"I'm a boy." "I'm a girl." Children begin saying things like this, and most parents receive the words without giving them much thought. But the question of how a child comes to understand themselves as male or female has been a central problem in developmental psychology for several decades, and what researchers have found is both more gradual and more complicated than the everyday experience of hearing it might suggest.
This article reviews the major findings on gender identity development and considers what they mean for parents at home.