bythemethod.com blog

During the Channel 4 programme “Gerry’s big decision” last night one of Britian’s most successful business gurus stated quite categorically that the relationship between a father and son was more important than their business.

This will come as no surprise to most of us but it is always refreshing to hear it from the mouth of a top business person. I’ve had some bosses in my time who I don’t think got this basic truth – it’s not that they were particularly bad (well one of them was) but it’s just the frowning and struggling that they go through when there is a family situation that means business has to come second.

On the other hand it would be easy for a worker to use their family as an excuse.

I think what is called for is integrity. Workers should stop using family as an excuse to get out of things they would rather not do and employers need to acknowledge that family is more important than business.

It always seems to me that managers should be very glad of workers who take family life seriously – it shows a level of commitment and care than any business should welcome from its employees.

Well done Gerry.

It’s sports day at my children’s school today. The school has put on non-competitive sports in the past but have now returned to a more competitive kind of sports day. Who is right? Should sports be non-competitive? What about those who are no good at sports?

Well my own feelings are that sports day should be competitive and it’s up to the school to do it properly so that those who find sport difficult understand that taking part is still very important.

I think I have quite a unique perspective on all this because I’m someone who struggled with sport at school for quite a while. You see I was always pretty average at sport in the my primary school and I was still very happy just taking part. I hadn’t yet learned that sport was supposed to be all about winning. Then at secondary school (High school) I was ill for quite a while and I ended up rubbish at sport. Sports day became a very bad day for me – struggling to finish races at the back. I stopped trying. It wasn’t until the very end of my school sports career that I managed to pull things back a bit and started to push the winners (although I never actually won).

It is possible to learn a lot from such experiences. It is important to understand what competition is and how to handle it. It’s important for winners and losers.

However, I do believe that children need to be helped to understand what I think is the golden rule of sport.

“It’s not whether you win or lose it’s how you play the game”.

Sport can teach you what it’s like to win and what it’s like to lose but above all of this it can teach you the pride of having done your best. We all need to learn that there are always going to be people who can better us at one thing or another. This doesn’t make us failures as people it tells us that we should be proud of ourselves for everything we achieve.

I admire people who overcome great odds to achieve things – sometimes things that I might take for granted. Those who battle disability to walk or talk, etc. show great determination and effort. It doesn’t matter that in a straight walking race I could probably beat them (I was a race walker for while by the way) but it does matter than they are winners in life because they did their best.

So I say children should learn about competition and especially what it means to compete against yourself. Those who struggle with sport (like those who struggle with anything) should be shown that when they make an effort everyone appreciates them taking part and if no one ever does notice their effort they will at least be able to have some self pride in knowing that it wasn’t winning or losing that mattered but how they played the game.

JAMA (Journal of American Medecal Association) have published a report indicating that the vast amount of media available to young people is having a bad effect on their health. In particular it points out various areas of concern, namely:

• Violence – Research on media violence and its relationship to real-life aggression is substantial and convincing. Young persons learn their attitudes about violence at a very young age and, once learned, those attitudes are difficult to modify. Conservative estimates are that media violence may be associated with 10 percent of real-life violence.
• Sex – Several longitudinal studies have linked exposure to sex in the media to earlier onset of sexual intercourse. The media represent an important access point for birth control information for youth; however, the major networks continue to balk at airing contraception advertisements at the same time they are airing unprecedented amounts of sexual situations and innuendoes in their primetime programs.

You can read more about it here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090602111814.htm

• Drugs – Witnessing smoking scenes in movies may be the leading factor associated with smoking initiation among youth. In addition, young persons can be heavily influenced by alcohol and cigarette advertising. More than $20 billion a year is spent in the United States on advertising cigarettes ($13 billion), alcohol ($5 billion), and prescription drugs ($4 billion).
• Obesity – Media use is implicated in the current epidemic of obesity worldwide, but it is unclear how. Children and adolescents view an estimated 7,500 food advertisements per year, most of which are for junk food or fast food. Contributing factors to obesity may include that watching television changes eating habits and media use displaces more active physical pursuits.
• Eating Disorders – The media are a major contributor to the formation of an adolescent’s body self-image. In Fiji, a naturalistic study of teenage girls found that the prevalence of eating disorders increased dramatically after the introduction of American TV programs.

A study undertaken in Finland has demonstrated that transition times in schools can be very difficult for children even leading to ’school burnout’. Girls are more susceptiable than boys.

There could be all kinds of reasons for why this is and it may not be a new thing but just proof of something that has always happened but it does have implications for education. A good self image seems to be the best antidote to the problem.

You can read more here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090514111359.htm

My youngest son asked me the other day: “why do you go walking?” He meant why do I get pleasure out of slogging my way through an area of wilderness. You should know that I love to go walking on Dartmoor and from time to time make some of my children go with me.

At the time he asked the question we were just trying to climb a very steep hill and we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with it.

My answer was simple enough – because I enjoy it.

I tried to explain to him that I was not saying that I liked sweating and panting up hills (this is tough for anyone) but that I had learned how to get pleasure from the experience. Some days in the wilderness life can be pretty tough. Heavy rain and driving wind with no sign of shelter is both horrible and great at the same time. There is something about being pushed and tested that can actually be pleasurable.

I guess if this were not true then no one would be involved in any kind of sport.

It’s also true that you can learn a great deal about yourself at such times. You learn that you are capable of far more than you ever believed was possible. You learn about patience and persistance. There are so many lessons to learn.

Then when you reach the top and you look down the hill and see how far you have come you feel wonderful. What a view.

Then its a quick look at the map and on to the next hill.

I’d encourage anyone to find the same kind of challenging enterprise in their own life. Find something to do where you have to push yourself to your limits and beyond. You never know you might actually enjoy it.

It is pretty generally believed that children are naturally fit and given an active lifestyle and the right diet they will not need to do any extra exercise. It is also pretty generally believed that exercise (other than just playing their usual games) might even be harmful for children.

As I am trying to get my own children to exercise I thought I should do some investigating and find out what the situation is.

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There are many things that children enjoy. Experience tells me that these are the very same things that we all enjoy. Playing games, laughing, hanging around with friends, computer games, just messing about, etc.

Perhaps the secret to helping children into sport is to think about the kinds of things we might enjoy and encouraging them to get involved.

Anyway today I wanted to talk about something that is easy for us all to do and which can make a big difference to our ability to enjoy sport (and life in general).

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So you’ve got your children interested in sport and athletics and now you want some information to get them started. The web should be full of it of course – but it isn’t. If I want to know about the latest sports game for the Wii or what is happening on T.V. it’s easy but trying to find something about how to get my children fit is near impossible.

There are the usual culprits of soccer training etc or products you can buy to help but in general things are pretty bad. Then if you want information about children and athletics you can pretty much forget it. I’m wanting something I can do with my children at home by the way.

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It’s easy for parents and teachers to tell children that they should get more exercise but what if the children don’t see the point? I doubt there are many children who worry about their future health. Like the rest of us I they probably assume that somehow things will be fine for them. So how can children get excited about exercise and is there any help from “the method”?

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Sport in school is rubbish – at least it is for my children. I want them to be fit and healthy and not grow up fat – like so many other children are these days. But how do you get them to do it? Exercise is hard work and hurts so how can I persuade my children that exercise is good fun? Over the next few months I will share with you my efforts at getting them motivated for exercise.

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