYS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR KID'S IMM...

There is no magil age at which children adopt stereotypilly gay behavr and keep to adulthood. Some mothers tell psychologists that they sensed their ltle boy was gay durg fancy. Some rearchers thk genr nonnformg children e their toys to rehearse for a gay adulthood.

Gay 3-year-old boys n’t verbalize their sire to be wh a man when they grow up—although many such children exhib cshlike behavr toward adult men—but they may be tryg to learn the behavr that will later attract a male partner.

PARENTG A GAY CHILD

Both lbians and gay men often have a history of cross-sex-typed behavrs: ltle boys beg fatuated wh their mother's makp k; ltle girls enamored of field hockey or profsnal wrtlg. Prehomosexual boys tend to be more attracted to solary sports such as swimmg, cyclg and tennis than they are to rougher ntact sports such as football and soccer.

Children who show pronounced sex-atypil behavrs may have more of a geic loadg to their homosexualy.

The behavral patterns are feared, loathed and often spoken of directly as harbgers of adult homosexualy.

PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE

It is only relatively recently, however, that velopmental scientists have nducted ntrolled studi to intify the earlit and most reliable signs of adult homosexualy. In lookg refully at the childhoods of gay adults, rearchers are fdg an trigug set of behavral ditors that homosexuals seem to have mon.

Curly enough, the age-old homophobic fears of many parents reflect some genue predictive currency. Zucker, both psychologists, published a semal paper on childhood markers of homosexualy 1995.

So on the basis of some earlier, shakier rearch, along wh a good dose of mon sense, Bailey and Zucker hypothized that homosexuals would show an verted pattern of sex-typed childhood behavrs—ltle boys preferrg girls as playmat and beg fatuated wh their mother's makp k; ltle girls strangely enamored of field hockey or profsnal wrtlg—that sort of thg. Given that a small proportn of the populatn is homosexual, prospective studi require a large number of children. Although only 12 percent of the women grew up to be genr dysphoric (the unfortable sense that your blogil sex do not match your genr), the odds of the women reportg a bisexual or homosexual orientatn were up to 23 tim higher than would occur a general sample of young women.

WHEN YOUR CHILD IS GAY

And the same holds for gay men.

Bailey and Zucker, who nducted a retrospective study which adults answered qutns about their past, revealed that 89 percent of randomly sampled gay men relled cross-sex-typed childhood behavrs exceedg the heterosexual median. The thors found that “those targets who, as adults, intified themselv as homosexual were judged to be genr nonnformg as children.