Got an instant message today from one of my compadres'.
Very typical, and very disturbing of what we see in the public school systems of Greater Dayton:
"I was visiting the Springfield schools today. Saw a 4th grade student today just lose it. He doesn’t like the color yellow and then someone sat in his seat. He sat down and started banging his head on the table. 3 teachers came by 1 at a time and asked if he was ok. None of them tried to stop him or put foam down for him to bang his head on. I guess I don’t understand teaching. Amazingly the Springfield city school superintendent was visiting and SHOULD have been aware of the situation; he was 10' away and did nothing. I took the young man to the gym, showed him some rudimentary boxing moves. We boxed for 45 minutes. His endomorphs kicked in. Much calmer. Had the “Manly-Man” talk. We’ve got another one, possibly, depends on mom’s reaction."
The situation is typical. No nurturing Father Figure in his life.
My group can only handle so many. What's the solution?
Lack of a strong father figure often leads to a lot of problems. Maybe more men should volunteer to be one.
It's time consuming, kind of...
But more, it's emotionally draining.
The fellow who sent me the above is 60 years old.
He's a GS-15 out at the base, retired naval officer.
I'm 69 years old. All of us in this Art-of-Manliness mentoring group are old, retired, or approaching retirement. We've attempted to recruit more "Mentors" from a younger crowd... no success.
@bigpawbullets At least your trying to do something and I salute you for it.
Hate hearing stories like this. They need to put armed Vets in the schools obviously for safety, but they can also be trained to deal with troubled Children like that as well. I don't have to tell you how much good he did that Child.