In the Line of Fire: Raising Kids in a Violent World

 

I agreed to review this book because I have six living grandchildren ranging from 14 years of age through to 10 months whom I love dearly.  And while none of them live in a constantly violent world per se, each one of them is a candidate for being exposed to violence in their lives, both now and in the future – be it in the playground, at school, riding our public transit, driving our congested highways along with those prone to road-rage, or in the workplace.  Their chances of experiencing violence is growing daily, especially if they were to venture to parts of the world where violence is a way of life. Or perhaps, they, God forbid, will be in the wrong place at the wrong time when those who import violence to our world are doing their thing.

Jan Arnow’s 2015 book entitled, In the Line of Fire: Raising Kids in a Violent World, with a forward by Maryum Ali (peace activist, gang prevention specialist, and daughter of Muhammad Ali) and published by Butler Books of Louisville, KY, is a formidable reference volume on how to guard our children from violence – both being impacted by it and participating in it.  The book is attractively designed with many color photos throughout its 226 full-size (8 ½” by 11”) pages.  At 5/8” thick, sitting on a coffee table, it will be picked up readily by any awakened mind.

But who is Jan Arnow and what qualifies her to write on this most complex topic? Well, for starters she personally knows the horrors of growing up in an abusive household. That may be qualifications enough, but she also has credentials that may count for more in some peoples’ minds: She’s the founder and executive director of Innovations in Peacemaking International; internationally recognized lecturer and authority on multicultural education, violence abatement, prejudice reduction, creativity, and leadership; award-winning author of nine books and scores of articles; and currently working a new peace curriculum for schools, houses of worship, and neighborhoods.

The book’s table of contents speaks for itself.  Each of the nine chapters is filled with sub-topics that we as parents, grandparents, caregivers, and teachers can identify with. Here’s what Arnow covers:

·      Conditioning for Hatred and Violence (War Toys; Video Games; Television; The Next Step: Real Violence; Media Literacy; Responding to Kids’ Concerns)

·      What Is Your Child Reading? (Sexism; Racism; Other Forms of Bias; Finding the Materials)

·      The School Climate – Creating a Supportive Setting (Who Fails and Who Succeeds?; Why Keep Kids in School?; Strategies to Improve School Culture)

·      Growing Up Equal – Gender Fairness in the Classroom (Early Gender Socialization; Sexism in the School; Sexual Harassment; Connection Between Gender Inequality and Date Rape; The Call for Equity)

·      Parents and Teachers as Partners (Barriers to Parental Participation; Redefining the Concepts; Parental Involvement Helps Prevent Violence)

·      Sticks, Stones, and Digital Damage (Kids Will Be Kids; What is Bullying?; Cyberbullying, the Anonymous Destroyer; The Dangers of Sexting; It Doesn’t End There)

·      Guns Are Us (Guns Up the Ante; The Gun Industry; How Do Kids Get Guns?; The Path of a Gun; Myths and Truths about Guns; How Guns Affect Kids; Who or What is to Blame?)

·      From Hate to Harm (Persistence of Social Problems; Hate Crimes and Gangs; Community Services)

·      Actions as Antidotes – Working for Change (Compassion Fatigue; Reactions to Troubled Times; Commitment to Change; Where Do We Begin?; What Our Children Deserve).

Every chapter in the book is filled with very valuable information, fully researched and well presented.  Her chapter four on Gender Fairness has no hidden agenda as many authors have today.

Her chapter seven on Guns is not about gun control or taking away the Second Amendment rights that Americans enjoy – it’s about “children dying unnecessarily from gunshot wounds.” As such, there is no fear that the NRA or any wise owner of a gun would object to what she is saying.

Arnow’s chapter six on Bullying, Cyberbullying, and Sexting is a must read for every parent and guardian. I would even go so far as to say it’s a must read for every pre-teen.

Every chapter of Jan Arnow’s book is filled to capacity with what parents and teachers need to know today about their children and how violence is impacting their lives. In fact, Arnow is working hard to develop a teacher’s and community guide that can be used in conjunction with her book.

And if that’s not enough, to help you each chapter has eight different types of “aids” clearly marked to help you make the best use of what you are reading. These are:

n  For Your Information (Annotated book and resource reviews relate to the chapter topic.)

n  How Do You Rate? (Topic-specific checklists.)

n  Programs that Work (Examples of proven practices, how-to’s, and so on.)

n  Expressing Your Concerns (Where to send letters and faxes.)

n  Straight Talk (Quotations from parents, teachers, children, and experts.)

n  What Does it Mean? (Definitions of key words in each chapter.)

n  Did You Know? (Lists of easily grasped, pertinent facts.)

n  What You Can Do (Lists of action steps to take, by topic.)

There are two quotes at the beginning of the book that well-represent Arnow’s thinking in writing the book and what she hoped to accomplish.  The first makes a statement; the second explains her purpose:

n  Quote 1: “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” – Mahatma Gandhi as quoted in The Life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer (1950).

n  Quote 2: “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality . . . I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, December 10, 1964.

As a Christian reviewer, while I understand and accept the point Gandhi was trying to make in his quote, and while I firmly believe in the act of forgiveness, I take some exception to his absolute conclusion.  An eye for an eye does not mean “an eye for an eye for an eye, ad infinitum.” Only that misinterpretation of the phrase could lead to Gandhi’s conclusion.

Martin Luther King, Jr. on the other had indeed hit upon truth, but in his attempt to appease all, he fails to clearly state what the Gospel he preached truly maintains.  That is, that while the world is indeed “tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war”, the root cause of the problem is man’s fallen state of sin.  King is correct in saying we can look forward to the “bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood”, but this “reality” can, given our condition, only fully come in the “unarmed truth and unconditional love” found in the person of Jesus Christ.  In the meantime, Arnow’s book is an amazing tool to help each of us limit, and hopefully overcome, the “racism and war” and hatred in the lives of our children and grandchildren – and perhaps more importantly, in our lives as we model what it truly means to be human “living in peace with all men or women”.

With the copy of the book I got, there was an insert that went exactly like the following.  I recommend you take the steps suggested:

n  Step One:  Light a match.

n  Step Two: Hold your finger in the flame for as long as you can stand it.

n  Step Three: Reflect on how terrifying and awful that felt.

n  Step Four: Read In the Line of Fire: Raising Kids In a Violent World to understand why our children feel that way, literally and figuratively, and what we can do about it.

    -- Ken B. Godevenos, http://www.accordconsulting.com , Toronto, 15/05/17  

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THE KIDS IN THE HALL ARE AT IT AGAIN.

 Teachers Working To Rule May As Well Be Kids

Recently one of Canada’s national papers, the Globe and Mail, reported on (January 21, 2013) how Ontario teachers are being pressured by peers not to volunteer in any extra-curricular activities.  So I thought you might enjoy a little fictional variation of the story with some editorial prerogative thrown in.   Here goes . . . you’ll get the point I’m sure.  But will those for whom it’s intended.

Some Ontario elementary and high school students are breaking ranks and resuming their participation in school sports teams and clubs, but the kids say it’s not easy when other kids start bullying them because of it.

These kids are saying that we want our parents to get good value for their education tax dollars and so they’re participating in these extra-curricular activities again.  However, the majority of the kids are thankful that they don’t have to.

The “no we won’t play” kids are finding ways to send the “we want to play” kids threatening emails, putting evil notes in their lockers in the high schools, and sticking hand-written notes in their lunch bags in the elementary schools.  They’re threatening to shun them, of all things.  And if that’s not enough, they have found ways to encourage other kids to squeal on them if they catch anyone participating in any such events at recess, lunchtime or after school.  Hey, I thought we were trying to learn how to be accepting of others’ opinions and their rights.  I thought we were trying to end bullying, even punish it.  I thought we all agreed that extra-curricular activities are central a young person’s well-rounded education.    

In one school, some kids took the threat so seriously that they cancelled going on an overnight trip and the poor teachers were left to go on it alone with the very unhappy parent volunteers.  How awful.  The “I won’t play kids” are just hell-bent on punishing the teachers as a way of getting at those nasty boards and parents who put them up to such terrible things as clubs and teams and tournaments and boring trips on the kids’ otherwise ‘free time’ to “chat on my iPhone”.

But one kid who is hoping to graduate this year seems to have the most guts.  He’s one of the “you bet, I’ll play” kids and he has this to say, “Look parents and boards – this is my own free time we’re talking about here.  And I’m the boss of me on my own free time.  Mom and Dad, you cannot force me to participate if I didn’t want to because what good will that do? – I would just be a failure and you’d suffer socially.  And the boards can’t make me not participate because they would seem like a loser board if they didn’t have these activities.  So, I want to, and I am.”   Good for you, young man.  If things get worse, we’ll call in the OPP and the premier can call on the Armed Forces to protect you from your bully classmates as well as those mean parents and boards, and if necessary clear the snow in the schoolyard.

Now if only teachers felt that way instead of acting like children, bullying each other because some of them choose to do the right thing and stop punishing the students over something they have no control about.   What is encouraging, though, is that the kids are growing up in spite of the bad example some (not all) teachers are setting.  Sorry teachers, you’re loosing big-time on this one each and every day you act like this.

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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Sometimes the Law Makes You Just Want to Scream

What we have here is really sad. Let me net it out for you.

A young kid (age 8 at the time) loses his mom to cancer. At nine he is diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. He is bullied at school. The older kid assigned to protect him graduates and moves on. The boy, then 11 years old, gets attacked by two boys (perhaps a couple of years older) one day and they still his iPhone on which he listened to music. He is hurt badly. In school, he identifies at least one of those that attacked him, and he does so a couple of times. He signs a paper saying so. But he can't take it any longer and he commits suicide at 11.

Fast forward to the trial of the accused who can't be identified because he's still a kid. He pleads "not guilty". His own lawyer admits the dead boy was likely telling the truth "per se" -- but because of the the law requiring "eyewitness evidence" -- the defense lawyer wants all the evidence of the dead boy to be rejected. And he's not accepting the written word since it wasn't also backed up with a video or tape recording. (As Rose DiManno in the article implies who expected the boy to be dead so that they would have recorded all this?)

The judge is still deliberating on what she will or will not allow. But here's my beef. . .

Any society that hides behind such rigid rules when even the defense lawyer says the boy was likely telling the truth and allows a couple of teenagers to get away with such bullying, isn't worth a heck of a lot. And maybe, just maybe this young boy who took his own life knew it.

Here's the unfortuante story.

Toronto News: DiManno: Trial of youth accused of assault and robbery could rest on words of victim, 11, now dead - thestar.com

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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Bullying first and then Stupid Rules

As I read today's paper, I thought I might just rant a little about some of the news it contained.  I find some of the things people and organizations do so insane.  Here are two more of my targets tonight . . .

Bullying

Another young teenager takes his own life because other kids were bullying him.  That's criminal.  The 15 year old was tormented by others for being gay.  In other societies, people get stoned or otherwise killed openly for such activities.  Here it seems we just shame them or get them to the point where they feel life is not worth living any more and they kill themselves.  Both approaches are just out and out wrong -- wickedly, immorally, and feloniously wrong.  Have I made that perfectly clear.  I say track these bullies down and make them never forget what they have done and force them to pay a heavy and memorable price (perhaps of service or loss of privileges) to society and/or the victim's family.  Maybe it's time we started forcing them to wear a scarlet letter "B" for bully on all their clothes, and if their victim ended up committing suicide, we need to add an "MA" to designate "murder abettor" to the B.

I still believe practicing homosexuality is wrong and moral sin against God.  You don't have to agree with me.  But you need to know that I believe no teenager, no adult, has the right to take a person's life because of that or to cause the person to take their own life because of the agony caused by the bully.  For me, the task is to love that kid and to show him/her that God loves them and so do I.  And instead of condoning his/her behavior, I honestly share with them that I distinguish them from their actions.  In short, I love the sinner, but condemn only the sin.  He/she doesn't have to accept it, but he/she should know beyond a shadow of a doubt by my words and actions, that I do indeed love him/her.

And as for the bullies, there is a sure way to cure them from their bad habits.  I remember being a young kid and a newcomer to Canada with a long funny and difficult-to-pronounce last name.  When the kids also heard my parents call me by my Greek first name, "cool-eee", that even made matters worse.  It was easy and great fun picking on me.   I remember one day I came crying all the way home after school, screaming because a considerably older boy was chasing me and kicking me -- right up our driveway.  Only to be met that day by my father as we rounded the corner of the house.  Dad went after him with the broom he was holding and gave him a few good hits (lightly) across the legs.  He then grabbed him and almost shook the living daylights out of him, giving him the sternest of warnings which included being dragged both to his parents home and to the police if this ever happened again.  It didn't.  And to boot (no pun intended), this young man became my protector at school.  Go figure.

Maybe there's a lesson here for the authorities as to how to deal with bullies.  But then again, back in 1953, there were no laws against disciplining a neighbor's kid.  The authorities (and most parents) saw it as "correcting a child" who otherwise would err as an adult.

Stupid Rules

Now, get this.  An 82 year old lady visiting her dying husband in a hospital, is leaving with her adult son to go home.  She falls and actually breaks her hip in the lobby of the hospital and there's blood all around.  And what is she told?  You guessed it (or did you?) -- "no one can help you until you call an ambulance".  Wow.  Stupidity plus.   Top marks for that.  Of course, the hospital said it was poor communication (and I'd add poor training) among staff who were still using old rules.  Really?   Don't get me going.  If you want the details, they're in the link below.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1071790--elderly-woman-breaks-hip-at-niagara-hospital-told-by-staff-to-call-ambulance

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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How are Fathers, Time, Children, and Bullying Linked?

If you're a father, or a grandfather, you need to be aware of this:

Perception of Time Spent with Fathers Can Lead to Bullying

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