Tag Archives: children

Intelligent Solutions to School Bus Safety

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By Jason Menard

When it comes to school bus safety, who truly needs to smarten up: the school bus designers or those who share the road with these yellow behemoths?

The question comes up again in light of the horrific accident in Huntsville, Alabama, which saw three teenaged girls killed and 30 other high schoolers injured when a school bus was involved in an accident that sent it through the guardrail of an overpass. The bus plummeted 30 feet to the ground, landing nose first.

Of course, nobody on that bus was wearing a seat belt, because as we all know most school buses aren’t outfitted with restraining devices. But would seat belts really help? Our knee-jerk reaction, cemented in the fact that the mantra of wearing a seat belt saves lives has been driven into our skulls, is yes. However, according to the Ministry of Transportation – Ontario, seat belts may in fact do more harm than good – and the buses’ design alone makes them safe for students.

School buses are designed to be compartmentalized, essentially creating little pockets of safety for each child. By installing well-anchored seats with higher backs that are filled with energy-absorbing material and placed closer together, those who have engineered the school buses have done what they can to promote safety for its occupants.

Conversely, putting restraining devices, such as seat belts, into a school bus may cause even more problems. As any parent knows, as children grow, their belt requirements change. In a school bus environment, it’s nearly impossible – and at the very least excessively impractical – to ensure that all seat belts are properly adjusted to the size and weight of a constantly changing series of seat occupants.

A poorly fitted seat belt can cause serious injuries in the event of an accident. And would that make the bus driver liable for any injuries caused by a child’s inability to properly adjust his or her restraining device? Should we expect our children to be able to handle this responsibility on their own?

Too many parents focus on the lack of a seat belt and look at that as a negligent act. They don’t look at the engineering and design aspects that have been implemented to compensate for the lack of a restraining device. In the end, save for any future adjustments and improvements to the design of the bus, it would seem that our children’s safety has been well accounted for. As hard as it may for us inundated with the importance of seat belts throughout our lives, the lack of seat belts in a school bus seems to be the right choice.

So if we can’t improve bus safety on the buses, then we have to look elsewhere for improvements. Specifically, instead of making the buses safer for the road, we have to make the road safer for the buses – and our children.

There are still times when we see people passing stopped school buses, either trying to beat the extension of the stop arm, or in complete defiance of it. There are still drivers who race through school zones at speeds well in excess of the posted speed limits. And there are still those motorists who choose to drive aggressively and erratically through our city streets.

The buses aren’t the problem. We are.

But what can be done? On a couple of occasions I’ve called police to report someone blowing past a stopped bus with its lights flashing. And while the dispatch person has been pleasant, the fact is that the police don’t have the man power to chase after every person who ignores not just the law, but basic common sense.

In fact, the greatest risk to our children doesn’t come while they’re on the bus, it comes as they’re getting off. And no belt in the world is going to protect them from that danger.

Currently there’s a national study looking at the issue of seat belts on school buses. The Ontario government has indicated that it will take the findings into consideration for the future. But chances are the status quo will be upheld.

In the end, assuring the safety of our school-aged children isn’t one that’s the domain of engineering. And no fabric strap or metal buckle will ever replace common sense as a deterrent for accidents.

Slow down. Watch for kids. And try to avoid the giant yellow vehicle in front of you. Then the whole point about seat belts becomes moot. After all, the best way to ensure the effectiveness of safety devices and design is to make sure they’re never called into use.

Inside the bus isn’t where the problem lies. Therefore, the burden falls squarely on our shoulders. If we drive safer, then maybe tragedies like the one in Huntsville can be avoided.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Bully Shows Parents Just Don’t Understand

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By Jason Menard

When will people learn? The more you talk about something and threaten to ban it, the more desirable it will be. Unfortunately, experience doesn’t always make us wiser – especially when it comes to knowing how to keep our kids away from things we find unsavoury.

The latest example of this is the release of Rockstar Games’ Bully. This title for the PlayStation 2 enables students to take on the role of Jimmy, a 15-year-old who is starting his first year at a new school.

From there, the experience depends on how you play it. You can choose to befriend the geeks or become one of the bullies. And in typical tongue-in-cheek fashion, the game continues through social interactions. Of course, where people get up in arms is when that social interaction involves wedgies or bats.

And the greatest part of Rockstar Games’ marketing strategy? The fact that they new parents around the world – along with hyper-sensitive pundits – would be up in arms about this new game, shouting its potential for negatively impacting society, railing about its lack of compassion and understanding of a very real problem for today’s children, and essentially turning the volume to 11 to ensure everyone hears how horrible and depraved this new game is.

And, by extent, making certain that every teen worth his or her salt wants to get a copy of the game. Or at least be able to play it at a friends’ house.

It’s brilliant in its simplicity. From so-called Satanic music, to the evils of Gangsta Rap, to underage drinking, kids have reacted to their parents’ consternation and hyperbole in the exact opposite way that the adults intended. Instead of making this product repellant to kids through their actions, parents ended up making these items more desirable. After all, for a teen looking to carve out his or her own identity, what better way than to make a dramatic break from the will of their parents.

After all, parents don’t know anything. They’re old, they’re out of date, and they don’t understand today’s kid! And you know what, when there are still adults out there railing against games like Bully, it’s proof that not only do they not understand today’s kid, but they’ve forgotten the lessons of their youth, and that of countless generations before them.

Rockstar knew this. Rockstar, of the Grand Theft Auto series has had plenty of experience with parental outrage. And when the presence of an unlockable X-rated scene in a recent game was made known, all it did was stoke the fires of interest.

No, parents have yet to understand that the best way to minimize the reach of games – or any other media for that matter – that they find unsavoury is to ignore it completely. Parental outrage is the great validator for youth. Essentially, if your parents are opposed, then you’re probably on the right track.

It’s not until much later that we realize that our parents may have known what they were talking about. And it’s not until we cross the threshold into adulthood that we truly appreciate their wisdom, knowledge, and experience. And that appreciation – along with a dawning sense of regret – is only heightened when we have our own children, and the sins of our youth are revisited upon us by the next generation!

In fact, an even better way to turn your kids off of this type of stimuli is to share in the excitement and offer to participate! After all, what’s less cool in life than what mom and dad are doing?

Yet adults continue to react with outrage, thinking that discourse and common sense will prevail over a teen’s personal habits, when in fact they are dealing with knee-jerk reactions to stimuli. If a parent says one thing, then the opposite must be what’s cool!

So Bully gets released, parents around the world are up in arms, ratings boards slap on teen-only ratings (which, like Parental Advisory stickers become badges of honour, not objects to discourage), and people in the back rooms at Rockstar games laugh and watch all the money come in.

It’s not about right and wrong. It’s about how you handle it. This doesn’t mean abdicating your responsibility as a parent to discuss the tough issues. Nor should you let your child run free like a little hooligan, simply because you don’t want to say no.

But, in the end, going overboard with shock and rage in an attempt to ban a product only backfires. We’ve seen it throughout history – when will parents start to learn?

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

New Measure of Manhood

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By Jason Menard

Just one word is all it took to remove any of the last vestiges of any sense of cool masculinity to which I was still clinging. Of my own volition, I uttered the word “tummy,” and completed my decent into the land of doing fatherhood.

And you know what? I’m a better man for it.

There were no excuses for my actions. I awoke at night, feeling slightly nauseous, and when my wife turned to ask what was wrong I replied, “My tummy hurts.” And, at that point, it felt even worse as my concept of masculinity plummeted into my gut. Sure, I was tired, but there were no kids around. Just me and my vocabulary diluted to the point where “tummy” was my first reference.

The overall decent has been slow and gradual, like a glacier eroding away the rugged edges of a coast, my carefully crafted, grizzled exterior has been systematically smoothed away by an unyielding force of nature – children.

It’s an interesting parallel watching my son enter that delicate pre-teen age bracket. At 11 years old, his life is all about proving himself in front of his friends. Like all of us at the time, he has a foggy idea of what it means to be a man, but is unable to comprehend what manhood is truly about.

That lesson is one we don’t truly learn until later in life. Even as we progress into our teenage years and our young adulthood, our growth is all about defining ourselves as individuals, showing ourselves to be rugged men capable of standing up against the ravages that the world throws on us. We engage in social rituals and sporting events, which at their very root, are designed to establish a masculinity hierarchy. It’s just nature over nurture and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Yet, for all the chest-thumping, testosterone-fuelled bellowing we do in our youth, the irony is that the true indication of when we become a man is announced not with a roar, but with the dulcet tones we use with our children.

We spend our lives searching for ways to show our dominance. Whether it’s through drinking contests, games of one-on-one, or comparing financial statements, we spend our youth looking for external validation of our manhood. And when we do find it, it’s not through our friends or co-workers, but in the outstretched arms, unconditional love, and unyielding trust of our children.

It is at that moment, when we look into our children’s eyes that we see, reflected back to us, all we need to know in life. It is at that moment when nothing else matters in this world. We stop caring what anybody else thinks, because all that matters is that we do right by our children.

It is at that moment too when we can drop all the pretences and tear down the artificial walls with which we have surrounded ourselves. We can lie down on the floor and just be ourselves with our family. It is in that time when everything finally seems to make sense.

Yet still there are stereotypes that persist. As a parent with two children, one boy and one girl, I can attest that there are differences in the way we experience things. For my initial interaction with my son, the need to remove those traits of masculinity was lessened. He was and is going through the same things that I was and I can understand where he is in life. I can tell him what it truly means to be a man, but it’s a journey that he’ll have to take for himself, so that he can appreciate it more. But, as such, we can fall into the same trap of reliving a juvenile form of masculinity.

In a father-son relationship, we often look to help our children be what we determine a man should be: strong, yet caring; respectful, yet willing to stand up for your beliefs; tough, yet compassionate. Yet those are the same ideals that I strive to impart to my daughter. In the end, gender is a generality, and it’s the individual that matters. So there should be no difference in my experience with my children.

But there is. My son and I share common ground through his current experience as it mirrors my own youth. I’ve walked the path that he’s walked down, so there’s a comfort level associated with him. My relationship with my daughter has required me to step out of what I know and see the world with an entirely new perspective.

Of her own volition, my daughter became interested in babies, princesses, and all the traditional things that some would say stereotypically define a girl. My wife and I left her the choice to select her toys (and with a bunch left over from her older brother, there were no shortage from which to choose), yet she gravitated towards these choices on her own – and forced me to come along for the ride. And, in the end, it’s hard to cling to those youthful ideals of masculinity when you’re one the ground playing with your daughter’s Princess dolls.

The 17-year-old version of me may have laughed at seeing a grown man playing with dolls. But the 32-year-old version of me knows that young punk doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. They say that a parent’s job is to teach their children, but it is with great thanks that I can say that my children have taught me the most important lesson of all – what it truly means to be a man.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

A New Perspective on the New Year

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By Jason Menard

As we age we often lament the loss of things that we enjoyed in our youth. But that mentality is short-sighted when one considers all that we gain in return. All in all, it’s hardly a fair trade.

Like many of you, when I was younger I rang in New Year’s Eve as hard as possible. From nights at the bars to house parties to rock star-esque trashing of hotel rooms, New Year’s Eve was a time for revelry – usually fuelled by alcohol.

In years past, I greeted the New Year with a bottle in both hands. This year, I quietly welcomed the New Year with my daughter in my arms. And there’s really no comparison.

It’s been a steady descent into adulthood over the past few years. Before we were rocking the streets of the town, now we calmly watch Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and ring in the New Year not with a gong, but with a quiet kiss and embraces with friends. The old me would wonder what’s wrong. The new me knows that it’s finally all right.

With two children, aged 11 and four, my wife and I no longer feel the need to go out and paint the town red. We’ve long realized the game of life isn’t won by partying or staying up all night. No, the game of life is won or lost based solely on who your teammates are. And I get more satisfaction now spending an evening at home with my family than I ever did bellying up to any bar and racing the rising sun home.

While I still have friends who continue to frequent clubs and bars, I can’t say that I have any inclination to join them. Instead of drinking myself into oblivion, I’d rather head home and remember every single moment that my son and daughter give to me. As I watch them grow – and as my son gets closer and closer to those teenage years – I realize that each passing page of the calendar means fewer opportunities to share their lives. And I’m not willing to let those moments go. And when I do go out, I don’t want to be stumbling arm in arm with some drinking buddy, but rather enjoying an evening on the arm of my wonderful wife.

So as I sat on our friends’ couch with my wife at my side and my four-year-old in my arms, I watched as my daughter vainly tried to hold out until midnight – less for the New Year’s celebration and more because of every child’s wish to stay awake. Instead of slamming down shots or squeezing another tune on the dance floor, I read to her the assortment of books she continued to bring to me.

At 11:56 p.m. she finally lost the battle, her eyes fluttering closed as she fell asleep in my arms. With my wife at my side and my son nearby, we counted down the last few moments of 2005 and greeted the New Year with smiles and hugs. Our daughter saw the arrival of 2006 through sleep-heavy eyes and promptly fell back to bed.

Shortly thereafter, as we drove the Montreal highways back to our temporary home, we watched the traffic that accompanied us on our route. It wasn’t the over-lubricated revellers that stumbled along the streets of our past, but fellow families heading back to their homes with similarly somnolent offspring in various states of repose in the backseats of their cars.

I realized that while I enjoyed the follies of my youth and don’t begrudge anyone their decision to keep living that life, I’m enjoying the company I’m currently keeping. And like most of us in the not-too-long-after-midnight traffic crowd I went home not regretting the life I’ve long since left behind, but fully embracing the life that I now enjoy.

Because, when it comes down to it, while holding a drink in each hand may have had its moments, they’re easily forgotten. Holding my child in my arms as she succumbs to the security and warmth of a father’s love – that’s a moment that’ll last forever. And I can’t think of a better way to ring in the New Year.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em

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By Jason Menard

It’s a fact of life. Chances are that the larger your family gets, the smaller your circle of friends will be – and differing views and tolerances on child-rearing is often the catalyst for change.

Some mothers do have ‘em. It’s not just the title of a British television comedy – it’s a simple fact of life. There’s a reason why couples with children tend to lose friends over a period of time – friends can last through thick or thin, but differences in how you raise your kids can be the straw that permanently breaks the camel’s back.

There’s no way to determine how people are going to react to becoming parents. There’s no indication that you can gather during your youth or the formative years of the friendship that can give you any sort of inkling as to what their parental style will be and, more importantly, how that will mesh or clash with your own views when you both have children.

The biggest problem is that everyone thinks their way is the right way. And this intransigence can drive a wedge between the longest-standing of friends.

In any relationship, when forced to choose between your kids and your friends, your offspring will win each and every time. It’s a foregone conclusion. The best intended criticisms and suggestions will never be met with understanding when it comes to raising our children. So it’s almost better not to say anything except for the resentment that carries. Eventually that simmering pot will boil over and what happens is that the list of excuses as to why you can’t drop by gets increases, while the level of enjoyment of this shared time decreases.

Everybody has different standards for discipline and child-rearing expectations, and when those don’t mesh with your own, it creates an environment that’s intolerable. My wife and I know are strict with our children. We have high expectations for them and their behaviour, especially outside of our own walls.

Kids will be kids, but there’s a time and a place – and there are limits. We’ve set clearly defined limits for our children and we expect them to follow them – if they don’t there are consequences. We don’t hit our children, nor do we believe in corporal punishment, but we also aren’t afraid to express our displeasure with them when appropriate. We will raise our voice at times to indicate the gravity of a situation.

We’re not perfect and neither are our kids – nobody is. But we’re confident in taking our children out of the house. We know we can go to a store, visit friends and family, or enjoy a dinner out with the confidence that our kids will be well-behaved and respectful. We don’t expect them to be robots or sit poker straight and not talk – and we don’t ask of them anything we don’t expect of ourselves.

But that view isn’t shared by all of our friends – and this is the issue we couldn’t have anticipated. Whether it’s constant screaming, refusals to eat food, or rudeness and aggression, things that aren’t accepted in our household are tolerated in others. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some people we know who condemn other people’s children for being unruly, undisciplined, and unwieldy are blind to the fact that their own little hellions are running around behaving the same way.

So what is one to do? Disciplining other people’s children – try it once and see how well that works! The only way to deal with it is for the parents/friends to be on the same page when it comes to child-rearing, and that’s a compatibility test we often don’t get to take until it’s too late.

Are we wrong? Are we too strict? Is it too much to expect that saying no to a kid 10 times may result in some action (or at least some appreciation from the other parent as to respecting the rules of our house)? Are we wrong in believe that while kids should be allowed to be kids, running around like free-ranged chickens with no restrictions is a little counter-productive towards their long-term development and appreciation of a life with rules and regulations?

As our families grow our circle of friends get smaller. We have friends lamenting the loss of their single friends without realizing that if their obnoxious offspring are taxing on those who already have children and understand the trials and tribulations, why would someone without the first-hand experience of child-rearing want to subject themselves to this torture? The visits become infrequent, the phone calls are fewer and farther between, and, eventually, they stop outright.

The same goes for those friends with children. Raising a family is tiring enough and subjecting yourself to a visit marred by unruly children and indifferent parents is not high on your list of things-to-do. So you withdraw little by little, distancing yourself from what you know is going to be a negative experience. Eventually, time and distance proves too much and you can cross one more person off your Christmas card list.

There are some lines that just can’t be crossed. While friends and family are the keys to life, they’re not always compatible. Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing that until it’s too late.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved