Humans Behaving Badly

Looking at this weeks headlines I wonder what is happening in our world including:
Mark McInnes (CEO of David Jones)resigns over inappropriate behaviour (with female staff member).
Andrew Johns, Robert DiPierdomenico and Mal Brown inappropriate racial statements.
The verbal bullying between Government and mining industry.
Revenge murder of the mother of a driver involved in a car accident resulting in death.
Violence during the state of origin footy match which went unpunished by the officials and applauded by others.
And thats without looking at what is going on in the international arena.
And more.

No wonder we have a problem with bullying and inappropriate behaviour from our children.

The big question for all the big people (I mean adults) in the world is: what are you doing to arrest this problem? How do you model behaviour? What is it that your children see and hear every day they are with you?

How do you speak about others, deal with authority, understand difference and diversity and exemplify the type of behaviour you want your children to have?

If there are school rules, road rules, accepted standards of behaviour required by society, do you uphold these and support those who are responsible for them?

In a conversation with a group of boys the other day I asked: "Is it o.k. to disrespect others?", they predictably answered yes. I repeated the question three times, the last time they stood still and said nothing. It was then I said, "I think the answer is yes because your behaviour says loudly I do not respect you, so it is obviously o.k. to disrespect others."

And despite our willingness to blame every thing from computer games, movies, music and 'them' (who ever they are), the buck stops with those of us who has responsibility for them: not just parents but parents in the first instance (it's part of the job description), but all adults who have some influence over their lives.

It's time to look into the mirror and do something about what we see.

Celia Lashlie @ South Sydney High

On Tuesday evening I went to hear Celia Lashlie, author of 'He'll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men' speak. I had read the book and wanted to hear her in person as I wondered how she would speak the truths regarding mums she rights about publicly. Would she revert to a politically correct position or would she really say out loud what she says in her book?

What a speaker and what honesty. I wonder if I spoke the same way to a room full predominantly of mothers would I have been listened to or lynched? I fear the second. She spoke about the role mothers play in the lives of their boys, the need to understand the communication differences between men an women and particularly teen boys, teen boys pragmatism (only doing what affects them personally), the physiological changes and their impacts and the modeling of relationships between fathers and mothers.

She talked about the need for mothers to step back out of the lives of their boys and fathers to step up, the importance of being a parent and not a friend and that much later in life they will be your friend but now you are a parent, about not doing for them what they can do for themselves and so much more.

She also highlighted the traits we men bring to the relationship with our wives which are similarly to the behaviour of our boys and how that infuriates our wives but also the way women communicate infuriates us the way it does our children.

There was a lot of laughter but laughter sourced in the identification with the story, with the way we are and the way we experience life within our family. If you haven't read the book read it or purchase the cd of her talk off her website http://www.celialashlie.co.nz/live.html. I will have copies of the CD available next month.

And if you ever hear she is speaking in Sydney or wherever you are, do yourself a favour go and see her. You won't regret it.

Violence - The Biff Goes On.

In the Melbourne age today Dr Jerry Rosenfield, frustrated by the consequences of violence he sees in his patients 'comments' on street violence ''Is it a problem with education? A lack of respect … Are they divorced from spiritual connections, are they not getting adequate education about how to behave in school and from their parents?'' (''Young men's mindlessness starts at home: surgeon'', The Age, 31/8).

http://www.theage.com.au/national/young-mens-mindlessness-starts-at-home-surgeon-20090830-f3ye.html.

If we add it to the responses from those involved in the Mullimbinby incident we begin to get a picture of a generation who externalises and not internalises the reasons for bad things happening. A young man involved in the Mullimbimby incident says words to the effect, it's no-ones fault it just happened. And the parents blame the school for not dealing with it.

Houston we have a problem and we need more than ground control to fix it.These are the things I talk about at Bloke's breakfast and in the parenting seminars I run at St Jude's Randwick. I have being doing this stuff for some 20+ years and the problem hasn't changed, what has changed is how we parent (noticed on Sunshine Channel 7 this morning a section on how to negotiate your 2 year old to eat vegetables for example), parents want to be friends to their children (they need to be liked by their children), parents encourage the externalisation, discipline is an old fashioned word and parents, in seeking their kids to be friends, help them to grow up way before their heads are ready for it and much more.

Jerry Rosenfield is on the money and asks the questions we are afraid to answer, and while I agree with Dr Carr-Greg that how we deal with alcohol needs review we are only masking the problem if we stay at that level (the same with law enforcement and court responses). It is to be noted that the other recent violent situation in a NSW school did not involve alcohol.

Michael goes on to say that the ‘risk factors for violence also reside within the individual, their peers and the community’. I agree. Individual sin (old fashioned word for thinking I am the centre of the world) is grown in the fertile ground of community that focuses on individualisation, blame and instant gratification.

It is not what goes in that is the problem, although it may make the problem worse, but what resides with in us and is expressed that is the problem. Its seems to me after some 30 years of working with young men in particular, that the issue has to do with anger, frustration and lack of mentoring in how to handle a range of issues impacting on men, and young men in particular in ways that work for men. It has to do with how we parent, how we fail to allow young men to take risk in positive ways, how we offer or do not offer them opportunities to be valued and valuable in society, how we as parents try and make life safe and protect them from the consequences of their actions and much more.

A debate is needed as to what constitutes common sense parenting, what are the roles of experts and statistics, what is my responsibility in life,what is the role of parents – friends or those with the responsibility to train their children how to live in society with respect for themselves and for others. It is a debate we need but won’t get as those of us old enough to take part are part of the problem – we drive too fast, drink too much, give the finger to the car which cuts us off and more – all in the presence of our children, and then wonder why we get what we get.

Boys Read If Dad Does

A study by Killian Mullan, a research associate at the Social Policy Research Centre at UNSW, shows in two-parent families the boys who read the most have fathers who also like to read a lot. And the girls who read the most have mothers who read. The definition of reading is 50 minutees a day and it must be visible to the children. It doesn't matter if it's the paper or books. Go here for more
http://www.smh.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/parenting/a-chip-off-the-old-book-boys-read-if-dad-does/2008/11/30/1227979844800.html



Children learn by what they see us do.

Here is the great power of example at work. If we want our boys (and children in general) to develop positive life skills then it behoves us to model these consistently and visibly to them.

The anti-drinking tv ad which shows the progress of a a family of male drinkers uses this concept in the negative. The first father is drinking with his mates around the BBQ and asks his son to get him a beer, the next frame is that son grown up doing the same, and it moves through several generations of one family and the behaviour continues.

Children learn by what we model for them.

It's a challeneg for us to stay the distance and help them develop good habits, because bad habits die slowly, if in fact they ever really do.