Author: Alison

Let’s talk

It fascinates me and disgusts me that due to the unbelievable influence of social media that has grown over the years since I competed for my country in Taekwon-do, people feel that they ‘own’ other people’s feelings. They seem to think they ‘know’ literally everything about that person. They are armchair mental health experts. They confidently post that a true athlete would be able to handle pressure. That is part of their job. ‘If they can’t handle it, they shouldn’t be doing it’ – says the expert behind the tweet. I find the irony of this unpalatable. The irony that if their every move, body part, appearance and performance wasn’t being microscopically analysed by all the living room coaches from their couches, then they may be able to get on with their job.

Anyone who has competed at any level in a sport understands the importance of mental strength. Yes – part of being a successful competitor is being able to excel at the physical and the mental elements of sport. But if one of those gets broken – the body or the mind – it takes another kind of strength to get through it. Coming back from any injury: physical or mental, is a healing process. Firstly, you have to accept that you can’t continue or you’ll make it worse. Then you have to get professional help. We happily associate a physio with sport – from the wet sponge in years gone by to the now fully equipped medical professional running onto the pitch to carry out precautionary checks. What we aren’t used to is seeing the psychiatrist, the counsellor, the psychotherapist running into the sporting arena to check that the athlete is ok. What we don’t see is the months of recovery and the extreme strength of character needed to heal from a broken bone or a broken mind. What we always hear is the commentator telling us what injury the athlete has just come back from or how their career has been plagued by injury yet here they are – back despite everything and we applaud that and we all agree that shows just what an amazing sports person they must be to have had the mindset not to give up. They will commentate on sprains and breaks and tears but they rarely talk about that broken mind.

But now everyone seemingly knows everything about everyone, let’s talk about mental health. Let keyboard couch potatoes talk about how they can’t be real athletes if they break a mental bone. Let’s have these conversations, because by talking about it, it will normalise it and by normalising it people will eventually accept it like we all accept the physio running onto the pitch without saying that athlete can’t handle the pressure of sport. And – maybe – the ‘experts’ will even accept that they are a part of the problem.

No athlete wants to face an injury. When you land wrong and you hear the crack, you just want to hide. In an instant you are no longer the athlete you were. But you go away. You seek professional help. You recover and you may even come back stronger and as anyone who has actually competed knows – none of this shows weakness, this only shows strength. Let’s talk about it.

Taking control

There’s been a lot of talk in the media recently about what women wear in sport. This isn’t a new topic, but the latest round of this debate was prompted by the Norwegian women’s handball team being fined for wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms at the European Championships. This story happened to coincide with the Paralympic athlete Olivia Breen being told that her track shorts were “too short”. The juxtaposition of the two stories was the almost perfect prompt for widespread outrage: women can’t win – either they are wearing too little and they should show more modesty and cover up, or they are wearing too much and they won’t attract the viewers and therefore the revenue for the sport. Oh the irony of our patriarchal world!

Meanwhile, I was doing my own bit of research into Taekwon-do outfits for women, when I came across a news item from 2013, which discussed a new outfit for women in Taekwon-do. Not your usual loose affair, but a figure-hugging one made of Lycra. Now I have been practising Taekwon-do for thirty years and have always wished there was an outfit that catered for the female body. However, whereas my reason for this is so that every time I move the jacket doesn’t ride upwards and balloon outwards, thus creating a very annoying billowing effect, the reasons the designer gave for the new outfit were: ‘to take a better advantage of our female competitors because they are a treasure. It is important to show that practicing Taekwon-do gives a beautiful body shape. This last issue must be exploited and must be used to promote Taekwon-do to attract television and mass media interest’. So there you have it – not even an attempt to hide the exploitation and sexualisation of women in Taekwon-do. Indeed, it was even highlighted as the most important reason out of five to have it and this illustrates perfectly the reason why women get so angry when it comes to what they wear in sport. Because so often it doesn’t feel like a choice.

‘Choice’ is the important word here. What women don’t want is to be told by male-dominated sports’ governing bodies what to wear. They don’t want to be told that bikini bottoms should be ‘a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg’ as the handball regulations stipulate. They want to own the issue. They want to decide what works best for them in their particular sport.

Serena Williams is one of the most successful tennis players of all time. She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, yet is often body-shamed for her choice of outfits on the court, most memorably wearing a black catsuit that was banned at the French Open. Yet Serena’s choice of clothing on court is a statement of empowerment and independence and this statement is not just for her, it’s for all. It’s her choice.

At the Tokyo Olympics the German gymnasts have chosen to compete in a full bodysuit, rather than the usual leotard. To me this makes perfect sense. These athletes are flinging their bodies into all sorts of positions, with cameras zooming-in to every part. It is this sort of scrutiny that can prevent girls from taking part in the sport, or at least leave it when they reach puberty. Why create that barrier? To what end? We know that girls drop out of sport during their teenage years at an alarming rate. We need to be actively asking ourselves why? And one of the reasons we will find is they are too self-conscious. I can remember taking part in a gym display at school and feeling mortified when I was positioned right by the front row of the audience for part of a routine. It was the first time in any sport I’d participated in at school when I felt horribly self-conscious and incredibly uncomfortable.

Having read some of the comments on social media about the Norwegian handball team’s story, my self-consciousness was seemingly justified, as the misogynistic comments poured in. It is clear that there are many men who just want to perv at female athletes and aren’t afraid to tell us. It isn’t just the perving – there was so much crudity it made me sick. It took me back to my teenage self in that leotard, feeling so vulnerable. I had no choice.

So where then, I wonder, does this put, for example, male divers with their tiny swimming trunks and the comments these attract from women? Is this not an example of hypocrisy and one rule for them and another for us? I don’t think so. Sports women’s outfits have too often been developed from outdated tradition and through the eyes of men. They are frequently gendered in a way that sports men’s are not. Often, through trying to reconcile ‘femininity’ and ‘athleticism’ there is a focus put on female athletes as objects whose appearance is scrutinized over their sporting skills. All this embedded in a patriarchal world. The International Olympic Committee has said that in the Tokyo Games they are trying to push a ‘sport appeal, not sex appeal’ agenda. Let’s hope this is part of a wave of change.

I come back to choice. Female athletes need to regain control of their outfits. It’s only as recently as 2019 that Nike and Adidas developed a female fit football kit. I run a sustainable sportswear company, Innae and our non-gen section is for women who don’t necessarily want a fitted top, but equally they don’t want their top to be labelled as ‘mens’. Sportswomen need to be central to research and decisions about what they wear. Then we may well find that more teenage girls feel empowered by sport, rather than insecure and inhibited by it and female athletes’ performances will become less sexualised. We want more women and girls to participate in sport and to do this we must take control.

Old dog, new tricks

Things have been a bit quiet on my blog. I’m still alive and my teenagers are still fully functioning, but much like cars with their detailed specs – different models with various sized engines and a couple of fuels they run on – once they’re written down and discussed there’s not much new to say.
I use the car analogy, as it’s relevant. Since daughter 1 almost drove us into a wall (literally and metaphorically) the first time I took her out driving on her shiny new L plates, my relationship with teenagers and cars has been marred with stress and worry, not forgetting a bottomless pit of cash.
We’ve somehow managed to get to the stage where four of our kids are driving (although we can’t take any credit for two of them, as they learnt away from home). I can happily now have gin-fuelled piss-ups with my best mate and not have to queue for a cab, so long as I’m cool with the white-knuckle ride home. Yes – teenagers and cars are a potent mix, similar to giving a toddler a gun, except you wouldn’t let the toddler out of your sight. It’s a terrifying cocktail of teenage ego and speed and I have found myself saying, “drive carefully” in a trembling tone as they’ve left the house, more times than I’ve said, “don’t get shit-faced or take drugs.”
Anyway, I wrote and published my book, ‘Raising girls who can boss it’ a year ago and it’s still all totally relevant. It’s just that daughter 1 is now a PE teaching assistant, Taekwon-do and Swimming teacher, daughter 2 is knee-deep in A levels and an endless supply of 18th birthday parties, daughter 3 has buggered of to Wales to play football and daughter 4 is basking in the glory of being the youngest of six, with a mother who has steadily dropped her parenting standards as she’s gone down the line. She’s probably running a drugs cartel from her bedroom, as she seemingly spends all her time sitting in bed fully-clothed in her dressing gown, engrossed in her laptop.
This has given me time, in-between teaching people how to kick ass, to turn my attentions to other things, like doing my bit to save the planet.
It all started when my step-daughter came to stay before Christmas and I could feel her eyes boring into me as I chucked away a tea bag. It got worse as I went to put an empty bottle of wine in the bin. “You don’t recycle?” she said, with the enquiring, guilt-ladening tone of a twenty-something composting queen. My defence about the recycling bins being at the same place as we teach Taekwon-do and it not looking good for the students to see their instructor shoving crates full of Shiraz bottles into the holes, didn’t move her. This Gen Z eco-warrior was on a mission and I was on her radar.
So when I told her my plans to start a clothing line in sportswear, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised when her initial response of enthusiasm at the thought of road-testing freebies, was tainted by the thought of me clogging up the oceans and adding to landfill.
So, it’s for this reason that I am currently spending every spare moment between dogs, teenagers and work, developing a sportswear brand that embodies me: a brand with a bit of attitude and a newly-found conscience. A brand that empowers by the very fact that it recognises that we’re all on our very personal journey – just doing our bit to get fit, whether it’s a dog walk, a park run or Ironman and doing our bit to help save the planet. Gen Z is teaching this old dog new tricks. I’ll keep you posted.

An Insider’s Guide to Snapchat (by a 47 year old mum)

Like many, many parents, I have literally spent the past 4 years of my teenagers’ lives (I have 4 girls) observing them with a mixture of incredulity and horror as they Snapchatted the shit out of life. Gurning into their phones, pouting, taking surprised faces, puzzled faces, photos of the dog, of me, of the table, of absolutely fecking anything and I have constantly been wondering WHY?

WHY do they get so obsessed with keeping their streaks going? (If you still don’t know what a streak is then you really are a parent in denial). WHY do they get their sisters to keep their streaks going when they are on a DofE weekend and aren’t allowed their phones? WHY does their phone buzz constantly day and night?

WHY OH WHY?

So after one failed attempt by my eldest daughter to get me on Snapchat a couple of years ago – she put the app onto my phone, set me up with an account and there it sat – she has finally managed to get me use it…and yes, you heard me right…SHE got ME to use it. More WHY’s. WHY does my daughter want me on Snapchat? WHY would she actually be encouraging this 47 year old mum to engage in her world? WHY did she insist I added her best mates – despite my protestations that I’m sure they would rather die than be hooked up with an old codger like me sporting bunny ears and a halo?

WHY OH WHY?

It took me a while to get to grips with it. This Snapchat monster is huge! There’s so much to it and I’m still learning. A week on and it’s still work in progress for me, but then I’m still struggling to use our telly with its four sodding remotes, so no surprises there. My daughters have been patient thus far, although I suspect their patience is wearing thin…because I like it! And this means I’m actually (against every single fibre I thought existed in my body and brain) using it! I’M SPAMMING MY DAUGHTERS!

WHY OH WHY?

I’m actually excited by the positives and I can honestly say that I thought I’d have been more likely to say I’d join the WI (and that ain’t happening). Revenge by spam is just one good thing. I stare into my phone and my face looks a bit wrinkly and shit and then I add a filter and I suddenly look amazing: all plumped up and flawless set in a hazy tone with huge doey eyes and something frivolous on my head like a crown of flowers and it makes me forget that actually I’m going slightly grey and have a wattle. Seriously, you can hide your wattle with a sticker – what’s not to like for a woman facing her half century? I love the fact that you can’t take yourself too seriously on Snapchat. It’s fun and it’s stupid. It’s so completely and utterly superficial that it whisks you away from the realities of life as it actually is and how you actually are – if you let it. Or you can take a photo of yourself in all your fat-arsed glory and send it off to a friend with a chuckle that you will never see that photo again and they will only get to see it for a matter of seconds, before it disappears into the abyss. At first I struggled with not being able to see the photo after I’d sent it – I’m a control freak and I wanted to ‘check’ how I’d looked. But I got used to letting the photo go and now I don’t care! Because now I realise that no-one else cares! It’s refreshing. Kids send photos of themselves looking tired and grumpy and spotty and dishevelled and that’s the whole point. This isn’t Instagram and the ‘take a 100 shots for the one perfect photo to put out there’. This is Snapchat with its ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude and I really kind of like that.

There are pointless games that make me laugh. Like the one where it tells you to pull a … face and take a photo and then it adds a caption, such as ‘how you look when…’ you play it with a mate and it’s as time wasting as watching the GBBO but it makes you giggle for a moment in time and when life is stressful and a bit crappy, that can only be good, right?

I have spent 4 years telling my daughters how pointless it is and what a waste of time it is and I’ve been saying it as a negative, whilst all the time missing the point!

Then there’s the actual creative side to it. My daughter and I spent 20 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back creating a Bitmoji of me: the choice of details was mind blowing, down to eye shape, make up and balayage (google it). Sometimes I’m so pleased with the photo I’m about to send off to an unsuspecting daughter in the middle of the day telling them I’m on a dog walk, that I’m sad to let it go. So I may screenshot it for posterity. You can choose filters and backgrounds and moving stickers – there’s a flossing avocado for christ’s sake! I have been known to post one of my Snapchats on Instagram – IT WAS THAT GOOD! Snapchat is sharpening my brain!

I can totally see now why it appeals to a teen. I can see why it appeals to kids who are actually way younger than the allowable age of 13. So what can possibly be the problem with this, frankly hilarious time waster?

WHY should parents be worried?

Well, I hate to spoil a fantastic party, but the world of Snapchat cannot be controlled by us parents. We can get an account and feel as if we’re part of the gang, or even silent stalkers, but we cannot police it. There is no way for a parent to know what our kids are posting. Unlike Instagram, we can’t have our child’s account on our phone. They can send photos to who they like with no traceable footprint. They can look up hashtags that can take them to the darkest corners of the Internet and we will never know.

The ironic thing is that as a parent the thing that really annoyed me about Snapchat was my daughters’ seeming obsession with it. It appeared to me to be relentless – a constant pressure to keep it up. I worried for their sanity, for their school work, their ability to focus on what actually, to me, mattered. But now I am less worried about all of that, because I understand it. What I am worried about is my inability to police it.

In this sense, however, it is no different to anything associated with the Internet. As parents there is no way we can keep up with what’s out there. It’s completely naive to think we can. We can of course try, but our kids will always be one step ahead. We can’t ban them from using it, because they will be pushed to be devious and will find a way. The most important thing we can do is communicate with them. To talk openly about the dangers of Snapchat and the Internet as a whole. We need to understand WHY there is an age limit but also understand WHY our children are desperate to access it younger. We need to explain why they can’t, but expect them to get it anyway, the minute we buy them their first phone. (My youngest got it in Year 7 and I’m not even sure I knew).

We need to be aware.

We need to make sure they are safeguarding themselves, for example turning off their location.

We need to talk, not prevent.

Perhaps even get Snapchat yourself. Engage with your kids on their turf. Spam them, chat to them in the middle of the day. As a teen I wanted to keep my distance from my parents, so embrace the fact that they might not mind you posting the odd photo with a bit of chat. It makes me look young, it makes me feel young and it’s safer than hormone replacement therapy…I think.

 

 

 

 

 

We can’t handle it, they most often can

Another day, another article on Facebook telling us that our children’s mental health is in crisis. Depending on the article, depending on the day and depending on the agenda, it’s that young men are in jeopardy, young girls, teenage girls, young boys…so that just about covers everyone, right? Everyone is in jeopardy and at the exact same time as the majority of young people are completely losing their shit for a multitude of reason, the mental health provision in the NHS is overwhelmed and underfunded.

As I wake up every.single.morning. I reach for my phone and lazily scroll through my social media feed, allowing crisis after crisis seep into my half awake brain. The malleability of the human brain is both our strength and our weakness.

I bump into my daughters on the stairs and talk about privacy online. I put the kettle on whilst checking that we’re all good on the effects of drugs. I watch them chomp on their toast whilst I regale then with stories of the need for consent.

They humour me. Sometimes they laugh at my ignorance.

Then I think to myself, who are the neurotic ones? Who are the ones being manipulated? Who are the ones who are really bloody stressed out because they no longer know what they should be thinking?

Mental health problems may well be on the rise in young people, but I think we need to seriously address our behaviour as adults, as parents, as journalists, even as experts, before we judge the issue as being caused by the world our youngsters inhabit. The world of a like for a like, of Internet porn, of online bullying and narcissism. We forget that this is all they know and have ever known. We forget that they talk to each other and work things out amongst themselves. We forget that we communicate with our children far more than our parents ever did with us.

Meanwhile us, the adults, are easily led. We’re totally absorbed in reading about how other parents do it. We’re malleable and neurotic and when we aren’t, we are judged as not caring. We have not grown up with the Internet. So whilst our children are using it comfortably, we are using it in a state of paranoia. We simply cannot make sense of the deluge of information that it throws at us, warping our instinctive brains.

Yes, we are so malleable.

We are believing all the hype. We think that our children are suffering mentally because of Fortnite and cruel words online and not getting enough likes. And yes, sadly some may well be. Sadly when I was young a boy didn’t know that ‘no’ meant ‘no’, so I felt raped. Sadly friends suffered from identity issues and bulimia. Sadly many were bullied. A good few were anorexic. I was approached by a paedophile, my sister was approached by a paedophile and friends were approached by paedophiles, whilst others went off with older men far too young.

It happened. It still happens. Who is really suffering the most from mental heath issues now – is it our children or is it us? Are we being driven crazy by the need to keep up with perfection on Instagram? Perfect children brought up the perfect way in perfect houses. Are we going nuts having to constantly check our social media feeds? And when we do, is what we read making us unable to see the wood for the trees? Can we no longer make decisions from the gut? And what is the effect of all this on THEM?

WE are malleable.
WE are suffering from stress.
WE are judgemental and the online bullies are US.

WE can’t handle the Internet pressure.

THEY  most often can.

Fake worries

I’ve decided that I’m going to take a radical approach to parenting in the Internet age. Many may already have jumped on this train, but you wouldn’t know because maybe they daren’t say, for fear of being judged. Or perhaps they don’t care what others think. They’re not easily influenced or swayed and just don’t feel the need to ‘say’.

The sayers are worrying us. Because what actually causes a worry? You are happily parenting from your gut. Careering from one mini crisis to another and working it out – sometimes badly, sometimes like a pro. Asking friends and family for support – fairly like-minded people you surround yourself with. Your squad.

Then bam! It’s a Facebook comment that undermines you. It’s the endless articles on how you should be parenting, the ‘sponsored posts’, the fake news. Thoughts from other parents, especially mums, who are anxious and worried as they parent through the goggles of social media.

But they aren’t your squad! They may not be wrong, they may not be right. When it comes to bringing up kids, are there actually always rights and wrongs? Different children, parents, cultures, backgrounds and needs. The melting pot of ideas that is the Internet makes for a lumpy stew.

Everyone on the Internet appears worried. Worried about teens and screens, worried about apps, worried about cyber bullying, worried about online grooming. It seems that it’s imperative that we all worry.

So here’s my new radical approach: ditch the ‘fake’ worry. I’m going to stick to my own worries and work them out with my squad. They know me and my kids and where I’m coming from. I’m going to tell myself that there isn’t a paedophile luring my daughter to a secret meeting place, or that she’s sending nude photos to ‘friends’. I’m going to dress myself down and tell myself that she doesn’t self harm, despite constant streams of information telling me it’s on the rise. I’m going to remind myself that her addiction to Fortnite can be managed. In fact I’m going to make sure that I keep communicating with her, respecting her and keeping the boundaries firm. I will allow myself a peek at a parenting book (that maybe one of my squad recommends) and I’ll try what they say if I like. I will stay aware as much as is possible for a golden oldie technophobe.

So there it is: I’m done with the Internet worry fest. The breathy, ‘is it?’ ‘Isn’t it?’ ‘Should I?’ ‘Must I?’ ‘Really?’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Are you serious?’ That and the constant judgments.

Stirring the Internet parenting stew is similar to googling symptoms when you feel ill. You won’t like what you hear, it will worry the shit out of you and it’s highly likely it won’t materialise anyway. Another fake worry.

I guess my mum worried. Different times, different worries. Less bullshit, less contradictions. Surrounded by her squad. Chatting things over with cups of tea, hours on the phone (that was stuck to a wall).

Keeping it real.

The Beast

I’ve been thinking about the effects of screen time on our kids, particularly teenagers. I was comparing the time I used to spend on the Atari 800 playing some kind of crappy shite for hours on end and kids on their X boxes and Netflix now. When I think of screen use in our house, it all takes place in the teens’ bedrooms. They rarely watch TV with us and I can honestly say they never watch TV on their own downstairs. 

THIS is a big difference between now and then. 

Back then, no one had laptops. If they had a computer it was in the family living space, fought over by everyone. TVs in the bedroom weren’t necessarily the norm. So although we weren’t exactly being sociable when we were glued to the screens, we were accessible. We were physically available and it was totally obvious to our parents what we were doing.

My teens’ screen use is hidden. Not because they are hiding what they are doing (I hope) but because they are in their bedrooms, doors shut. 

As a parent this is disconcerting. It feels as if they are doing something they don’t want us to see. It makes us suspicious, especially when the horror stories are driven home to us all. It disconnects them from us, both physically and mentally. This feels horrible when we were used to being so close. It embroils them with their friends (and you hope it ends there).

As parents we used to be told to have the family computer in a room downstairs. This advice already sounds so old, and yet it was only a few years ago it was being given out at every talk on internet safety. But things have changed.

Things are moving fast. We can’t keep up. Teens need laptops for homework. Kids are asking for phones younger. As parents we let things slip because others are getting phones younger. We give in and the slippery slope gets frighteningly fast and hard to keep a grip on. Once we are on that slope with our kids, it’s almost impossible to stop. Limit screen time? It’s an addiction, so it can’t be done without a fight. Without shouting and tears. It’s their norm. It’s their world. 

Have we got the strength? The knowledge? Have we as parents now lost our grip? And if so, what are the implications?

It worries me. I try to implement boundaries and rules, but to be honest they are hard to keep. I work. I can’t keep a bedroom watch. So I tell myself this:

  • Communicate
  • Trust
  • Keep up with new games and apps as much as possible
  • Communicate 
  • Talk to other parents
  • Implement some boundaries 
  • Trust
  • Accept that things have changed and that our world isn’t their world
  • Communicate 
  • Trust

I don’t think we will know the effects of the beast of screens on our teens for a few years. By which time they, like us will no doubt be finding their way through life with its ups and down.

I tell myself that life will adapt to the huge change in screen use and so everyone will adapt with it – yes, even an oldie like me! If our teens are able to navigate it without becoming entrapped in addiction to porn or online gambling, or meeting the wrong sort of folk, then I have little doubt they will turn out just fine. 

Our parents worried. We worry, but worrying is relative to the scale of the problem. As parents now, we know we are dealing with a beast. We know to be concerned, but equally we must know when to trust. 

Because…

Why do some kids suffer with low self esteem? Because sometimes when we’re just doing what we think is best, it actually maybe isn’t and because it isn’t, our kids may lack the confidence and resilience to persevere with what’s hard, to stand up to what’s hateful and to speak out when something is wrong. Ultimately, all we want as parents is for our kids to love themselves just the way they are. 

Be your best

Daughters doing GCSE’s: three down, one current, one to go. Bloody exams. Learning by rote. Mind maps. Another new syllabus. Stress. As a parent I have got very used to the saying, ‘do your best’. It’s not my place to add pressure, it’s my job to be the support team – the one who offers sympathy and comfort food. All I am asking of my daughters is that they give it their best shot. That they don’t let themselves down by a lack of planning. They all have differing abilities. They are all leading very different lives under the same roof, but this one expectation fits all: do your best.

In my Taekwon-do teaching, particularly when a grading is imminent for a student or a competition, I will also tell them to, ‘do their best’. Across their entire Taekwon-do journey, I want them to ‘be their best’. It’s such a personal journey and one that should not be compared with another student’s.

As humans, we are hard-wired to compare. It’s completely natural and yet deep down we know that on the whole it is unhelpful and irrelevant. As parents we are generally at our comparing worst. We find ourselves doing it, even if we’re not voicing it, we’re thinking it. Sometimes I have parents apologetically approaching me and asking why one student is grading and their child isn’t, when to the parent their standard looks the same. I don’t blame the parent for asking what others are probably thinking. As I said, it’s natural and therefore entirely understandable.

Yet what also needs to be understood is encapsulated within the context of that phrase: ‘be your best’.

There is no Taekwon-do ‘type’ that everyone has to conform to in order to progress. I have been teaching Taekwon-do for nearly 30 years and throughout that time I have taught naturals and unnaturals, disabled and able-bodied. Special needs students. Males and females, young and old. There are no barriers to any of these students progressing. Their journey, their goals.

On paper, just like the GCSE’s and other exams, progression to the next belt is the fulfillment of specific criteria. But just as it is with people sitting public exams, amongst the candidates there is a plethora of differences. A whole host of different things going on in their lives, in their bodies and in their minds and these things aren’t always visible.

I truly believe that it is the job of the examiner and teacher to take these differences and guide each individual student along their own path. This path is the one that is allowing them to, ‘be their best’. Not compared to the student who stands next to them in class. Not compared to the student they watched nailing a pattern on You Tube, or winning gold at a competition.

‘Their best’ is different to these people’s best. Not necessarily better, not necessarily worse, but that isn’t what actually matters. It’s just different.

So as parents and teachers I think that it is important to remind ourselves that whilst it is quite normal to compare, it is ultimately irrelevant. Because if we truly believe in the mantra, ‘be your best’, then we truly believe that the journey is personal and that it is this individualism that actually makes life so great.

 

It’s not their fault

Following a post I put on Facebook at the weekend, I have realised that I am in mourning. The responses it generated left me feeling a little down, quite sad.

They’re calling our teens the ‘snowflake generation’ and I understand why. But it’s not them, it’s us.

It’s us who are the problem. They are just so often the passive receivers of our suffocating ways.

My post was suggesting that parents shouldn’t feel obliged to go to University open days with their kids. I said that they should let them find their own way there, to stand on their own two feet, to let them breathe.

Just like we did when we were young. We wouldn’t have dreamt of having a parent or two breathing down our necks, asking embarrassing questions. It’s bad enough at Parent’s evenings where we accompany our teens. Do you not find that everything you do/say/wear is met with a teenage shake of the head? An eyeball roll to the ceiling? An embarrassed, hushed ‘muuum’ uttered under their breath?

But it’s not their fault, it’s ours.

It’s a trend and we are all made to feel we must follow suit. At least initially we feel we should follow, but this initial parent angst at the thought of being ‘the only one who doesn’t’ soon develops into, ‘actually, I want to be there’ and quite frankly, ‘why shouldn’t I be there?’ Then dangerously becomes ‘you’re a bad parent if you don’t’.

Why is this dangerous? Because we are creating snowflakes – children who can no longer think for themselves. We’re all guilty of it. Because however much we rally against it, it will get us in the end. Institutions don’t help. Universities quickly realised that as Mum and Dad are paying they might want to see what they are paying for. Talks are organised specifically for parents, whilst education gurus shake their heads in dismay at what this is creating.

The media fuels our parental insecurities. Technology enables us to track our teenagers’ every move. I do it myself with the excuse that it’s useful to know where they are. But it’s not just that. It’s comforting in this seemingly terrifying world that the media build it up to be.

It’s not their fault, it’s ours.

We’re morphing their brains, through our own insecurities. By our own sense of guilt. By thinking that we ‘should’ because everyone else ‘is’. And everyone else ‘is’ because we are being allowed. We are being given the green light to enter our teenager’s world in a way that our parents weren’t. The media, technology and circumstance colliding to disempower our children.

Independence builds resilience. Yes, we were homesick away from our family those first days in halls. But we had something to fall back on. We had something that we didn’t even know we had until we needed it. Something that everyone took for granted, back then.

Back then we had space. Back then we had trust and with trust and space came confidence and a deep seated knowledge that we would be ok.

More teenagers than ever are not ok. The past few years have seen a huge rise in teen anxiety and suicides and we desperately ask ourselves why? Screen use? Social media pressures? Work load? Yes to all this and as parents we simply don’t know how to respond. We are terrified of what lurks on the Internet, but we cannot keep up and are left bewildered and ignorant. And our response? To protect. To draw them closer. To try to enter and to understand their world. Which quickly leads to us controlling their world. Picking them up from late night gigs to save the worry of them getting home alone. Doing their homework with them to prevent them from failure. Finding them work experience because by now we are hard-wired to help. To rescue.

It’s not their fault, it’s ours.

They are lapping up our support. They are wanting us there.

And why not? Time is precious and moves so fast. From newborn, to toddler to first day at school and then they are gone.

Why shouldn’t we hold them close? Why wouldn’t we want to protect them from harm? They are our babies after all. It’s our job.

No. It’s part of our job.

It’s also our job to let go. It’s also our job to allow them to take risks. It is our job to stand back and watch them fail.

Our job isn’t easy, but next time we hear our child being referred to as part of ‘the snowflake generation’, we must ask ourselves, whose fault is it?