West On Centre Hosts Author Dr. Anthony Rao on 'What's the Trouble with Boys?'

By virtue of his sex and his training in pediatric psychology, author Dr. Anthony Rao knows what it is to be a boy. And on Tuesday night at the West on Centre restaurant he showed his metal by standing before an audience of no less than 45 females at a Chicklit event to explain what's the trouble with boys these days.

Invited to speak on the recommendation of a Chicklit member, Rao has appeared in documentaries for the A&E series Investigative Reports and is known to audiences of MTV's True Life series. Part of Mayor Thomas Menino's ReadBoston program, which has as its goal to have all children reading by the end of third grade, the evening with Rao was organized by Theresa Lynn, ReadBoston's Executive Director,herself a mother of three sons.

"They don't want to make eye contact, they don't sit still and listen, they like to hit," said Rao to a roomful of knowing chuckles.

But, a moment later dovetailing into what led to his writing, "The Way of Boys: Promoting the Social and Emotional Development of Young Boys." Rao explained, "Starting in the 1980s more and more children were being diagnosed with ADHD and bipolar, and it was mostly boys. In fact the rate at which boys were being diagnosed was seven or eight times higher than that for girls."

"I saw in my practice that more and more boys were being referred. And this just didn't sit well with me. I began to look around, I dug deep and it turns out this bias is not local, it turns out it's a national bias. So I began to wonder why is this?"

According to Rao the reasons he found are many. "There was a push to ask little minds to know the right answer," he said, describing the trend. "The world has changed technologically, it's faster paced. Don't you feel frenetic?" he asked his audience and a sea of nodding heads vigorously responded.

"Back in the 1980s a lot of money was going into pharmaceutical research. There was a very strong wave to medicate children for ADD, bipolar. And most of our teachers are women, a lot of men aren't taking those jobs and those who do don't last. Partly as a result, the way school is set up, it's really set up for girls," said Rao.

The old style of authoritarian control was replaced in the 70s with a cooperative approach, "In the classroom there's not a lot of competition and for boys that's hard," Rao explained to rapt listeners.

When Rao's talk concluded the Chicklit attendees needed no encouragement to ask questions. A woman raising her own twin boys who lost their father, along with three adopted sons who lost their birth mother received warm applause when Rao congratulated her, and after asking the age of the boys said, "You're really dealing with the most difficult age spread."

Brenda Dion, the mother of a 5-year-old son traveled all the way from Mansfield to hear Rao. Others such as Dee Cassidy of Roslindale appreciated the talk even though she has no children. "I'm from a family of nine," she let on, assuring that she had plenty of reason to be interested.

"What great questions you all have," Rao told the group of mothers and aunts thanking them as he closed and made his way to the table where Lorie Spencer of Roslindale's Village Book stood with copies of "The Way of Boys" waiting to be signed.