10/04/2025
It’s a paradox, but promoting physical activity, especially high to low intensity activity, helps to calm restless boys by altering their biochemistry. It isn’t about tiring them out, but rather about providing opportunities for them to balance out the chemical milieu of their minds.
Science tells us that for boys, because of their biological makeup, sitting still is just not an easy proposition. All children need to move, and movement is integral to all aspects of development, but this is especially true when testosterone is meandering through little minds and bodies.
Most boys regularly appear to be in a state of perpetual motion and some much more so than others. Even when they are looking at books or reading you can see boys tapping their feet or fidgeting in some fashion. Although each child differs from one another, it’s been shown that when looking at both boys and girls, boys are generally more adept at learning spatially, and they also have shorter attention spans.
There are multiple factors that contribute to the differences and to the endless energy and movement. There are two important chemicals that help us to understand why movement is not only more pronounced in boys than in girls, but is also so very important for their overall development. The first is testosterone and the second is serotonin.
In terms of boyhood, there have been many studies linking testosterone to inattentiveness, impulsivity, physicality and movement. Testosterone is the reason why boys find ‘things’ more interesting than people and why they engage in exploratory and rough and tumble play. In males the amygdala is not only larger than in females but is also rich in testosterone. In simpler terms this means that the interplay of increased levels of testosterone in a larger amygdala is one of the reasons why young boys are far more inclined to engage in playfully aggressive or rough behaviours.
Meanwhile, serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is not processed as well in the brains of boys. Neurotransmitters are chemicals secreted at the synapses of a neuron that allow neurons to ‘talk’ to one another, and serotonin is linked primarily with processing emotions and acting as a calming mechanism.
For those who raise and work with children, it is important to remember that both boys and girls have serotonin, however, for boys their level of this important chemical is often impacted by testosterone and other chemicals. In practical terms this often results in boys having lower levels of serotonin from time to time resulting in a greater predisposition to fidget and act impulsively. Therefore, asking a fidgeting boy to stop squirming or to sit still might be as successful as asking that same boy to hiccup on demand; when the uptake of serotonin in the brain is low, then fidgeting is often a common occurrence.
So it is physiologically important to allow boys opportunities to move around and engage in physical activity when they appear restless— and this is great advice for boys and girls alike. Remember that the state of play is a child’s natural habitat, and so it makes sense to bring learning to them whenever possible, rather than vice versa.
Reference:
https://www.firstfiveyears.org.au/.../why-boys-wrestle...
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EDITS NOTE:
Thank you to everyone who shared your insights on this post. It’s clear this is a rich topic. ❤
We'd like to clarify that movement definitely benefits both girls and boys alike. If you also want to read further about how movement produced improvements in language learning, attention, working memory, and some measures of academic achievement improves motor skills, cognition, and academic outcomes for both girls and boys. Here are a few more studies to read about:
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6616
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/14/2/121
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2017/2760716
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pediatrics/articles/10.3389/fped.2022.841582/full
You can also read our blog post about movement and its cognitive benefits here: https://neuro.now/lived_experience/cognitive-benefits-of-physical-activity/
