At What Age Begins Body Language?

We haven’t yet discovered the exact age that separates the boys from the girls—in body language. Many babies, like yours, seem to use feminine or masculine body language not long after birth.

But we do know that by four or five years of age, children are definitely using the body language associated with their own sex. When my daughter was about five, she tended to take much smaller steps than my son did when he was that age. And I remember that even when my son was young, he’d always look me straight in the
eye when I yelled at him, while my daughter would lower her eyes at the first sign that I was angry. We encourage male children to be more assertive, and their body language is, consequently, more assertive than that of female children.

By the time children reach adolescence, a whole new lexicon has been added to their body language vocabulary. A teenage girl with her developing breasts learns to carry them provocatively or to hunch forward shyly in an attempt to hide them. The boy, too, learns how to move his developing body in a masculine manner. He learns to
be comfortable with his new height, learns to hold his shoulders back to show off their breadth. By the time they have passed through to adulthood, both sexes have usually accepted and grown into their own special body language.