During the Easter break, we watched the movie Canvas with the kids. It tells the story of a family in which the mother has Schizophrenia. The father works as a builder for a rich jerk who buys speedboats and cars, but pays him too little too late, so they do not have enough money for medicine, which their basic health insurance refuses to cover.

The film shows how being poor and sick can have negative effects on your life and spin it out of control so quickly that it is super hard to recover. Because people expect certain behavior from adults, the mother creates a scene, which gets them thrown out of public places, like restaurants. Business owners may empathize with someone who sees imaginary people, but they still have a business to run.

The boy, being young, cannot truly understand what is happening to his mother. Unfortunately, neither can his schoolmates, who bully him for it. Also unfortunately, the father is a simple man who struggles to get by and lacks the emotional tools to help his son relax and cope with the mother's strangeness and absence, let alone the additional social burden he has to endure.

So next thing you know, the kid starts going nuts too, has a fight with the boss' kid, screams at his mom when she shows up at his birthday party with clown hats and a cake and skips school left right and center. Eventually, the principal and the boss catch up with the father and the father loses his job.

The whole time, I was sitting there, thinking to myself, "Don't they have a family? Where are the grandparents? Where are the uncles and aunts and cousins?"

But there were none. In fact, the woman who lived next door seems to want nothing better than for them to leave her neighborhood. When the mother runs outside and stands in the rain talking to people only she can see, the neighbor calls the police and they take the mother away to a mental hospital, where the doctors sedate her and test different drugs on her.

The only people who are nice and helpful are the father's friends from work - big guys who lend a hand and a smile. It is great at times, but it is not enough.

Working with clients, I sometimes try to convince them to invest in a solution that takes a bit more upfront, but saves and produces more down the road. In such cases, I often use the expression "Poor man pays twice" when comparing their options.

And it is true! When you have no car, you waste even more time getting to and from places. When you have no money for regular doctor and dentist checkups, your health problems grow until you have to treat them at any cost. When you have no steady job with a good group rate for health insurance, you either pay a lot more or have no cover until it is too late. When you have to work extra hours just to make ends meet, you neglect your family and you lose what little emotional support you could have when you finally get home (as long as you have a home, that is).

Ronit and I once went to give free hugs with our kids and some friend at an event for homeless people. The experts there told us that most of these homeless folks have some form of mental illness or substance abuse and others had some large calamity wipe out their financials. The homeless people you see on the streets, by the way, are not all of them. There are many people "crashing" at homes of friends or relatives, sometimes for a while and sometimes without knowing when they can get back on their own two feet.

Even people who are not officially poor can be devastated by some unforeseen event, like an accident, a major illness or the collapse of their shares portfolio. Pretty soon, they cannot pay their credit card debt in full and the exorbitant interest rate kicks in, leeching any money they can gather with no end in sight and crippling their chances of recovery rapidly.

The answer, my friend, is community.

A community is based on social norms, which means everyone works for the general best interest, without counting favors. As long as everyone is equally concerned about others' wellbeing as the others are about theirs, the community buffers harm and increases good.

When you move into a new house, a community welcomes you with smiles and some food, shows you around the neighborhood and offers to watch your kids when you need that. Nobody needs to tell you your services will be equally needed to complete the picture. You will offer them freely once you have settled in.

When your child goes to a new school, a community assigns a "buddy" to show them around and tell them "how things are done here". Their buddy introduces them to kids with similar interests and checks in on them until they feel safe. Other kids get excited to see new kids and invite them to social gatherings and parties as a matter of course.

Other communities can be the basketball club, afternoon art class, marching band, athletics team, religious organization, youth group, Scouts, Guides, the local chamber of commerce or trade union chapter and even the bank.

The biggest sign that these are not working very well for people these days is ... (drum roll) ... the popularity of social media sites, like Facebook. Human beings long so much to belong to a community, they join one online if they have to. They will exchange recipes with a person in another country if their neighbor stays behind closed doors. They will play online games with "friends" from half way around the world who may not speak the same language if their school is full of bullies.

The best thing about communities is that they have something in common - a sport, a hobby, a religious belief, a political opinion or a social cause. Sometimes, it is the place of work and sometimes, it is just the street everyone lives in. That common thing can unite very different people, if only they stopped long enough to focus on what they have in common.

So I say go out and meet other folks wherever you can. Pluck up the courage and reach out to other human beings, even ones you have never talked before. Join a club, become a member of an association, coach little league, cheer for the local team, bake cakes for the school's fundraiser, go to networking events to find people you like, ask your neighbors how they are doing, throw parties and accept barbecue invitations. If you prefer to start online, join communities that also meet offline (I personally like Meetup).

Because, really, we are all in the same boat. We all lose a loved one at some stage, we all need to make a living, we all try to raise our children the best we can, we all want to fulfill our dreams and we all want to feel like we belong.

As parents, not only is this going to provide your family with the support it needs, but it will show your kids how to build communities and give them enough practice at it to create a safer, warmer world for themselves one social circle at a time.

Happy days,
Gal

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Of course, when we do many of these things and lots of other people do them too, the decline accelerates. I often think of my kids and the kind of place I would like them to have when they grow up and it makes me worry.

Fun with Ice

When we lived in Texas, there was a period of frost every year. That was bad for the lawn, roads were slippery during morning rush hours and there were always accidents because of the frost.

Yet, a friend of mine found a way to have fun with his kids during that time. Before going to bed on Friday night, he would water his driveway, which was short, straight and steep. When his boys woke up on Saturday morning, the driveway would be ready for some extreme sliding!

This went on for a while and nearly became a family tradition, except one day, my friend's mother-in-law came to visit on Saturday morning and slipped on the ice. She was thoroughly upset with my friend's carelessness and promptly sued him (and her daughter, who was married to him) for her medical expenses.

The following year, my friend's insurance raised his premium and he stopped wetting the driveway.

Insurance protects us from losing everything when we are already busy dealing with something bad, so it seems like a good idea. But insurance companies need to make money in order to insure us, so they recover their losses back from us. Along the way, they sometimes take away some of our happiness too.

No Running, No Jumping, No Playing

When Tsoof was 4 years old, his favorite activity was soccer, he loved to play drums and was a very energetic and talkative little boy. We wanted him to be with other kids, so we sent him to a nearby kindergarten that had great facilities and looked really nice.

Over time, we noticed our little boy was becoming sad and agitated, until he said he did not want to go to kindie anymore. When we ask him about it, he said, "They just want me to sit all the time. I can't run and I can't jump and I can't climb anything. And they want me to be quiet all the time. If I sing or shout because I'm happy, they say 'keep it down'. I heard something outside and I climbed the toy box to see what's happening and the teacher pulled me down", he said.

The next time we dropped him off, we went in with him and asked about all these restrictions. His teacher told us there had been some accidents and some children had gotten injured from climbing or bumping into each other while running, so their insurance company had told them they would not pay for these anymore and they should make sure the kids did not do anything dangerous.

"But this is what kids do", we said, "They run and climb and experiment. It's good for them".

"Sorry", said the teacher, "We can't afford to lose our cover".

Sitting Down until 8:30

A couple of years ago, Noff's school introduced a new rule: Until 8:30am, students within the school grounds may only be in the covered area near the cafeteria and they need to be sitting down. At 8:30, when the school opens officially, students may go anywhere (except they only had 15 minutes until their first lesson started).

This was a hard blow for many parents who had to go to work and needed to drop their kids off at school before 8:30. It was like a punishment for the kids, although they had done nothing wrong. It also chopped their social and fun time at school significantly, which is the main reason Ronit and I send our kids to school.

We wondered about this for a long time, until we were told recently that a girl had been hurt while playing at one of the school's playground before any teachers were on duty and her parents sued the school.

The school did the only thing it could to keep enough of its budget for education...

Glorious Jury

A few weeks ago, I received a summons to my first ever jury duty. Having never been inside a courtroom anywhere, I thought this would be a great experience, so I did not ask to be excused, even through 3 weeks away from work would not be easy. I also wanted to do my part as a citizen and help keep the justice system going.

So far, I have been in one trial that went on for three days, but I have had a lot of time to think about the effects of the jury system on our life.

When I told people I was going to be on jury duty, they looked at me like I was soft in the head or something. "You can ask to be excused, you know", they said, "It's easy. Just say you have a business and you can't get away".

That made me wonder who remains to serve as jurors in the system. These are most likely unemployed, senior citizens and people whose jobs pay them so little, the income from their jury duty is the same or higher than what they already make. Would you want to have that cross-section of society at your trial? Is this truly "a jury of peers"?

Then I got to the building where the courts are and went through the orientation. I found out that many (sometimes most) of the prospective jurors arrive in the morning, go through 1 or 2 jury selections and then go back home. By that time, their day is shot and they only get a small amount of money for their trouble.

The "lucky" ones are "empanelled" and serve as jurors for a few days. I was chosen during my first jury selection.

In the courtroom were a judge, a judge's associate, a bailiff, a prosecutor, an assistant prosecutor, a stenographer and at least two correctional services officers. These 8 people were paid by the state. On the defense side were two highly paid lawyers, making a total of 10 other people.

The jury more than doubles the number of people sitting through the entire trial! However little they get paid, every day of trial costs up to 12 days of lost productivity and taxes, as well as the juror payment, lunch and public transport. If that is not enough, it took several hours for the barristers and the judge to explain to us the matters of law relevant to the case, which made the trial longer.

Then came deliberation. In theory, the jury system is meant to protect ordinary citizens from unfair trials, but jurors are people with biases. They all have beliefs, values and needs that come into play when they decide on a verdict. As I sat in the room, I noticed racial comments, political comments, religious comments and many unfounded statements spoken with conviction. Although we all agreed in the end and worked things out quite well, would I want these people at my trial? Probably not.

Having a costly legal system puts it beyond the reach of most people, so having 12 jurors in court actually excludes many of their "peers" from getting a fair trial.

In our topsy turvy world, the things we do to protect ourselves come back to bite us when we do not stop to think them through and sometimes even when we do.

Have a productive day,
Gal

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From time to time, we get a knock on the door and someone asks for a donation to charity. The amount of money is up to us and the minimum is typically small. The person is pleasant and often seems like one of the people who would benefit from our donation to this charity.

But to me, this is money for nothing. Sure, research shows that people get a sense of generosity and feel good about themselves when they give money at the door, in the office or secretly in some other way. I still think this is a short-lived feeling that keeps injustice and bad management in our society long term.

Next time there is a knock on the door, the person who donates will be faced with the same dilemma. The next person knocking on the door will be in the same situation. Charity is not enough about change.

I believe that the fundamental ingredient missing from the charity model is self-respect. When a person cannot provide for themselves and relies completely on others for food, shelter and clothing, their sense of identity changes and they begin to see themselves as dependent and incapable of supporting themselves. If this goes on long enough, they end up feeling worthless.

Even if you have never been poor, maybe you have lost your job at some point or your partner has. The feeling of loss of self-worth can be debilitating. When it goes on for long enough and when the loss was big enough (like a top executive being laid off at an age that makes finding another job unlikely), some people even kill themselves. Standing in line for a social security handout is humiliating for anyone used to productive employment.

Money for nothing makes the recipient feel worthless.

Native Americans and Indigenous Australians are great examples of how this can affect large populations. Both were given autonomies in certain parts of their respective country, not necessary where they wanted, and both were given government handouts, supposedly as compensation for their lands being taken away from them. In both cases, many chose to live on the government subsidy and ended up spending their time and their money on drinking alcohol. In both cases, those who decided to go to work have done much better.

Human beings seem to have a sense of fairness in their exchanges and getting money for nothing is not a fair exchange.

A horrible example of this is Indian children who are maimed in order to become better beggars. In the minds of the people doing the maiming, those children's lives are better without an arm or an eye, because they can get enough money to survive and help support their families. But this also prevents them from being able to work when they grow up.

On the other hand, when we lived in Thailand, we did not see beggars on the streets. We saw people sitting in corners, on footbridges and between market stalls and selling little trinkets and flowers. We knew we did not need their wares when we purchased from them, but there was dignity in the exchange, smiles and hope.

For all of the above, Ronit and I decided to support the poor people of the world through Kiva. Kiva is an online microfinance organization that funds small projects all over the globe with money from other people. Each project is funded by a number of people, so the risk is shared. Every cent of funding is given as a loan, so the projects have to make business sense, succeed and pay back with interest.

We believe that Kiva prevents those in need from abandoning their responsibility for their lives and helps create a productive and supportive society globally and locally. Since poor people have limited access to computers and little knowledge of business, there are micro-banks acting on their behalf. They submit requests for funding for groups of farmers, producers or service providers, having trained them in running a business. The groups also keep their members on track and paying back.

For example, our first loan was to fifteen women from Paraguay (pictured at the top) that wanted to be able to offer a better future to their children. They are "fighters" who stretch themselves to their limits to give their families the basics to have a worthy life. The loan has helped them to buy fabrics, threads, needles, buttons and other sewing supplies.

Our second loan was to a farmer in Kenya (holding the sign in the picture above) who takes care of two children at home. He wants to ensure food security for his family. Before joining the group, he was only able to harvest 7 bags of maize 1 acre of land, but in 2011, he had an excellent maize yield of 18 bags on that land. The loan has helped him buy seeds and fertilizers.

When we signed up for Kiva, we did it as a family. We wanted our kids to know about the struggles of other people to help them appreciate their own life. We wanted them to be part of the giving and we wanted them to see that even when you are very poor, you still have a choice between being productive and being dependent.

Just in case you are jumping up and down, screaming, "But some people just can't sew or work a farm!" I want to mention another wonderful organization called the Endeavour Foundation. This organization takes care of people with mental and physical disabilities. Although much of its budget comes from donations and government support, it employs its clients in special workshops, where they make whatever they can make to help support themselves. They may not be able to provide everything for themselves, but they have the dignity of helping and doing what they can.

Many people say that kids have it all easy today. We may not have walked to school in blinding snowstorms, but from a technical point of view, our kids' life seems to be easier and we work hard to provide everything for them. I believe we need to ensure this does not become a kind of charity arrangement, or our kids will develop a dependent identity and lose the ability to care for themselves and their dignity.

No matter how small their contribution, a child's participation in housework and family decision-making is more about their self-esteem and independence than it is about the value they create (particularly when they are little). Do not give them "money for nothing". Get them to work for their gadgets as much as they can, get them involved in your giving, tell them about your own work, encourage them to take care of themselves and help them build a strong identity.

Empower the world one step at a time by helping those who help themselves.

Happy days,
Gal

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All around the world, no matter when you look, there is some war going on. Sometimes, they are obvious confrontations of armies. Other times, they are a wide spread collection of small events and often involve civilians, but they are wars nonetheless.

Wars are stupid. Wars are cruel. Wars are wasteful. Nobody truly wins in a war. Yet, they are always there. Worse, they mostly involve people who have no desire to fight whatsoever.

This week, Ronit and I watched two war movies: Letters from Iwo Jima and Captain America. That made me realize the extent to which everyday people can be mobilized to serve some external cause. The Japanese had their tradition, their emperor and their honor. The Americans had the propaganda that told them they were protecting their country and their freedom. In the end, many people fought on both sides, many people died, many were injured and many families suffered.

Watching a war movie, we do not count deaths. There are just too many. In reality, each dead soldier has a mother, a father, friends, maybe a partner and maybe even children. Each dead soldier has a future and then, nothing. A hole in the fabric of society.

Serious, debilitating injuries are even worse, because they put an extra burden on the people around the soldier for the rest of their life. Instead of a contributing member of society, another person now depends on others for the simplest things. The glory of war gives way to the humiliation of helplessness.

As if these films were not enough, Today Tonight ran a very biased and inciteful piece on Muslims "recruiting" followers in order to overthrow democracy in Australia. Despite the report clearly stating how Muslim leaders had supported the recent census and showing gentle, smiling Australians who had converted to Islam, the general tone was scary and the "experts" interviewed said this was anti-democratic.

Considering the massive movement to democracy in the Middle East right now and the fact that, although not popular with the current majority, peaceful political recruitment is the very essence of democracy, this TV report could be shocking, but it is not.

You see, groups of people are made up of people, no matter how large they are. To get a group of people to do something, their inherent motivation must be used. No matter how horrible a war is, and World War 2 is probably the most horrible of them all, it relies heavily on the general population having too much pressure.

Basically, going to war is a way to relieve pressure. It takes everyone's minds off the economy, nobody worries about good education for the kids and there is no public debate on a national health system. Everybody is too busy fighting or supporting the fight. Pre-war Germany was devastated and the Germans were feeling inferior. The idea of being superior and killing the people who supposedly caused their grief was very appealing. By the time they woke up to the manipulation, it was too late to pull back. But WW2 also had roots in the Great Depression in the USA, internal friction in Italy and Spain and strong pressures in other countries.

Today, we are feeling the effects of the global financial crisis. There are cutbacks everywhere, people are losing their jobs, many cannot afford good housing anymore and this is causing a lot of pressure. Anyone who has children feels even more pressure from being unable to provide for them and from worrying what might happen to them as they grow up.

And I believe this is precisely how wars can be prevented - by focusing on the future of our children and on creating a world in which they will never have to fight anyone. In order to do that, we must learn how to handle our personal pressure so that nobody can distract us from the most important thing in our life - being good parents and protecting our kids.

How to create peace

1. Accept yourself. We all do the best we can. You too. It is useless to feel you should do more, achieve more or feel differently. Being hungry is OK. Being tired is OK. Being late after trying hard to be on time is OK. No matter what you do, your work will never be complete, so just let go.
2. Accept others. Once you agree that YOU do the best you can all the time, it is easy to see that the same is true for everyone else. If someone is rude to you and they could be nice, that is a problem, but if it is the best they could manage, then poor them. Maybe they are having a really bad day. If someone has a different opinion and they could share yours, that is a problem, but if their opinion is the only possible result of their nature, their background and their context, that is just life. Let go.
3. Have a strong sense of priority. Identity your core values - the things that are important for you and the things you prefer to avoid. Realign your life with your core values and focus on the most important things. Mine are health, happiness, my relationship with Ronit and parenting. What are yours?
4. Spend time with people who will help you feel relaxed, accepted, important and fulfilled. Change jobs, switch your kids' school, move to another neighborhood, city or country if you have to, but choose to live in a peaceful, calm place.
5. Disconnect from push media and pay close attention to the information you are exposed to. Specifically, learn to distinguish fact from opinion, cross reference and form your own views. Google Search makes it very easy nowadays.
6. Broaden your experience. Ronit and I have lived and travelled in many places around the world and one thing I noticed in all those places was that people faced the same challenges I did - providing for their family, feeling safe and finding meaning in life. Parents in every country and every culture try to make ends meet and spend more time with their kids, get excited at the sight of babies, cry when a loved one dies and worry about the world they are leaving for their kids.

Peace, Brother/Sister!
Gal

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I grew up in a small town, where I knew lots of people. As a kid in 1^st Grade, I rode the bus home from school for 20 minutes, after crossing a main street. I was very proud of myself, but the only reason I agreed to it was because the bus driver at that particular time was my parents' friend and I trusted him.

When I was growing up, TV was a new thing, broadcasting hours were limited and the quality was pretty bad, so I mostly played outside with my friends. If anything happened to me when my mom was away, I would just go into my friend's home and get some help from his parents.

When my mom came home late, I would go to my divorced, middle-aged neighbor and he would tell me stories from another country feed me exotic food and keep me safe until it was time for me to go home.

What made me feel safe was mostly that people behaved in a way that matched their words and their facial expressions. When a man used harsh words, he also waved his arms, shook his fist and screwed up his face. When a woman offered to help me, she also smiled and looked relaxed and kind all over.

Not these days.

Try to remember the last time you watched the news on TV. The anchors smiled most of the time, didn't they? They even exchanged jokes from time to time, right? But the topics on the news were all doom and gloom - shootings, robberies, dishonest politicians, government decisions you may not like, etc.

Is it appropriate to behave cheerfully when you deliver bad news?

Now, consider most of the "sitcoms". In a typically conversation, the audience is the real listener and the participants are just acting out a script, so delivering hurtful words, putting others down and using sarcasm are all "part of the deal", while keeping a posture and facial expression that says, "Yeah! I'm all that".

But in our daily life, there is no audience. The only ones hearing the words are us and we get hurt by them. And when someone we love says something that hurts and looks like they have just won the lotto, it makes us wonder how much they care.

Switch channels to any police drama series, in which actors pretend to have various emotions, but all the time they are made to look suspicious in order to keep the tension.

After watching enough of these, do you trust people more? Worse, do you trust your own judgment and ability to tell a liar from an honest person?

This has become so difficult, there is even a special series called Lie to Me, which supposedly teaches us how to detect when people are lying. According to Scientific American, there is a real professor of lie detection behind the series, but there is a staggering variety of expressions to keep up with.

I was talking to Tsoof last week about how films are being used for advertising and gave him the example of product placements in The Truman Show (see in this video). There is a scene in the movie when Truman is upset and his wife offers to make him some cocoa, but she presents the package to the hidden camera behind him and praises the cocoa until he turns around and wonders, "Who are you talking to?"

The same thing happens in nearly every commercial on TV, on radio, in the papers and online, as well as in infomercials during morning shows. A person appears to be very pleased with some product and makes statements about it, which nobody would ever say to a friend at home. There is a big contrast between being a familiar actress and energetically promoting headache medicine.

I believe these things (and others) are leading our kids to distrust body language, facial expression and tone of voice as ways to receive messages from others. Worse, by often mimicking this inconsistent behavior, our kids are actually training themselves to lie better, which makes me worry for them sometimes.

The link between our body language, facial expression and tone of voice and our emotional state is extremely difficult to control consciously, maybe even impossible. I used to be very attentive to words, but since becoming a life coach, I have greatly improved my abilities to detect emotional messages through behavior. When I meet new people or watch people in public places, I can easily pick them out and sometimes predict the next steps.

But the important thing about all of this is that the most appealing people I meet are the ones who appear as angry, kind, distressed or happy as they say they are - the ones who seem to be hiding nothing. I want my kids to be like them.

A few years ago, I worked with a young Indian woman who was like that. She was very gentle, but she was never bullied. She was very religious and had a picture of an old guru on her desk, but she was never mocked or ostracized. She was sure of herself and acted from a point of confidence and everyone just loved that.

I read somewhere that the reason we like babies is that they are innocent. This lasts roughly until they go to school and then they learn too much about manipulation. In a sense, she was like a young child - pure.

It takes confidence to show who you really are. It may not be possible to do it all the time and with everybody, but I will do my best to teach my kids to work on their beliefs, their thoughts and their emotions and live honestly. And I am going to do this by showing them how.

How about you?

Happy parenting,
Gal

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But for me, The Karate Kid was a total let down. Sure, I saw the old Mister Miyagi movies when I was younger, but that would not explain some of the things that bothered me. Maybe I will just start listing them and you will see why.

The obvious things were the (mostly) bad/stereotypical acting and the many holes in the story. What happened around the death of the kid's dad? What kind of work did the mother do? Why did she choose to move to China and tell her son "We have nothing left there (in the US). This (china) is 'home' now"?

But the previous Karate Kids were not much better, so never mind that.

America Rules the Seas

The movie is called "Karate Kid", implying the Japanese martial art, yet it is set in China and shows Kung Fu, the Chinese martial art. If I found either Karate or Kung Fu to be an important part of my life and my tradition, I would feel offended by this, even if I fully understood the marketing incentive. I guess if the main market is made up of Americans, who cares about those other billion and a half people?

But what the Americans should probably consider is that their kids will just get more mixed up between "all those Asians" by this, which may not be great for world harmony (or neighborhood harmony, for that matter).

In two of the previous installments, American kids were the bad guys. In another one, it was the Japanese. This time, many of the Chinese people, including kids, were shown as loud, arrogant and downright cruel. The level of beating poor little Dre receives is so severe it is hard to watch.

What kind of impression will western kids get out of this brutality? Will many of them go "Yippee!" when their parents suggest they might travel to China? Will they do their best to make friends with the next door neighbors, whose eyes are a bit slanted like the kids' eyes in the movie?

At the end of the movie, the "Karate Kid" whoops the Chinese's butt at their own national and traditional martial art, having had only a month to practice with the maintenance man. America 1, China nil. 3,000 years of practice and one gentle American kid with braided hair comes along and wins - on the big screen, too.

I believe kids may get a number of disturbing beliefs out of this particular aspect:

1. You can be smaller, weaker, inexperienced, have a broken leg, pain in your ribs and only 1 month of training, but still beat someone who is bigger, stronger, fitter, unhurt and has at least 8 years of practice. I would like to see you try convincing someone with this belief to do their Math homework or practice their piano
2. You can stare at a woman controlling Chi in front of a snake for 2 minutes and be able to summon that ability to control another person without ever practicing it or learning how it works ("Clear your mind" hardly qualifies as learning)
3. Beating someone in a fight is the only way to stop being afraid of them

As the state coordinator for Together for Humanity, Ronit often presents racism statistics at conferences and schools. Alarmingly, way too many Australia kids believe that Asians are drug dealers and that they cannot be trusted. I have a feeling that movies like The Karate Kid might be contributing to this image.

The jump from seeing Chinese people as bad and/or inferior and seeing anyone who is not white American that way is very short. Unfortunately, it can also be leveraged for significant operations. Make no mistake, what children are exposed to when they are young, they retain most strongly and question least.

Bad Parenting 101

The mother in the film loves her son, but she is very powerless, motivated by guilt and quite irresponsible.

Dre landed in China not only ignorant but also resentful, which means he was not going to learn in a hurry. In some places, that can be dangerous. Oh, wait, it WAS.

If I were taking my son to another country, I would do some preparation. Language is not the most important thing to learn, because kids pick it up in no time (Eden started speaking English in 6 weeks and became a native speaker in a few months). However, the customs and culture of China are very difficult from those of urban United States, so I would make sure my child knew some basics - family structure, basic signs of respect and disrespect and important values.

The girl Dre likes tells him she is listening to Bach, so he says he knows about this band and he likes them. This scene alone, no matter how funny it was meant to be, shows him to be both ignorant and dishonest, while making those things seem acceptable.

Dre gets into all sorts of trouble, spends time with a previously-unfamiliar Chinese man (can you be any more of a "stranger" than that?) and becomes a fearless Kung Fu fighter while keeping his mother almost completely out of it. When he gets beaten and thrown around, he just puts on some makeup in the morning and drops his hat a bit lower.

What?!

My son can mope for all of 10 seconds before I know it and ask him about it. If he says, "It's nothing", I do not just let it go. I stick with it until I know he will be fine. There is no way known my son will get beaten up by somebody and not tell me about it as soon as he got home. In fact, he will mostly likely ring me from the school's office or the mobile phone on one of his friends even sooner.

Dre is 12 years old (yeah, right) and struggling to be accepted by the students at his school. When his mother drops him off, she calls out after him, "I love you", which makes him cringe, turn around and hiss, "Mom!" But she just keeps insisting on getting a loving answer from him right in front of everybody. Sure, let the kid get himself punched senseless, as long as he loves you.

Finally, what kind of a mother says it is OK for her son to participate in a martial arts competition with only a month's preparation? She sits in the audience and does absolutely nothing when he gets hurt, allowing him to make up his own mind if he wants to fight some more.

There are always peaceful ways to resolve conflict, even if they involve moving your child to another school with a longer commute. There are always grownups responsible for children and they can be reasoned with. There are always reasons behind people's actions and they can always be discovered and addressed. Letting your child go into a situation that endangers his life is unforgivable.

The Good Things

OK, that was the bad stuff, but what about the good stuff and what can you do if your kids really want to watch The Karate Kid?

Well, it must have been cheaper to make the film in China, but as a side effect, we got to see some really beautiful Chinese landscape, architecture and lifestyle. Our family has been to China, but we had not been to some of the gorgeous places shown in the film.

The other side effect is that many Chinese people - actors and film crew - must have been employed in this production, demonstrating that cross-cultural collaborations can work quite well.

One particular plus for me was how Jaden Smith trained to become strong, flexible and quick enough for this part. His training was shown during the credits and it must have been tough.

I think Will Smith (and Jada Pinkett Smith) created a rare opportunity for their son that very few kids ever have - to play the lead role in a movie that pretty much everyone will see. It can be difficult for such a young person to carry the film on his shoulders, but there were pictures of them being there with him and remaining his parents throughout this experience.

We have a good friend who is a gender equality expert, so for her sake, I will also say that showing Dre putting on makeup, which is not typically a masculine thing to do, could be seen as a message that it is OK for boys to use makeup when they need to.

Finally, Jackie Chan's style of screen fighting always involves the least amount of hurting other people. In all his films that I have seen, he never attacks anyone and when attacked, he does his best to avoid the fight and use every means to end it without damage. His character, apart from being unable to get himself out of depression, is true to the spirit of martial arts and seems full of respect for his own culture and its traditions.

What to do if your kids have seen The Karate Kid

After the movie, I asked everybody what they thought about it and then shared with them some of the things I have written above.

I believe there is no way to isolate our kids completely from things that are bad for them. We can keep them out of harm's way, but often, our job is to use whatever happens as a growing opportunity for them.

So now my kids know what I think about The Karate Kid and that if we were ever in similar situations, I would prepare them, help them find peaceful solutions to any problems and support them while they learned the ropes.

And when I got a bit too serious with the parenting talk, Ronit said, "You guys know it's just a movie, right?"

Happy parenting,
Gal

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When parents cannot support themselves, it is hard to expect them to support their children. Many of the skills required to be a good parent cannot be developed from feeling enormous love towards the kids. I used to say that "love is the answer", but although love is the foundation of parenting, it is not enough in order to raise healthy, happy, good, smart, social, successful and contributing citizens.

If parents cannot manage their own health and wellbeing, how can we expect them to teach their children health and wellbeing? Professionals study a whole degree to understand how to handle kids' emotional or physical health, yet our society expects parents to just know what to do as soon as their first child is born.

If parents cannot manage their financials, how can we expect them to teach their kids to manage their own financials? Some people study accounting and money management in high education institutes to be able to manage money, yet society expects parents to somehow come up with ways to manage their finances well.

If parents cannot manage their relationships (see divorce rate), how can we expect them to set an example and be role models for better relationships for their kids? Relationship is the most neglected subject in 12 years of schooling. People get help only when they already have a big problem.

If parents cannot balance their work and their life, how can we expect them to raise a whole generation of children with good work-life balance? The demand to work longer hours is increasing. A better lifestyle requires more money to support the growing family and most people do not find the formula to manage their priorities.

Parents have a greater role than just taking care of their kids and making sure they eat, sleep and go to school. Parents are in charge of ensuring the future will be better.

Governments can support parents by investing in the right places to prevent greater expenses in the future. For example, if parents could support their kids' health and wellbeing, the health system could be smaller. If parents could support their kids' relationships or to manage their finances, the welfare system could shrink and the government could invest more in development, infrastructure and economic growth.

This week, I asked the top parenting bloggers for suggestions we could give government policy makers to support parents and improve parenting and here is what they thought about it. It is interesting to read what they think. Enjoy!

What should government policy makers change to support parents and improve parenting?

Sue Scheff - Sue Scheff Blog Creating more programs to help parents with at-risk teens. We truly don't have enough support groups/programs for parents that are struggling with troubled teens.

Susan Heim - Susan Heim on Parenting In general, I don't feel the government's role is to legislate parenting issues. Ideally, we learn how to parent through our families and religious institutions.

Annie Fox, M.Ed. - From the desk of Annie Fox Mandate parenting classes and relationship classes for high school and college students.

Maria Melo - Conversations with Moms I think it depends on the country that you live in and the urgent need of the moment. I will highlight two needs that I can think of for now. I live in Canada, where the crucial first year of a baby's birth is supported by a 12-month maternity leave. I was in awe about the differences between government-supported maternity leave between countries. The government should make staying home easier during the first year for parents by offering some economic support. Invest more in the educational system. Like the saying goes, "Children are our future" and school plays a big role in giving them the tools they need to succeed. Programs should be revised to meet the current needs and times (perhaps including a personal budgeting course when you're young to help instill important early habits).

Annie - PhD in Parenting More flexible maternity and parental leave. Greater support for breastfeeding (don't just say it is best, create an environment where every woman who wants to breastfeed has all the support she needs - ban formula promotion, provide free and easy access to lactation consultants, ensure workplaces are supportive of breastfeeding moms, etc. Ensure that all families have access to quality, nutritious foods to feed their children. Create and support a network of human milk banks. Ensure access to quality, affordable day care for all that want it.

Ria Sharon - My Mommy Manual I don't know enough about government policies to make 5 suggestions, but I would say there are a lot of resources and programs out there already that support parents (Parents As Teachers, HeadStart). Support these programs with funding.

Richard "RJ" Jaramillo - Single Dad Create a "Rescue Fund" for families that are suffering through this world recession. A short term fund that helps families with the necessities such as rent, food, utilities for 90 days.

Ronit Baras - Family Matters Higher pay for teachers. Good teaching is essential to the success of our society. We must make sure the good teachers stay in the system and do the best education job with our kids. Promote parenting schools for free through school and day care system. Investing in parenting translates to enormous savings in education, health and prosperity of our society. For every parent who does a bad job in parenting, the whole society pays and most times, the payment is for life. Invest in early childhood instead of putting all the energy and money into high school. The first 5 years of a person's life are the most important. Reward parents for staying together. The economic toll of separation of couples is huge. Invest in communication skills and in better relationships. If the emotional support for parents keeps them together and happy, kids will benefit from it greatly. Make education mandatory until grade 12. A friend of mine, who works for the government, said that now in Australia, every kid must be in the system until the end of grade 12, either studying, in an approved vocational program (there is even an approved home-schooling system) or in an apprenticeship. If not, they do not get any government support, nor do their parents get any child allowances for them. I think this is brilliant! I would encourage all governments to do something similar that will keep kids in the education system until the end of grade 12.

I hope many people who work for the government get a chance to read these suggestions. If you have any more suggestions, please share them with us via the comment box below. The more suggestions we have and the more we advertise them, the more we increase the chance that someone who can will act on them.

I would like to thank Annie, Sue, Ria, Maria, RJ, Susan and Annie Fox for sharing their thoughts and ideas with our parent readers.

If you want to know more about the bloggers who take part in this project or contact any of them, please visit their blogs, follow them on Twitter and/or become their fan on Facebook. Alternatively, you can send them a question or comment through the comment box below.

Join us next week's Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss "What, if any, are the differences between parenting boys and girls?" Gender is a very hot topic in the parenting world and I am curious to know what each of them thinks. I hope you are curios too.

We are approaching the end of the Top Parenting Bloggers Discussion, so I wanted to encourage you to send me some questions for discussion with your thoughts.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

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For years, after working in the Special Education library and preparing materials for teachers, I had a dream of having my own copier. When our last printer broke down after three years of good service, we said it was time to get a multifunction device and save space and energy. So we searched for the best product for our small business. You see, Gal and I learned that when you buy a product, you need to buy it from a good source (we call it "a product with parents") so you can get someone to fix it if something goes wrong.

Gal went to the biggest office equipment stores and found out Samsung had revamped their service offering by adding on-site repairs and a replacement policy for faulty products. He was told "They'll just send someone to your house to fix the printer, but if they can't fix it, they'll replace it".

So in November 2008, feeling we were buying something with "good parents" we bought a brand new Samsung CLX-3170FN printer/scanner/fax/copier. And we thought it was great.

Alas, our happiness was short-lived.

As we installed the printer, it destroyed our ADSL line splitter. At first, we thought there was something wrong with the splitter, so we got a new one, but after the third one "died" on us within two weeks, we decided to call Samsung Customer Service. They did not really help, claiming their fax was designed to work within the specifications of a voice line and they made no guarantees about ADSL. Gal had to be in contact with our service provider to find the splitter that would survive the problem and bought the top-of-the-line splitter, which seemed to work OK.

About a month later, I was in the middle of a call with a potential client and the line suddenly became silent. When the client rang again (how embarrassing), he said there were fax noises on his side of the line. Our fax had decided to start working.

We called Samsung Customer Service and they spent several hours telling us there must be a problem in our house. After getting nowhere with them and hearing them say, "Sorry Mam" a million times and repeat their company policies, they asked, "Is there anything else I can do for you, Mam?" They have nerve to ask this after doing nothing for me in the first place!

We found out we had spent full day of work trying to get Samsung's support, so we have decided to give up and switched the fax to manual. But after another two weeks, pages started coming out with a thin black line along the page. Again, we called Samsung, the guy on the phone asked me politely to open the machine, take out "the large green thing", clean it and put it back in.

What do you know? The black lines disappeared! I was so happy, but after hanging up and printing about 20 pages, it appeared again.

As a business, we could not afford to send printed material like this, so we outsourced it to a great little business solutions company (God bless Tara) and the real Samsung torture began.

For about six months, I was on the phone with Samsung for hours on end. It was amazing to be dragged for such a long time and often to be put on hold and have to listen to Samsung's self-promotion saying how wonderful their customer service and their technology are. Every time, they told me to clean "the large green thing", until one day, I got sick and tired of this I asked to them come and fix it. I had to go through a tedious escalation process until someone could give the instruction to the repair contractor to come and fix our printer.

Two days later, a nice guy appeared, checked the printer and said, "I would need to replace every part in this machine, so I'm going to ask for an exchange instead. Samsung will give you a call shortly".

We waited a day, two days, three days, four days and nothing happened. We called Samsung Customer Service and asked, "Where is the replacement?" and they said, "Sorry, but our policy says that the contractor needs to attempt to fix the printer three times before we send a replacement".

"Why three times?"

"That's our policy".

"But he's tested the machine and the cost of the parts would be higher than the price of a new printer".

"Sorry Mam…" (Talk to the wall).

So after another week, another guy appeared with all the parts that needed replacing. He swapped everything but the plastic cover and the printer still printed thin black lines where there should have been none. He said, "This model's had many problems. We replace everything and something is still wrong. I think it's a bad batch, because the newer ones are OK. I will ask again for a replacement".

Except for Samsung, this was only the second visit. It took another three weeks until the third visit took place. During that time, when talked with Samsung on the phone for hours, trying to convince them it was a waste of money, time and energy, but it did not change their mind. When the technician finally came, he felt abused himself, apologized for our inconvenience, replaced some parts that were unrelated to our problems and said, "Now that I've come for the third time, I will ask for your replacement and they should deliver it".

We waited again - a day, two days, three days, four days and nothing happened. We called Samsung and ask them where our replacement printer was and they told us the request for replacement had to go to a special board that meets once every few weeks. So we waited. Nothing happened. WE called again and they said, "Sorry, your request for replacement was declined".

I have to say it was hard to stay calm. And what was I supposed to do? All that time, we had been paying for quality printing, spending time and effort organizing printing jobs, begging for people to scan our material and looking at draft papers with thin black lines through them.

Gal got on the phone and went ballistic in their ears, escalating until a person finally seemed to understand what was going on and promised to take care of our case.

The board said they would approve the exchange as a special case and Gal and I were so happy we would finally have a working printer, but we waited and waited and nothing happened. We called Samsung again and they told us, "You can get your money back or get another printer".

Gal and I thought about it. We had cartridges that cost as much as the printer at home. We actually liked the printer model and thought that one was probably just a "lemon". The technicians said the newer batch was better. So we said we would take a new printer. The Customer "Care" person assigned to help us said she would arrange it. We waited, waited, waited and waited again and nothing happened. We called Samsung again and she said, "Sorry Sir (luckily Gal talked to them sometimes, because I had lost my temper completely by then), we don't have it in stock. You will have to wait 4 weeks".

We took a deep breath.

On 21 August 2009 - 9 months (!) after we bought the printer with not even one day of smooth use out of it, a person came in into our house with a new printer - CLX 3175FN. We went out to celebrate. It worked perfectly. It still tried to receive faxes in the middle of calls on Automatic, but we were happy. At last, we could print, fax, scan and copy immediately and our costs, hassle time and frustration dropped too.

But our joy lasted only 4 months. In January 2010, the machine stopped scanning.

We took a deep breath, called Samsung again and, after keeping me on the phone for an hour, the polite man told me, "Your printer is out of warranty, because when we exchange a product, it inherits the original warranty".

"You have wasted 9 months of my warranty on the first printer, while I couldn't use it and you gave me a new one without the warranty?! Had we taken the money and bought a new printer, it would come with 12 months of warranty!"

The man was very polite and told me this was Samsung's policy and I could write a complaint and fax it to the Samsung Resolution team if I wanted.

"How would you like me to do that, SIR? My fax isn't working", I asked him, doing my best to be polite.

He apologized again and said, "You can only send a fax to the resolution team". No matter what I said, he just kept saying, "Here is the fax number of the resolution team". Of course, at the way of our conversation, he also asked, "Is there anything else I can do for you Mam?"

So I sat down and wrote a letter to the resolution team asking them to give me back the 9 months of warranty they had wasted and got someone to fax it on 25 January from work (shhh, don't tell).

Nothing happened.

I called after a month. Another nice man checked and said, "The fax is here. I am sure someone will call you back in the next day or two". At the end of the conversation, he also asked, "Is there anything else I can do for you Mam?"

I waited some more.

Two weeks later, Gal called again and asked the nice operator who kept repeating the same things again like a parrot to escalate. He spent over 2 hours on the phone, told our whole story to 3 different people, who all started by telling him about the Samsung policy, until finally, a second-level manager said, "I think you're right. Let me take this to the person who can make a decision and I'll get back to you next Wednesday".

Two Wednesdays passed and no one called. Gal called again, asked for the person by name and requested an escalation to the next level. The third-level manager started to explain why our request had been rejected, but clearly had no knowledge of what the details were, so Gal told her. Again. From the beginning. Have you noticed that when you deal with customer service, every time you tell the story, you skip parts because you are sick and tired hearing yourself saying it over and over again? In the end, the polite woman said to Gal, "Samsung can't extend your warranty", as if there was some law against it, and told him we could complain to the authorities.

The most devastating thing was that when Gal contacted the authorities, the nice man on the phone told him that since there was no indication on the warranty paper how long it would take to fix or replace the printer, and since they did not state an exchange carried additional warranty, there was nothing illegal in Samsung's actions and he could not help.

We had already suffered a year and a half of lost time, spent energy, additional costs, heartache and embarrassment, not to mention we had lost our belief that the term "service" meant "within a reasonable time" (not 9 months).

Samsung behaved the way they did (still do) only because they could. As customers, we need to stop them from this abuse.

To make sure it will not happen to others, please pass this post on to your friends and family.

Ronit

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Gal had to make a lot of efforts to come home in time for dinner. I think it was a constant struggle. Working in IT companies, where working until midnight and not having a life was the norm, keeping his family values was not easy.

You are probably asking yourself by now why I am writing this.

I am writing for all the dads reading this blog and also for all the moms in hope I can make a difference.

Weekend Dad

You see, when dads are not around for so much of their kids' life, they miss something essential. Gal was a great dad - he changed the kids' diapers, fed them when they were babies, bathed them, made dinner from time to time (and he is great at it), stayed with them and took care of all their needs when I was away, but he only had 2.5 hours every evening to be with the kids and weekends. That was it.

Although it was a lot more than many our friends had, it was still not enough. Not for him, not for our kids and not for me. It limited the variety of things he could do with us, because many things had to be done before he came home.

Gal knew what he was missing, because he stayed home with Eden for the first 7 months of her life (we were students and I worked and studied a lot more than him). He knew what he was missing, because when Eden was about 3 years old, he worked from home for a while. He knew also because he had a chance to be with Noff for about 6 months when she was 1 year old.

Not all the kids in the world are fortunate enough to have their dad at home. Having a mom at home is great, but when Dad is away so much, I still think something is missing. We did our best to update Gal with what was happening at school with the kids, but with dinner, clearing the table, shower and bedtime story, his 2.5 hours with them were gone in a flash.

One day, Gal was forced to be at home by a restructuring of the company he worked for. After 6 month of going through the motions of looking for a job, we realized he actually did not want to find one. Staying at home, he saw the kids growing so fast without him and made the choice to be a work-at-home dad.

If you are a work-at-home mom (WAHM) or dad (WHAD), you know it is not as easy as it looks. It was easier for me to make the choice to work from home, because I most of my working years I worked around the kids' school hours, but for Gal it was tough.

It was like getting to know us all over again. The mornings were strange, because he had been out of the house by 7am and never had breakfast with us. Even dropping the kids off and picking them up from school was weird at first. Also, when you work for other people, you know what you are going to do when get to work every day, but when you work for yourself, you need to come up with your own timetable.

Opportunities

For a while, Gal struggled (we all did, because we had to get to know him too), but then he realized what a good thing that was. Here is a list of the many opportunities that came out of the choice to work at home:

1. He had the opportunity to have breakfast with us. Meals were always very important in our family. We always eat together and do our best not to schedule anything around dinner time. Saturday and Sunday mornings had been special, but now every day became like a Saturday or Sunday morning.
2. He had the opportunity to have a calm morning. Before he became a work-at-home dad, our kids would crawl into our bed and have some time together for giggling and laughing only on Saturday and Sunday mornings. After the change, we had them in our bed nearly every morning.
3. He had the opportunity to help the kids get ready to school. Yes, it is true that kids should learn to prepare themselves for school (our daughter Noff made herself sandwiches from the age of 4), but when Gal was home, his help gave everyone more time for breakfast together and the mornings were more relaxed.
4. He had the opportunity to take the kids to school. Driving the kids to school is a great bonding time. We usually talk to them about what they are going to do during the day and help set themselves up to have a great day. When Gal started driving the kids, I also became more flexible with my clients and could coach them early in the morning.
5. He had the opportunity to go with the kids to school and to meet their friends and their teachers. Working dads are usually unaware of everything that goes on in their kids' class. Some working dads come to parent-teacher nights, but most of participants are still moms. Usually to know the kids' friends, we had to wait for a school event on the weekend to allow Gal to get to know the kids' friends, but that was no longer a problem.
6. He had the opportunity to learn how much it cost to buy bread, milk or meat and where to buy them.
7. He had the opportunity to be more aware of our financials. Gal had always been very involved, but he had worked so much I had been paying the bills and managing our accounts. After he became a work-at-home dad, he became the person taking care of finances and payments. I have to say that sharing this was much easier than doing it on my own.
8. He had the opportunity to be involved in the shopping and influence what we buy and what we eat. Gal has been following Dr. Hay's "Food Combining Diet" for over 20 years and, while I agreed with him on things I buy, when he started going to the supermarket, our house filled with more of the foods he liked, which I think was fair.
9. He had the opportunity to help the kids with their school work. For most of the years, I had done a very good job helping the kids with their homework and teaching them everything I thought they needed to know. It was easy for me, being a teacher, but when it came to biology, physics, chemistry and logic, Gal was so much more helpful (he has a degree in Biology and Computer Science).
10. He had the opportunity to know what they know.
11. He had the opportunity to hear about all the little things that happened to the kids at school they would have forgotten by the weekend and even by dinner time. Suddenly, he could attend school assemblies when our kids got awards and when they performed (and our kids do a lot of both).
12. He had the opportunity to cook dinner and be a role model. He has always been a better cook than me (and I mean "more creative"). When he came home at 5:30, dinner was usually almost ready and we would eat shortly after he arrived. Staying at home allowed him to cook more and I think that is very important for kids, especially boys, as a role model.
13. He had the opportunity to clean, not than just on the weekends or after the kids are in bed and cannot see, and to be a role model. Cleaning had always been mostly my job, but when Gal started working at home, he noticed that keeping a house clean took lots of time and effort that he could share with us (before it was unfair to ask him, because he worked so hard outside).
14. He had the opportunity to share hobbies with the kids. A short time after the change, our son started playing basketball and Gal volunteered to coach his basketball team. He did that for two years and it was one of the best bonding time with our son.

As you can see from this list of opportunities, I benefited a lot as a mother and as a partner and there were others I have not listed (this blog is rated G).

For years, I had not even considered this option. You know, most families follow this formula - dad works long hours and mom works part time (or not) to accommodate the kids' schedule - and we were just the same. But as we discovered later, it did not have to be like that. Dads do not have to be "2.5-hours-a-day dads". Their relationships with their kids can develop by spending more time with them, sharing life with them and being involved in their life.

2.5-hours-a-day dad

I am not suggesting that every dad start working at home. That also has its ups and downs, pluses and minuses. For Gal, it was not just working from home but working with me, which probably made things a bit more complicated (while it still has its advantages…).

I am suggesting that dads and moms consider the role dads have in their kids' development. As a Success for Boys consultant, I can tell you for sure that dads who work away from home see their kids 2.5 hours a day (best case) and their absence is directly responsible for raising kids with troubles that require intervention later on. In our friends' family (wonderful, highly educated, good jobs, great money and good social status), the dad used to spend only 1 hour with the kids every day and all their 3 kids have emotional difficulties. There is nothing special about them - they are the typical family now, which is sad in my opinion.

Your kids need your attention. They need you around. If they grow up without your presence, it is like shared custody (without the arguments) - Mom is the parent during weekdays (she will just make another plate for you for dinner) and you are a weekend dad.

Weekend dads lose so many of their parenting rights that during a divorce, it is almost guaranteed the mother will raise the kids ("Sorry, no dinner for you. You can see the kids every other weekend"). I am from the side that has the advantage, but as an educator, I find it horrific that courts prefer mothers, unless they have done something horrible, over dads.

If you raise your kids together, you should strive to balance each other and share your parenting, understanding how important both parents are to kids' happy life. If you raise your kids apart, you should still strive to balance each other and share your parenting, understanding how important both parents are to kids' happy life.

So be happy for your kids' sake, be together as much as you can for your kids' sake and dads, consider your role in your kids' life and do your best to extend the your time at home, because family matters.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

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I think I have written about school uniform and its (negative) educational value many times, yet somehow, I do not have the feeling I have written enough. I hope you can read my frustration with this topic in my sarcasm, because I am not happy at all.

My daughter Noff asked me to brush her hair today.

"Can you do my hair in two pig tails?" she asked.

"Sure, pig tails, pony tail, whatever makes you happy", I thought to myself, went to the drawer where we keep all her hair bands the hair brush, took out a pink hair band and a yellow one and put them on the table, preparing to brush her hair. To my surprise, Noff put the hair bands back in the drawer and got red and black ones instead.

"We are not allowed to wear pink hair bands", she said.

"Has someone told you anything about your hair band?" I asked her.

"Yes, we can only wear green, red, black and white", said Noff (green and red are the school uniform colors).

Now I have some questions for you:

1. Why on Earth would anyone be bothered by a 7-year-old's hair band color?
   Schools, as you may know, have lots of problems with bullying, mental health, parents divorcing, devastating literacy and numeracy levels, drop outs, violence and racism. Surely, the right way to fight all those sicknesses of our society is not by making sure that my 7 year old daughter wears the right hair band.
2. How on Earth is the color of the hair band related to kids' learning?
   Schools, as you may know, should be the best place for kids to learn. This is why the private school and tutoring industries are blossoming and tutoring advertisements are distributed in the public schools' newsletters. Surely my daughter will not read more or knows her math and science better if she wears the right hair band.
3. What on Earth is the value of raising 1,600 obedient kids?
   Schools, as you may not know, are all about discipline and conformism. "If you break their spirit when they are young, they will do exactly what you want them to do later" seems to be their motto. Kids will grow to be extraordinarily obedient teenagers and adult citizens because they know exactly the consequences of wearing a pink hair band. But what about creativity? What about happiness?
4. What on Earth is the importance of killing kids' individuality?
   Schools, as you may not know, are all about aiming for the average. This is how the "tall poppy syndrome" came about. They teach kids not to stick out to make it easy for the system to "handle" them. They teach kids who are born in the same year the same things and test them by the same benchmarks and expectations, because being an average society is the essence of our education system. But surely, advocating mediocrity is not the way to come up with young leaders, young creative minds and lots of future innovation. This would require wearing pink hair bands.
5. Why on Earth would a school system bother to waste public money on chasing hair band offenders?
   Schools, as you may know, have an ever-declining supply of resources and funds. This is why at the beginning of the year, they ask parents to pay a "voluntary" contribution to cover expenses that are considered "non-essential" (and are therefore not covered by tax money), like the library, Internet, copying, excursions. And if you do not pay, your child will just have to miss out. Additionally, teachers have 30 kids (or more) in every class, which should leave them very little time to be uniform policemen. Yet, the deputy principals' role seems to do a lot with discipline and teachers still manage to find time to check students' uniforms. Even the school's weekly newsletter, funded with my own "voluntary contribution", contains regular pleas to ban pink hair bands and the likes. Surely, instead of funding a newsletter full of "dangerous uniform law infringements" and tutoring ads, parents could spend their money on something that actually promotes their kids' wellbeing, academic success and happiness.
6. How on Earth can this contribute to kids' social abilities?
   Schools, as you may know, are the best places to learn social skills. If kids do not compete with each other by comparing hair band ("Mine is pink and yours is white"), how will they learn social skills relating to clothes? Surely, kids will not threaten anyone by showing off their pink hair band and will not use their hair band to bully, hurt or abuse other kids. If we want to teach them how to build rapport with their friend, we need to do is teach them to copy others and to try to look exactly like the others. At the same time, we must teach them to use their pink hair band to show their individuality. Doing this at an early age will prevent us later on from having buy brand name clothes and gadgets ("Because I want to be like my friends") or seeing our kids pierce themselves only because others do it.
7. Where on Earth do we have uniform and why?
   As you probably know, prisons, slaves, waiters and sales people wear uniforms to brand an organization. Branding is important for every organization. This is why one school has the kids' wearing a black and gray uniform and another chooses blue and red. Each school can brand itself using public money this way. You see, kids with uniforms are easily recognized by others and are reminded they "belong" to an organization. As a promoter of diversity and acceptance, I see this as encouragement for segregation, discriminations and so on. This is especially true when kids are controlled to the pink hair band level.

As you can see, I am not happy, not happy at all. And my daughter's school is a good school - we picked it also because it puts less emphasis on hair bands than other schools do (we know of others whose uniform rules cover bras and underwear!).

The Journal of Education Research published in 1998 an investigation into the claim that the use of a uniform will decrease substance use (drugs), decrease behavioral problems, increase attendance and increase academic achievement.

This Scientific School Uniform Research concludes:

The findings indicate that student uniforms have no direct effect on substance use, behavioral problems, or attendance. Contrary to current discourse, the authors found a negative effect of uniforms on student academic achievement

[Quick, bring me my soap box]

So join me in creating the "Pink hair band" movement, which allows the kids to wear whatever they like in their hair, regardless of uniform. Talk to you friends, call your local politician and raise your parental concerns at meetings of the school parents. Together, we can get schools to teach our kids important stuff and let them be individuals, pink hair band and all.

Yours truly,
Unhappy Ronit

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