Tuesday 16 July 2013
There’s no doubt that the most vulnerable out there in the suburbs are our teenagers when it comes to making good decisions. The inherent propensity for these beginning adults to choose the hard way, the life threatening way, the life changing way and indeed the wrong way on occasions, leads the rest of us to wonder if there can be a better way.
Our Brisbane based Martial Arts academy, Factor10 Martial Arts, is at the pointy end of taking action in the fight to battle the growing epidemic of poor decision making amongst teenagers. It’s especially critical when we know most of these poor decisions are life threatening. And the solution … is traditional and simple … coach them to make good decisions.
The technology, that sits all too close to the fingertips of our teenagers, does not make it any easier. Whether it’s an iPad, an iPhone, a computer game, a high powered Honda dirt bike or the World Wide Web. There are so many more opportunities to make poor decisions. Why is that? Well, simply put, our youth today have so many more choices and options before them, with each choice and option requiring so many more decisions to be made.
How do we get these teens to make good decisions? It is like anything else in life. It is all about teaching and learning. We have to teach our children how to make sound decisions when they are children so that when they become teenagers they are simply applying the skills they learned as a child to more complex and often potentially more life threatening situations than before. We can no longer depend on the ebbs and flows of the incidental lessons of life to take care of this terribly important matter of teaching our children and teenagers how to make good decisions that will shape their future success. We cannot simply leave this to chance any more.
I have often commented that in my life I have always developed the best, whether it was sporting, social or intellectual pursuits, when I was in relationship with a coach or teacher. Not withstanding the great lessons we learn from our parents as our prime educators, having a person lined up with a great coach, teacher or mentor will give real positive life changing results.
Martial Arts training at Factor10 provides the perfect environment to enable members to build a life long relationship with a Master Instructor under the tutelage of their class instructors. Master Instructors, who have a great track record of coaching, teaching and mentoring, can bring to a child’s life the guidance, support and direction that is often a challenge for parents to provide in the home environment. As these children mature into teenage and adulthood the relationship is a wonderful constant, an ever present guiding star that shines at times when the Martial Arts student needs guidance in making those ever so important life decisions.
It’s not uncommon in a Martial Arts school, and there are countless examples at Factor10, for a person to begin their Martial Arts training in prep, year 1 or year 2 and still be training some 12 plus years later when they have graduated from high school and are working or attending university. There are a number of students at Factor10 whose parents marvel at this life long mentoring relationship. One of our parents recently commented, “what sport can you have your child do where they have the same coach for over 10 years, and still be involved with guiding them and helping them in making life decisions”.
This guidance and role modelling has a profound effect on our teenagers when they are making critical decisions on the fly, like “will I get into the car with my best mate when he’s had a few drinks?”, or “will I walk home from the party at 1am in the morning when my friends have said they are staying on at the party?”. Or just as important, “will I stand and fight that guy who wants me to leave the party and have a fight on the street or ignore him and look for a safe way to leave the party and call it quits for the night?”
Parents – mums and dads – what is the ultimate experience we can give our teenagers in the challenge to ensure they make great potentially life changing decisions?”
Master O
