Gender Challenge

Is it harder to raise a boy or a girl? It was a close contest...

Generally speaking, boys won the title of biggest challenge. Of course it varies from kid to kid, but here's how the overall genders scored in specific categories:

Discipline: Boys, as a group, are less verbal and more impulsive.

Physical safety: Boys overall, are more aggressive and their brains are wired to take more risks.

Communication: It's a tie! Boys communicate less as babies, while girls tend to be more people-oriented, and learn to talk at a younger age. But starting at around age 8, more boys will be straight forward and more girls will shut you out.

Self esteem: Girls were less confident and more insecure than boys in group studies, and more girls struggled with body image issues.

Statistically, the bottom line is that boys are harder to raise early on, and then girls catch up, or even take the lead in preteen years.

Source: Michael Gurian, author of "Nurture the Nature"