Dan Travis: Abs Like Jess Ennis

Dan Travis: Abs Like Jess Ennis: "I still want abs like Jess Ennis"

Abs Like Jess Ennis

I still want abs like Jess Ennis

February Brighton Salon Review - By Sean Bell

Reclaiming Childhood - Dr Helene Guldberg

Swimming in the fjords

What a lovely childhood Dr Guldberg had! Helene’s words painted idyllic scenes of swimming in the fjords in Norway, playing in the woods and developing her social skills beyond the control of interfering adults.

Contrasting her happy days of sledging fast in proper snow with the problem childhoods of today’s British children, she had at first approached her book on childhood as a project of reclaiming the good old days. Where once children were given space and told ‘go and play’, they are now wrapped in cotton wool. Parents made paranoid by government warnings don’t let them out of their sight or the control of other, Criminal Records Bureau-checked professionals. No wonder kids could get really fat and want to play computer games all day.

But she found from her research that it wasn’t really like that. We all, kids and parents, seem to have bought into huge myths about childhood and, even more crucially, adulthood itself. The myriad reports put out by the many charities, government departments and quangos have an extraordinary capacity to turn concerns into policy and everyday practice.

Helene quoted many reports that used emotive language and, she said, questionable research practices to supply the media with an ever longer list of things that can go wrong and damage children for LIFE.

What doesn’t really hurt you makes you stronger

In one example of many Helene quoted, from 2006, a load of kids aged 11-16 were shown a choice of emoticon-type smiley faces. These ranged from ‘completely happy’ through ‘happy’, ‘neither happy nor unhappy’, ‘sad’ and down to ‘completely sad’.

“Who thinks above 60% of these kids said they were ‘happy’ or ‘completely happy’?” asked Helene of us (we were a little slow to react to the unexpected invitation to interact). Not many hands went up.

Surprisingly, a whopping 87% of kids said they were ‘happy’ or ‘completely happy’ (9% ‘neither happy nor sad’, only 4% ‘unhappy’ or ‘completely unhappy’). The anti-good news bias in responses for the media, however, resulted in the headline factoid that ‘One-and-a-half million children are not happy’ – but that’s extrapolating the result of the research to the whole population of children and adding the 9% ‘neither happy nor sad’ to the 4% who actually said they were ‘unhappy’ or ‘completely unhappy’. That gives 13% of that whole child population “not happy”. (I think the headline should have read ‘The kids are alright’!)

Helene gave us many examples of the skew that our concerns about children put on our perceptions and amplifies problems. When Baroness Susan Greenfield (a prominent neuroscientist) pronounces that the ‘screen culture’ may be damaging children’s brains, that idea will be taken up as gospel - despite there being no actual research, scientific or otherwise, that can back it up.

Children are not being turned into couch potatoes by this increased fear for their safety, Helene said. They are being turned into couch prisoners, hostages to their parents’ fears.

Yet parents are being blamed for the supposed crisis of childhood. Experts keep saying we parents have no time for our kids; we’re greedy for our own pleasures and work too much to feed and morally educate them properly.

OMG! I’m in the Daily Mail!

The aspect of Helene’s research and book that suddenly and unexpectedly catapulted her into the public eye was her stance on bullying. She stressed that she was against bullying and children being hurt and abused by other children. But she asserted that what is now considered bullying, alongside genuine bullying, would once have been viewed as completely normal aspects of growing up.

‘Exclusion from peer groups’ is considered bullying by some. Intervention in these kinds of situations is robbing children of their chance to learn how to negotiate very basic interactions. That is far more damaging than the slights being prevented.

When Helene got home from her book launch, a little the worse for wear (“I should have eaten something”), she crashed out but answered nature’s call in the small hours. Deciding to check her emails while she was up, she found that press, radio and TV were clamouring for her opinion. A Daily Mail headline read ‘Academic says bullying may be good for children’. Despite that crucial ‘may’ in the headline, articles appeared globally before she had even been consulted or interviewed about her work.

Unpleasant experiences are part of growing up and cannot and should not be treated as potentially scarring children for life. They pick up on these adult concerns and start to see normal child behaviour as damaging.

Helene stressed that parents’ role is too care for and educate kids in life. We should be gradually and gently introducing children to adult life as they grow and develop. Adults should be adults with children, but children also need time among themselves to be children and we shouldn’t try to treat them as little adults because adults and children are fundamentally different beings.

The discussion:

There was a lot of sympathy for Helene’s position among the 40-odd people there and many spoke of their experiences and views on how the processes of protection had been taken too far. Several people even thought Helena was conceding too much to those protection processes.

Blame culture, fears of being sued, the destruction of trust between adults, the generally smaller families, the unnatural confines of urban life, the claustrophobia of kids not allowed out, the CRB checks, the amplification of risk, the tensions between parents and teachers, the elevation of self-esteem to all-importance, the pervasive social disengagement, the assumption that all kids are victims – that’s just a small section of topics raised in the lively exchange of views. You had to be there…

In conclusion, Helene said that although we all had our roles to play in our daily lives, it seemed unlikely that these long-standing concerns, growing ever more out of hand, could really be reversed without a change in thinking at the top levels of civil society. That feeling that we have gone too far co-exists with the ever more rabid headlines. We need to change what we do and how we think about childhood at the cultural level. Amen to that.

Buy Helene’s book, it’s available on Amazon.

Dan Travis’ review of Helena’s book can be read below.

http://dantravis.typepad.com/dan_travis/2009/02/recaliming-childhood-a-review.html

The February Brighton Salon 2009 was produced and chaired by the salon’s Director Dan Travis.

We would like to thank:

Peter Travis of Bellerbys College for hosting the event once again; the students and staff of Bellerbys; Pam and her friends from the Philosophy in Pubs (PIPS) discussion group, for joining us and for their trenchant contributions; the several newcomers to the salon, for their attendance and views; the regular Salonistas; and, of course, Dr Helene Guldberg, for a challenging, candid, informative and provoking presentation of her work.

This report is a personal view of the event by The Brighton Salon’s reporter-at-large and does not necessarily represent the views of anyone at all (sorry for misrepresenting you during the meeting, Sam!). If you have anything at all to add, subtract or multiply, contact me at jo.e.bell@btinternet.com

Details of the next Brighton Salon in March will be posted asap.

Now let’s all go away and think about what happened there that night.

Sean Bell

British Tennis - An interview with Rhys Hanger

This initial Blog entry is an attempt to strike the tone for my exploration into the attitudes to excellence project that I have undertaken. By speaking to those involved in the training of children to elite level from a variety of disciplines I want to look at the trends that are emerging in how we develop talent and where we take it. I also want to examine the way those who are already successful see the challenges facing the UK and what can be done to meet them.

Rhys Hanger is tennis performance director at the Brighton Esporta. I wanted to speak to Rhys because he has been training tennis players to international level for over 15 years and has witnessed significant changes in the way tennis is taught in that time. I initially wanted to know what where the cultural challenges facing someone who wanted to raise the level of tennis in the UK. In establishing what was holding us back I wanted to know what progress has been made to meet these challenges.

A 'child centered' approach to sport

The first thing that Rhys notes is the tendency to treat children as 'special' before they have demonstrated a talent for anything. This leads to giving a child a sense of success too early without having earned it. Interestingly, Rhys partly puts this down to a lack of appreciation of hard work and a further lack of willingness to undertake a disciplined approach to personal development. In fact if the child is already seen as special the mere suggestion that they need to work harder to develop can be seen as a criticism by parents and the child themselves.

Prematurely treating children as young adults is one consequence of the 'you're already special approach'. Coaches like Rhys have noticed that children have a habit of questioning what the coach is telling them all the time. "Why do I have to do that?" and " what is the point of doing this?" Parents will often be very open with children in front of the coach, rather than using their discretion to keep things from them that they may not need to know. This has the consequence of the child always being right and in difficult circumstances, where the child feels uncomfortable, the parent will tend to back the child over the coach.

Rhys thinks that having the raising of self esteem at the heart of children's socialisation is the cause of the above problem. Placing the emotions and in particular happiness above all else leads to a tendency to avoid difficult or taxing situations. If they are avoided then the child cannot be expected to deal with them.

One very interesting feature of today's sporting culture is the prevalence of the 'back up plan' or safety net in when preparing the child for a future in elite sport. In a particularly risk averse and safety conscious society as our own the back up plan appears very sensible and goes almost unquestioned if not unnoticed. Rhys is critical of this tendency and says that this is where some countries succeed where we fail in producing tennis players. In particular, the East Europeans and the Russian (or cannot permit themselves) the luxury of a back up plan. For this reason Rhys sees this as a potential barrier to success and highlights the fact that in the UK we are actually handicapped by the amount of choices children have. This leads to a tendency for children to dabble in everything rather than attempt to master one activity, literally spoiled for choice.

10,000 hours and 'putting money in the bank'

There is now an accepted wisdom that an individual needs 10,000 hours of practice to stand a chance at being a world beater at anything. This is as true for tennis as it is in ballet and playing the violin. Rhys says that the education system in the UK prevents this 10k from being completed as early as in other countries. Because of the the demands of the national curriculum and the sheer length of the school day. Although he clearly states that this need not be a problem in itself, we should adjust our expectations of our athlete's accordingly. This means expecting them to mature as athletes later than in other countries.

There is also a question over the tendency to produce schemes based on 'talent identification'. Rhys states that it is talent and work rate that determine success, talent is only part of the package.

Using a banking analogy, Rhys raises a further question to the British 'approach'. "In the UK the player tends to make 'withdrawals'. They don't train hard enough and put enough 'deposits in the bank'. They need to work harder to draw upon the deposits. What they tend to do is 'play for the weekend' where they practice a little during the week and then make withdrawals to play in matches. This means they are constantly running near or close to empty all the time.

This playing for the ranking approach is something that has only recently been addressed and has had interesting and generally negative consequences. By playing for the ranking, the individual tends to compete for competitions sake and for 'abstract' scoring systems that bear little relation to their actual talent. It also leads players to be more parochial and adopt a big fish in a small pond approach. According to Rhys it is preferable to have a system that emphasises not playing for the sake of competition but instead to become a better player.

What is the relationship between the elite and the recreational player?

Rhys has a very interesting position on the relationship between ‘elite’ and good recreational players. He puts this down to an interesting phenomena that has been encouraged by sporting organisations in the UK but has gone unnoticed by the public. Put simply, children are now taught to play to be professional, or to a professional level, rather than stumble into the game or play for fun. This has had several consequences. It has been evident for sometime that the general level of play within clubs has fallen. Put bluntly there are less good adult players in clubs than there were 15 years, by quite some margin. Rhys says that this is, in part, down to the way the game is taught to juniors. In the recent past there was a progression from club to county to regional to national competition and the player would rise up from these levels and be entitled to different levels of funding, coaching and competitive play. There was a progression that was external to the players existing playing experience and one that one could set one’s goals against. The individual could decide to aim for county level and settle for that or simply play in inter club county competitions each weekend. Conversely, one could set one’s sights on competing in the national competitions and move away from the club structure.

This structure no longer exists in this form. Each club is a ‘performance club’ in it’s own right. This means that it is supposed to offer the highest standards in training to juniors. Juniors are taught up to county, regional and national standard within their own club and these regional categories of organising talent have been removed. This has had the effect of raising the standard of junior tennis in general, so that the average junior player is considerably better technically than in the recent past. There has, however, been a marked decrease in the number of juniors playing with the more recreational players. This truncation has led to a concentration of talent and resources. There is a virtual absence of good juniors playing in the inter club leagues and competitions.

Rhys says that this had to happen if we wanted to raise the level of tennis and that the separation of club (recreational players) and strong juniors is only temporary. He states that this more elite orientated approach will benefit everyone in the long term including both recreational and elite players and be more beneficial to anyone who comes into contact with the game.

What are the positive moves?

Rhys is by no means negative about the cultural challenges that need to be addressed and the tennis establishment has gone along way in this direction. In particular, the end to accepting mediocrity and under performance and the reward of real efforts and results have boosted the game. There is a more transparent and open system to improve, compete and to receive funding and backing. The most significant positive improvement for Rhys is that the right people are doing the right jobs and that a lot more expertise has been brought into tennis in the UK.

http://www.channel-6.tv/?s=sport&p=play&v=1&n=C6SP0002

Reclaiming Childhood- A Review

Reclaiming Childhood by Dr Helene Guldberg tackles head on 'the stark consequences on child development of both our low expectations of fellow human beings and our safety obsessed culture'. Alongside a relentless society wide trend to 'protect' children from everyone and everything, a new phenomena has quietly made an appearance, a mounting unease with the increasing amount of restrictions on children's activity. This unease has been expressed in a number of ways in the media in the last eighteen months. There has been a backlash against the demise of school sports day, where there are no running races that take place as the idea of having a 'winner' is seen as too competitive and therefore wrong. There has been outcry against the well documented reports of teachers who will not step in to help injured children as they fear breaching government protocol or are simply confused as to what action to take. There has been concern about the fact that children play outside significantly less than in the recent past. Such concerns are typified by Esther Rantzen who recently claimed she had gone too far in aspects of her work trying to protect children from adults.

One of the books central points is that criticism of the process of over-protection stems from the very same set of fears that produce the problem in the first place, that of a mistrust and suspicion between adults. This unconscious approach to child over-protection will never reach the root of the problem . In the case of Rantzen's recent tour de force, she claimed to have gone 'too far' but she did not retract, or even question, the highly corrosive sentiment behind her creation Childline.

It is the insatiable need for adults to intervene in children's play that is the manifestation of a broader sense of confusion and mistrust in society. Adult insecurities are projected onto children. This is where Reclaiming Childhood really struck a chord with me. I have been a tennis coach for around fifteen years and have witnessed this phenomena firsthand. Parents will often attempt to 'explain' their child to me, often prior to the child starting tennis lessons. Parents are also far closer to their child's responses to their than in the recent past; there seems to be little sense of perspective, detached judgement or simply letting the child get on with it and allowing my coaches to teach. This tendency is highlighted beautifully in the book when Guldberg highlights the work of David Anderegg:

"By 'overthinking and overworrying', parents are 'eventually overeacting on the decision arrived at in a worried state'. Anderegg says he is regularly approached by anxious parents who have tied themselves up in knots over rather mundane questions relating to their children - the kind of things our parents never really worried about. According to Anderegg, the problem with constantly worrying about issues such as whether children should be allowed to play with toy guns is that 'the choices multiply into an infinitude of decisions that seem like they might determine the course of our children's lives.

Another tendency I have noticed both in teaching tennis and in running discussions for the Brighton Salon is the tendency to blame parents for the situation that Reclaiming Childhood describribes. Guldberg makes it a central premise to her argument that this is a fundamental error. It's not parents fault that society is obsessed with risk and with interpersonal behaviour. It is also not parents fault that adults are not trusted and that there is a whole state backed army intervening in the parent child relationship. The pressure to continually intervene in children's play and 'structure' their time is immense. The insatiable need of adults to intervene is backed by an insatiable need on the part of the state to intervene in the adult child relationship.

The book gives us some very compelling insights into the way children play and how this is totally ignored, misunderstood and distorted by the child protection industry. Modern concerns over 'toxic childhood' are taken apart by Guldberg using good old scientific analysis and data. Basically, most horror stories over childhood are made up.

My favourite chapter was on 'Bullying'. If there ever has been a 'sacred cow' in societies attitude to children, it is that childhood bullying is getting worse. I must admit to two things here, firstly that as an ex-bully myself I have little sympathy for those who claim that saying nasty things and giving out nasty looks constitute bullying. Bullying can now mean anything, as the definition of what it constitutes it depends completely on whether the victims thinks they are being bullied. Secondly, I take great sadistic pleasure in seeing the anti-bullying industry being outraged by Guldberg's point that nearly all bullying does not need intervention by adults and that this intervention itself is more harmful than bullying itself.

The best point Guldberg makes about the anti-bullying tenancy is slightly more subtle and never really alluded to by the anti-bullying industry:

"Children are not emotionally scarred by the experience, they move on. Once the experience is labelled as 'bullying', however, and a teacher becomes involved, it becomes an issue of much greater significance, driving a more permanent wedge between the putative victim and that week's bullies, and making it far harder for the spontaneous dynamics of playground life to resolve themselves."

This book is well written, insightful and timely. As one who wants to turn the tide and turn our back on this age of fear and suspicion I would recommend this book to everyone. For this reason the Brighton Salon are holding a meeting on Wednesday, February 25th at 7.30pm at Bellerbys College Brighton. Helene Guldberg will be introducing the key concepts in her book and you will be given a chance to question her and debate with other members of the Salon. If you would like to attend please contact me now dantravisbrightonsalon@googlemail.com

Manifesto : Bring Back School Sports Day

A Manifesto for the reintroduction of competition in schools, by tennis coach Dan Travis

My Manifesto Club Think Piece on the decline of competitive sport provoked a large number of responses from sports coaches and trainers who share my concerns. For this reason and for a desire to see things change, I have produced a manifesto for the reintroduction of competition in schools.

I believe that competition is a valuable and rewarding experience for children. Below, I outline five points where I think we can challenge the erosion of our competitive infrastructure.

1. Bring back competitive matches and races

Inter- and intra-school competition has dwindled dramatically. This is a loss for children, who thrive from the thrill of the race or match. The school sports day has been the most obvious casualty, with many schools replacing individual races with group games.

We should bring back sports days with meaningful, traditional sports, and end meaningless team ‘participation games’ involving parachutes or sponges. Let’s have a race and take pride in the best runners, jumpers and throwers. Let’s reward children and bring back prize-giving, certificates and trophies. We should make it a mission to help fund and maintain weekly competitions within and between schools.

2. Stop pushing away parents

Sports policy now often demonises the ‘pushy parent’ on the touchline. Some children’s football leagues have even roped off areas to keep parents away from the game, or banned the publishing of league table results.

Parents should be free to enjoy their child’s sporting success and pursue it in any way they see fit. Parents should not be seen as a problem but as positive contributors to children’s competition – just look at Raphael Nadal, the Williams’ sisters, or other tennis stars coached by a parent or uncle. Allow parents to drive both their own and other children to events and let them sing, scream and shout from the sidelines to their hearts’ content.

3. Play sport for sport’s sake – not for ‘health’

A recent government initiative introduced pedometers into schools, trying to encourage children to keep fit by counting their steps. This is the latest in a long line of sport-for-health initiatives, aiming not to play a game for its own sake but to reduce childhood obesity or achieve some other health aim. It is becoming commonplace to only allow sports programmes into schools if they are attached to a healthy-eating scheme or some other health-awareness programme.

Wherever this is done sport becomes bland repetition that does not engage children in any way. Ironically, the fitness levels that children obtain when ‘playing for health’ are no replacement for the exercise involved in vigorous competitive sports. Sport is a good in itself; by making health the end goal it is robbed of its competitive heart. Competitive sports do far more for children than weight-watching and pedometers.

4. Reinvigorate community sport by rolling back ‘child protection’ bureaucracy

Under the guise of ‘child protection’, many of the factors essential to the flourishing of children’s sports have been restricted. From restrictions on adults driving children to competitions, to the ‘no touch’ policy in coaching delivery, adults today are put off from becoming involved in community sport. The indiscriminate introduction of vetting adult coaches has meant that the crucial body of volunteers has dwindled dramatically.

Compulsory vetting of adults who work with children should be abolished. All existing child protection policies should be challenged and abolished where it is found they place needless restrictions on children’s sporting events. The day-to-day running of children’s sport should be placed in the hands of coaches, teachers and volunteers, and not be determined by outside agencies such as the Child Protection in Sport Unit. Any new policies relating to child protection should be questioned vigorously before they are imposed.

5. ‘Self esteem’ is not the end of sport

The most pernicious factor in the removal of competition has been the supposed threat of ‘lowering children’s self-esteem’. Raising self-esteem is becoming the therapeutic goal of children’s sporting education, and many schools are now introducing co-operative games so there are no real losers, manufacturing results to ensure all children get recognition. It is seen as a good thing that children are shielded from anything that may invoke a sense of failure.

Competitive sport can temporarily lower self-esteem if you lose and raise it if you win. But let it be known that a temporary loss of self-esteem will not cause permanent damage to children. We should challenge the notion of ‘inclusivity’ whenever it is used to tamper with competitive sports. We need to let the kids get on with the match, and learn to deal with success and failure and treat those two impostors just the same.