by James Burns | Nov 1, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Parents, Teachers
Parents need to teach their kids everything. There are no assumptions in this world; None. Society has lost it’s focus and believes that children will learn about money, friendships, relationships, and marriage on their own. We are so caught up telling our kids what not to do that we have forgotten that we have to teach our kids what to do. Read on. Oh, will this stop bullying behavior? You bet it will.
During the course of the last 40 years society has become very myopic and lost a great deal of its wisdom. Wisdom is a very dynamic word and can be used in many ways. The definition of wisdom is the accumulation of philosophic or scientific learning. The definition also includes the ability to discern inner qualities and the ability to use good judgment. Wisdom is also knowledge, good sense, wise attitude or course of action. In terms of relationships wisdom can be defined as having the ability to see life from another person’s perspective. A person learns wisdom first and foremost from watching and listening to the instruction of his/her parents. With the understanding that their parents are wise and have the ability to impart their knowledge to their children.
I can not say that I truly have wisdom. One area of one’s life that indicates wisdom is financial stability. As I am writing this essay I am mortgaged to the hilt and have a variety of other debt. I have spent more than I make and have bought things that I didn’t need. Sometimes I have to go through my couch to look for coffee money. I am past due on some bills, and did I mention that the holidays are just around the corner. I have used band-aids to deal with my finances and had some temporary relief, but never have been able to achieve financial stability. I have been married twice, and divorced twice. I have two children who I love that need to be provided for. My oldest daughter is in college and will be going to Italy in January; need I say more. My younger daughter is in high school is not far behind, and she will also be going to college in a few years, and well, the debts are high and the funds are low. I asked myself, how could this happen to me? The answer rang very true in my head, Jim you have not been very wise in certain areas.
My parents never struggled financially the way that I do. They didn’t have debts they couldn’t pay or live in a house that was over their heads. They stayed married even though they may not have been too happy with each other. Why did I not learn wisdom from my parents?
When my dad died he didn’t have any life insurance at all. My mom was not left destitute, she had money, but there wasn’t this lump sum of cash on its way from an insurance company. One day my mom was cleaning out my dad’s things, and found an old shoe box in the back of the bedroom closet. She opened the box and found $30,000 in cash. My dad had the wisdom to stash money away so my mom was taken care of when he died. We always thought he was cheap, but he wasn’t. In his own methodical way he saved money for the future. On the other hand, I never learned how to save money, and I am realizing now just how fast thirty years can go by. My mom and dad always had trouble in their marriage. He was a drinker and my mom had all types of problems managing his unruly behavior. Nonetheless they both had the wisdom to realize that they were worth more together than they could ever be worth apart. They remained married for thirty five years. I on the other hand have been married twice and never recognized the benefits of remaining married. The reality of it all is I observed wise behavior but was never learned how to be wise.
These are not only a problems that I have been dealing with, I believe that it is pervasive in society. Some people call it street smarts, I call it wisdom. During the last 50 years, it seems as if people have either lost their wisdom or never developed it in the first place. I know this because I am not the only one in this situation. I have observed this problem affecting people much younger than I. So many people today have never been taught how to handle money, and they don’t realize that money is for many other things than for just spending. Too many people have gotten married and gotten divorced just as fast, and it doesn’t seem to matter if there are children involved or not.
Why did our parents stand the test of time 50 years ago and stay married, and manage money so well? Why have the last 3 generations suffered so much financial difficulty, and been involved in one divorce after another? We observed our parents being financially responsible, and we observed our parents remaining married. The problem is we observed, but we never learned. It’s almost like watching a car mechanic fix a car, but never learning how to fix it ourselves. Wisdom, wise decisions, wise behavior, needs to be learned. We needed to know why our parent’s did what they did and we needed to be shown how to do it.
If society is going to develop the wisdom, common sense, or street smarts it has to start with grooming the kids of today and giving them the instruction they need to deal with money and relationships. When you get right down to it there really isn’t much else left. The challenge is great because parental role models are not as wise today as they were in days past. Parents can’t be asking their children what they want to be when they grow up, they have to taught the best career choices and then pointed in that direction. Parents have to teach their children how to handle money at a young age and show them how to save and invest for the future. Parents have to stop thinking that they don’t have a say in terms of who their children choose as a marriage partner. They have to speak up; if they believe that who their son or daughter is dating is not good for them they need to instruct them about the qualities they believe are important in a life partner. Society believes after a certain point that kids know what they are doing and they’ll be fine. Parents don’t want to interfere. They don’t want to ram something down their kid’s throats. If parents don’t ram something down their kid’s throats some else will. If society is going to become wise again, it will have to spend more time teaching, and less time watching. We can start to teach are kids now when they’re young, or wring our hands as they get older and wonder where we went wrong.
Words of Wisdom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLxkz8gkW1A&feature=fvst
by James Burns | Oct 12, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Parents, Teachers
Victims of bullying today spend a great deal of time alone. Oh, when they are in school they are around hundreds of other students but in the recesses of their own soul they live a life void of any real emotional contact with others. Fear of hurt keeps them from connecting with others. This isolation leads to depression, fear, and at times suicidal thoughts. Now is the time to help these students connect. Plan activities that help them become part of the school again and contributing members of something that is bigger than their fears. How does it feel to be alone? Like a complete unknown. Let these students know that you know them and value them. Spend a few minutes each day with them. A pat on the back, a wink, or a high five goes a long way in making a difference in the life in one bullied kid. They may never remember what you taught them, but they will always remember that you cared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk3mAX5xdxo&feature=related
by James Burns | Sep 8, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Parents, Teachers
On April 4, 2011Bryan Stow a married father of two went to Dodger Stadium to enjoy the opening day of the baseball season with two of his friends. Unfortunately, Stow and his friends did anything but enjoy the game. They were taunted and threatened by two men during the game, and attacked outside the stadium in the parking lot. Two of Stow’s friends got away but the assailants caught up with him, struck him on the back of the head knocking him to the ground and then kicked him senseless. Both assailants fled in a four door sedan driven by a woman. The event was all over the news and the assailants were eventually caught. Stow had to be placed in a medically induced coma because of the brain damaged he suffered from the attack.
Why were these men taunted, threatened, and then attacked? The answer, they were all wearing Giant’s jerseys. They were Giant fans at a Dodger game. I guess you can’t wear your teams’ jersey to a game without the fear of being attacked by the fans of a rival team. At least that is what Paul O’Neil, the part time broadcaster on the YES network for the Yankees says. This past Sunday (September 4, 2011) the Yankees were playing the Toronto Blue Jays. I was flipping back and forth watching both the Mets and the Yankees. Between innings, the camera panned into the stands revealing a fan wearing a Boston Red Sox jersey. O’Neil seeing this commented, “It takes a lot of nerve right there wearing a Red Sox Jersey to Yankee Stadium. There not even playing the Red Sox.” After what happened at Dodger Stadium in April I was stunned. So stunned I had to watch the encore presentation of the game to be sure I heard what I heard. Unfortunately what I heard was accurate.
O’Neil, a long time player for the Yankees was always known for his hot head. If he got called out on strikes, or didn’t get a hit in a clutch situation the camera would pan into the dugout to find him reacting in some type of immature rant or worse case scenario taking his bat and smashing it into a Gatorade cooler. When the pitcher for the Blue Jays Bret Cecil was taken out of the game after giving up a homerun, the camera caught him in the dugout smashing equipment. O’Neil seeing this said on the air, “Don’t stop there, there is a few more things that you can throw.” O Neil’s fans may have viewed him as a role model for his grit and determination; I view him as a bully because of how he uses his position to instill fear and intimidation. As an announcer he put the entire country on notice; don’t wear an opposing team’s jersey to a Yankee game or you might end up like Bryan Stow. As a player, call me out on strikes and the dugout will look like Beirut. He is no longer a player, and the truth be told he was mediocre at best on any other team but the Yankees. That’s why the Cincinnati Reds gave him away for Roberto Kelly. Maybe the Reds got fed up with his immature antics and saw him as a poor example for their young fans. Bravo.
O’Neil needs to be called out by the YES network and Major League Baseball. It is comments like the one he made that contribute to a pervasive attitude which tells our youth to draw lines in the sand, and bully and intimidate any person with a different view or in this case a different team. Players and announcers have the ability to influence our young people in a variety of ways and have the responsibility of making sure that their influence is a positive one. Even the great Mickey Mantle commented after his liver transplant what a poor role model he was and pleaded with young people not to be like him. O’Neil doesn’t have the courage to emulate Mr. Mantle. He is too prideful and too arrogant.
by James Burns | Jul 27, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Parents, Teachers, Uncategorized
The New 3Rs in Education
Respect, Responsibility, and Relationships
Remember: All Schools in New Jersey Must Designate
The First Week of October as Respect Week
Everybody knows what the 3 R’s of teaching are – reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. But educators don’t totally understand that in order to teach these basic subjects successfully, they must constantly be working to develop respect and responsibility in their students. No longer can it be assumed that children develop these attitudes at home. Plus, teachers must learn how to build positive relationships with their students. Strong teacher-student relationships naturally foster a positive and safe learning environment where much learning will take place and where all students will become capable, connected, and contributing members of their classrooms.
Jim Burns the author of “The New 3R’s In Education – Respect, Responsibility and Relationships” is scheduling in-services, workshops, conferences, and keynotes for the 2011-12 school year. Jim brings over 30 of experiences as well as practical strategies to help teachers, administrators, and parents teach respect, encourages responsible behavior in their students and explains how to build more positive relationships with their students and children.
LEARN PRACTICAL STRATEGIES THAT WILL TEACH THE NEW 3R’S
Teach respect, responsibility, and compliance
Learn how to build strong positive relationships with students and parents
Understand how principles, rules, and procedures create a secure safe environment
Create a fair, and consistent learning environment that will be calming to even your most difficult students
Understand how to give instruction, warnings, and correction
Receive a set of effective consequences for grades K-12 that will impact future behavior
Practice proven verbal responses you can use in a crisis situation
Build respect and rapport with your most difficult students
Develop language that confronts without condemning
Break through the emotional wall of your students and increase motivation and responsibility
ORDER YOUR COPY OF “THE NEW 3RS” BY CALLING
1-732-773-9855 FOR $19.99 + SHIPPING.
by James Burns | Jun 19, 2011 | Bully Proof Classroom, Grandparents
I was speaking with my daughter Sarah over a year ago and she asked me if I would make an appointment for her with the doctor. She wasn’t sick, just a check up. I said sure and made the appointment for her on January 4, 2010 at 1:30 in the afternoon. That date just happened to be my birthday. When I called to tell her the date of the appointment she said to me “Isn’t there something else you would rather do on your birthday than take me to the doctor?” I responded by saying, “There isn’t anything else I’d rather do than spend time with you on my birthday.” She kept insisting that I should reschedule the appointment, but I insisted it wasn’t a problem so she gave in and said okay, with another OKAY just for good measure. On another occasion I was visiting my sister and her husband with my children for the Christmas Holiday. Her and her husband gave me a wonderful gift: Two tickets to a New York Giants football game. What a gift. I put Sarah on the spot and asked her if she wanted to go, she reluctantly agreed. Then I thought what about Grace, my youngest daughter, can’t take one and not the other. I spoke to them on the way home telling them that I was going to take one of my good friends to the game, Mr. Olsen. To my surprise they both said yes please take Mr. Olsen and have a good time. Their tone was almost one of relief.
I love being around my kids. They mean the world to me. They make me happy. They are my best friends. But, I learned a very important lesson after these two events that almost slipped by me. My kids do not want to be responsible for my happiness; they want me to be happy on my own, with my own life, and my own activities. When our children are young they rely on us to teach them how to participate in activities that are fun and bring a sense of happiness and joy to their lives. As they grow older and more independent they learn how to discover these things on their own and need less and less of our help and honestly need our presence less and less. This begs the questions; do we as parents grow more or less dependent on our children as they grow older? Did we as parents get so lost in the lives of our now grown children that we lost our own life and have diminished our ability to live independent of our children? We raised our children to function independent of us as parents. We raised our children to perform as adults in our absence. This is all done so unwittingly and so incrementally that parents don’t even see the dysfunction coming. They don’t see it coming until they have a parent who is 75 years old whose happiness has been measured over the years by the amount of time their children have spent with them. Parents, you know who you are, you feel such a responsibility to that elderly parent, and such guilt that your life is not your own. That dysfunction becomes normal for you; consequently you deal with your children the same way. No one grows up; we all remain children looking to others to be responsible for our happiness.
We should enjoy the presence of our children but we shouldn’t rely on it as our sole source of enjoyment. Our kids don’t want the responsibility of it. They want us to enjoy our spouse, a friend, or if you are divorced a male or female companion. Crushing your kids with phone calls, and demands for their company, or worse yet feeling guilty because you believe in some sick way that they constantly want or need you around is unfair to them and to you as the parent. Trust me when I tell you that your kids will never tell you, but as they grow older they won’t love you more they’ll resent you more. You will be waiting for the phone to ring, and will wish you knew how to deal with your time and your life. You will be wondering if they’re mad at you. The less they call, the more anger you will have toward them. When you die your kids won’t be bereaved they will be relieved. All because you didn’t know your place in the lives of your children.
