When Kids Know Why They Try!Dr. Dan Doyle (65)   Dr. Dan Doyle    Leadership Experiential Listen to Gentle ThunderPosted Tuesday, October 30, 2007 (1 year 20 days ago.) Viewed 65 times. Gentle Thunder I invite you to think about these lyrics to a song I wrote some time back after driving down Burnside Avenue in Portland, Oregon when we saw a man and woman with two little kids standing in the rain holding a sign. Ask yourself, “What happened to them and why?”
I was driving with my wife, when we saw them. A ragged family in late autumn. I asked her to explain, "Did they blunder?" She said, "it seems a rule a poor man’s life is cruel. Their anger and pain brew gentle thunder." WILL WORK FOR FOOD, signs they hold. Outcast from school, their waste foretold. With raw arid minds the weak go under. "Is it a privilege to sleep beneath a bridge? Seeking shelter from the rain, with gentle thunder." Rebuild the values of our land. Train all people with able hands. Give work to those who can. For where there’s poor and rich men plunder; the clouds roll in, with gentle thunder. We strolled up to our penthouse, with its doorman. And from our balcony, I still saw them. A soup line containing kids made me wonder, “What can we do? They’re our children too.” A storm blows in with gentle thunder, with gentle thunder, with gentle thunder.
When I was in private practice some parents brought their freckle faced eight year old boy in because he was wetting the bed. The father exclaimed, “Doc, you’ve got to help us. Its causing all kinds of problems. We’re having fights over this and we’ve tried everything we can think of. We’ve taken him to our family physician and there’s nothing wrong. I’ve tried spanking him, paying him anytime he had a dry bed and we even got one of those pads with the alarm that goes off when he wets. Nothing works!” I asked the parents to step into my waiting area while I talked with the little boy. Leon was slow to warm up, but eventually he confessed. “I go to sleep, but they wake me up fighting. I hear them yelling at each other and slamming doors. Sometimes I hear my mom throwing things.” I said, “it sounds like you’re scared of something, what is it?” Leon looked up at me with wide blue eyes and as tears welled up said, “I’m scared they’re going to get a divorce!” I assured him that this sounded like an adult problem and I would try to help his parents work things out. I asked him to go out and play with some toys in the waiting room and invited his parents back in. Asking them for a little background, I said, “Tell me about yourselves, you know, what do you do for a living and that kind of thing.” The father explained that he once had been a public school shop teacher, but had realized things were changing from wood and metal shop towards technology instruction. He could see the writing on the wall and knew he would have to retrain in computers or find another job. He had seen an opportunity in the solar industry and started doing residential solar installations. “We had over 1.5 million dollars in billables last year,” he exclaimed proudly. Mother did the books and billing while the father ran a sixteen man construction crew. They had a large supply yard with half dozen vans and trucks, and had recently opened a retail store-front operation selling fireplaces and hot tubs. At the mention of hot tubs, the mother exploded. “Yeah and that’s why we’re having problems. You managed to get taken for thirty thousand dollars from that so-called partner of yours!” I had to call a time-out to get them to stop yelling. We had touched a hot button. It seems they had opened the retail store front operation recently because of concerns about whether the federal government was going to renew the federal energy tax credit. For those who remember, during the energy crisis when Gerald Ford was President of the U.S., one solution was to encourage energy conservation by offering thousands of dollars of income tax write-offs to individuals who embarked on super insulation, solar heating and cooling solutions. Ronald Reagan’s administration didn’t see the value in such an approach to energy, being more interested in developing new oil resources through international politics and drilling activity. Therefore, Congress was debating whether to renew the energy tax credits. Being a man with some foresight, this dad was exploring other sources of income and had felt there was a market for wood stoves and hot tubs. But his supplier had taken their money and failed to deliver the hot tubs. Like most Americans, this family had expanded their life style to fit with their new found income. Qualifying for loans is different from affording them. To qualify for a loan the bank looks only at one’s current circumstance and assumes it will remain the same. Because of their 1.5 million in billables, the couple had qualified for loans on a big Mac Mansion on five acres, a couple of horses, and other toys. She drove a Cadillac while he had the biggest quad cab diesel truck that Ford made. They had been to Mexico and Hawaii and she sported a diamond the size of my index finger. After one of their many fights, he had bought her a mink coat. But times were shaky. They couldn’t make all their payments if any one thing went wrong. They were scared and blaming each other for their situation. Every evening after a long day at work, they would go home and have a few glasses of wine, and then inevitably begin talking business. The conversation would get heated after they put little Leon to bed. They would scream and sometimes knock each other around. A few times she had taken off in the Caddie to spend the night at a motel which made him suspicious. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Remember that old Bob Dylan song from the late 1960’s, The Times They are a Changing? Well, reality is, the times are always changing, but they are mutating faster and more chaotically. This pattern of boom-bust has been repeated by countless families during the fabled Dot.com hype of the 1990’s, and again in the real estate sub prime crisis of the early 2000’s. Human beings are short-sighted and we are innately greedy. Economic history tells us that whenever things are going up, they will always go down. One has to be prepared to ride the waves when they’re coming into shore. Too often we get caught up in the emotion of the situation. We live in a highly interconnected world in which small changes at the macro (very large) level ripple down to affect the lives of common people. Because we focus on our immediate situation, haven’t learned to take the long view, and don’t know how to access knowledge about these fast moving ocean currents, we get planted face down on a coral reef. Instead of looking up to see the rocks ahead, we blame those closest to us. Leon’s parents were aware of some of these factors and were trying to adjust, but were also caught up in the optimism of their moment. Money is a deceitful master. It should be understood only as a historical measure, not as a prediction about the future. Most people who have been hammered by economic and political forces have been caught up in irrational exuberance. When we hear that our house’s value is going way up and are being pitched opportunities to take out home equity loans, it means that some people are making big money on a trend. Usually trends are a result of innovations in finance, technology or changes in laws, rather than fundamental worth. We think, “Wow, look at my stock values! I can borrow money against my portfolio -- I can retire young.” When you are riding up a huge financial swell, it is often time to start getting cautious, not excited. It means the wave is getting closer to shore and will break soon. Be ready to surf for all you’re worth. 
Permalink Comments (0) Aspire to Inspire LeadershipPosted Friday, September 14, 2007 (1 year 66 days ago.) Viewed 26 times. 7: Aspire to Inspire Leadership Despite the odds, we can aspire to inspire our children to find a higher purpose than being trendy. Rather than following the crowd by partying and spending money foolishly, if students have been conditioned to think like leaders, they will know why they are in college. Roughly, one-quarter of lifes journey is complete when we graduate from high school. When I worked as a high school counselor, I found that over half of our seniors graduated without a plan. Like me, many said, Im going to college or Im joining the military because they didnt know what else to do. A few students discover their calling and excel during and after high school. For example, one of my football players realized he wanted to be a medical doctor when he was in tenth grade. Sullivan became excited and began taking the advanced high school science courses. He researched premedical programs and applied for scholarships. Because he had done his homework, he gained entrance to the college of his choice. He was accepted into medical school before hed finished his bachelors. Sullivan landed a good residency and eventually passed the state medical boards. Having a clear vision with specific steps to reach his goal gave Sullivan the motivation to do what it takes to make his calling a reality. We struggle with meaninglessness when we dont know why we are in school or what larger purpose we are working toward. Lacking a sense of direction, students are agitated and restless. In my experience, some students diagnosed as having a psychiatric disorder such as bipolar or ADHD are simply bored, high-energy kids. However, when teens and kids discover their potential for leadership, they become focused and goal seeking. They work to improve their self-control and skills. Motivation increases, learning improves and disciplinary issues become a worry of the past. Becoming a leader is the most inspiring idea we can plant in students. Kids as young as two years old like to boss others around. Kids (and some adults) think giving orders is leadership. It is not. Leadership is setting an example, showing the way, and walking the talk. No one will follow someone who lies around while ordering others to work. We will not listen to a marine sergeant who sends us into a death trap without a winning strategy. When adults talk about what leadership means and set the example, kids listen. As we give students practice in leadership, they learn to think for themselves apart from the herd. In my experience, serious training in leadership can be implemented when a child turns seven or eight years old. Students focused on becoming leaders learn to make good choices; they are responsible and helpful. Not only do they graduate from high school with honors, but they go on to higher goals with determination and focus. 
visit www.LeadershipExperiential.com for more help on developing youth leadership
Permalink Comments (0) |
Archives:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||