PLAYERS TOO QUIET ABOUT HEAD INJURY

Players too quiet about head injury

Andrew Malekoff

NEWSDAY, appearing on March 3, 2011, p. A35

Concussions in sports have reached alarming proportions that is, indeed, more than an NFL problem ["Football's tragic call to tackle head injury," Editorial, Feb. 25]. This is silent epidemic fueled by a gladiator culture.

What can adults who care about kids do to help to break the silence about this public health issue? We must insist that all children, teenagers and their parents be educated early on about the risks, consequences, signs and symptoms of head injury. This should include values education that puts the gladiator play-at-any-cost culture up for inspection, particularly when it comes to contact sports.

Children need alternative models for demonstrating courage and heart - a counterforce to the dangerous and false belief that putting one's well-being in jeopardy when playing a game is noble. Competitive sports involve sacrifice, perseverance, loyalty, honor and courage - all values that will serve one well throughout life. Maintaining a code of silence about a serious head, or other, injury that can lead to lifelong consequences must be deemed unacceptable.

We must demand that those in power in youth, interscholastic and intercollegiate sports protect our children; and we must help our children, from an early age, to think critically and develop the good sense and courage, without shame, to break the silence.

Editor's note: The writer is the executive director of the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY FROM HALLMARK

The One that Got Away from Hallmark

By Andrew Malekoff© 2011

I subscribe to a few magazines for leisurely reading. Occasionally, mail order catalogues addressed to me arrive in the mail. Usually, I throw them out. There are a few catalogs, however that I do thumb through, like the one that I get from L.L. Bean.

None of the mail order catalogs I get these days are as appealing as the Johnson Smith Company catalog that I got when I was a boy. It was a small booklet with colorful illustrations and descriptions of jokes, pranks, collectibles and unusual items. Back in the day, I spent hours pouring through my Johnson Smith catalog imagining what pranks I could play on friends and family.

As each April Fools’ Day approaches, I am reminded of my Johnson Smith days. I was wondering if they still printed a catalog. So I searched the Internet and I found an online catalog with a heading that read: "Things You Never Knew Existed...and other items you can't POSSIBLY live without." I clicked on the link for gags and in a flash I was ten again.

As I scrolled and clicked my way through the online catalog I found a rubber mouse, double-barrel shotgun lighter, flushing toilet bank, gnarly teeth, a Zombie Handbook and more than a few risqué unmentionables. When I clicked on the picture that accompanied each item, I was taken to cleverly-worded descriptions, no doubt aimed at the discernable pre-teen consumer.

For example, there was a Smoking Donkey Cigarette Dispenser. The description said: “Fill the plastic pack mule with 24 regular size cigarettes (not kings). Press his ears back, then down, and he dispenses the cigarettes one at a time from under his tail!” And, there was a disclaimer that read, “Although we do not encourage the use of tobacco products, the Smoking Donkey is a remnant of a bygone era and intended to be a collectible.” What, to display alongside one’s Lladro collection?

Another featured product was a Bible Flask that was advertised as “More Than Meets the Eye!” The ad went on to say: “The good book giveth like never before. A four-ounce stainless steel flask is hidden inside what looks like a classic King James Bible.” This item also included a disclaimer: “WARNING: Not for children under three years.” Does that mean that the Bible Flask is suitable for the kindergarten crowd?

When I was 10-years-old I could read that catalog endlessly. I think it contributed to my developing a pretty good sense of humor.
I think April Fools’ Day is the only holiday that explicitly celebrates having a sense of humor and yet schools and businesses don’t close down. I’m glad that Hallmark didn’t hijack April Fools’ Day and pressure us into another concocted card, gift and expensive restaurant holiday. For April 1st, all you need is a sense of fun and an active imagination.

There are web pages devoted to kid-friendly suggestions for having fun with your family on April 1st. One is written by Kate Goodin who offers lots of ideas. For example, for the kid who checks his e-mail first thing every morning, she suggests parents “put part of a post-it note over the tracking ball on a computer mouse -- it won't work! (Make sure to write ‘April Fools!’ on the note).”

Having an official day that is devoted, each year, to celebrating humor, no matter how juvenile, is more important than we know in these serious and troubling times. So, here’s to April Fools’ Day; the one day, as Mark Twain famously said, that “we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred-and-sixty-four.”

To be published in the Anton chain of 18 Long Island, NY newspapers in March 2011.

BRUTAL TEENS ON LONG ISLAND

Brutal Teens on Long Island

by Andrew Malekoff© February 2011

The title of this month’s column is likely to evoke associations of murder and mayhem. However, don’t be misled; this is not a tale of teens gone bad. It is about our winter of discontent. And, I am not talking about NIFA taking over Nassau County’s finances.

So why the title, you may be wondering. It all started with a series of annoying television messages scrolling across the bottom of the screen. One of them read “…brutal teens on Long Island.” It was a partial message that required the viewer’s waiting for the next scroll-go-round to get more details.

I anticipated reading a horror story about violent or victimized teen-agers. But, when the script scrolled back around, the story flipped and the full message read: “Temperature reaches brutal teens on Long Island.”

So, don’t go any further if you were expecting to read about stabbings, shootings or lunchroom riots. But, do read on if you are interested in spending a few minutes reflecting on our record-breaking Long Island winter.

Let us begin with a psychological phenomenon known as seasonal affective disorder, which is appropriately known as SAD. This is a more serious problem than ordinary “winter blahs” or “cabin fever.” SAD only occurs during the winter and is characterized by depression; decreased energy and concentration; carbohydrate or sugar cravings; decreased interest in work or other activities; increased appetite and sleep; excessive weight gain, and social withdrawal. Although you can seek counseling for SAD or hook up one of those special lamps to mimic sunlight, the good news is that SAD symptoms commonly get better with a change of seasons.

But that’s enough psychobabble from me. This winter stinks! I have never experienced such consistent snowfall in my life. If I wanted to live among the flakes I would have moved to Vermont or Colorado (or to L.A. for the other kind). I don’t dislike snow. It is pretty. I admire the beauty of snow-covered trees on the Taconic and mountains on the New York Thruway as much as the next guy. It makes me happy to see kids sledding, skating, building snowmen, having snowball fights and shoveling snow to make some fast cash - all things that I loved to do as a kid.

On second thought, maybe the extreme snowfall this winter is not so bad. After all, we are all in the same boat. Rather than isolation and withdrawal, excessive snow accumulation and the inconvenience and hardship it creates encourages a sense of community. We commiserated with one another about our cars being plowed in, icy walkways and roads, broken wrists and dented vehicles and, in time, the filthy soot-covered mountains and roadside ridges of snow.

Snow brings us together as a people. We help one another dig out, we lend a hand to frail and elderly neighbors by cleaning their walks and we greet red-faced youngsters with dripping noses with cups of hot cocoa after they spend a pleasurable day of frolicking with friends in the snow. I guess this has been a really joyous winter, after all.

Not!

Published in the Anton Newspaper chain of 18 Long Island newspapers, in February 2011.

PARADE OF BROKEN HEARTS

PARADE OF BROKEN HEARTS

by Andrew Malekoff© January 2011

There will be many reflections about the 2001 terrorist attack on America in the months to come. Following is my reflection on the memorial service at the World Trade Center on October 28, 2001. I attended the service in a group of mental health professionals who offered support for the bereaved.

A chill occurred as the sun disappeared behind the ruins of the World Trade Center. Renee Fleming, accompanied by the orchestra of St. Luke’s, sang God Bless America. I headed for the emergency lane on my way to the boat that would be returning us to the pier on 57th Street, where we would be greeting thousands of mourners who planned to collect urns with ashes from ground zero.

Moments earlier I had said goodbye to the family I stood beside during the memorial service. They sat in the back row of our section, one of scores of sections filled with thousands of folding chairs, each chair occupied by a grieving family member. I stood with my back against an iron gate so I would not block anyone’s view. The family had lost its father and husband, a decorated firefighter. The widow was a slight woman of Italian descent, probably in her late sixties.

Photos of her husband were pinned to her wool coat, and to the coats of her three children. He was handsome. He had a white mustache and a full head of silvery hair, combed straight back. When the memorial service had started, an hour earlier, one of her sons, an off-duty police officer, had asked me to please make sure that no one obstructed his mother’s view. He said, “You can see how short she is.”

The service began with a processional that included His Eminence Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York. Then, police officer Daniel Rodriguez of the NYPD sang the Star Spangled Banner. He had become a national presence, by appearing in his dress blues and singing the national anthem at Yankee Stadium before the World Series.

Everyone was on his or her feet. A massive wall of mourners rose around the tiny figure to my right. When I saw her struggling to climb, I took her arm and helped her up onto the folding chair. I told her that she could grab on to me. “Hold on to my shoulders,” I said. She hesitated. “Don’t worry you won’t knock me over,” I told her.

I could feel her trembling as she removed her right hand from my shoulder and fumbled for a tissue inside her coat pocket. I reached into my pants pocket and handed her a handkerchief. When I was picking out my clothes earlier in the morning I had come across several unopened packets of white handkerchiefs. They belonged to my father who had died seven years earlier. As I got dressed, I thought that today my father would want somebody who needed it to have one of his handkerchiefs. At first she refused my offer, not wanting to impose. I urged her, “Please, take it. It’s okay.”

Ten years later, my father’s handkerchiefs remain tucked into my dresser drawer - a daily reminder of when I marched in a parade of broken hearts. Sometimes I close my eyes, think back and try to recall what things felt like before that sunny fall morning at ground zero.

To be published in the Long Island, New York Anton Newspapers in the last week of January, 2011.

STANDING BY OR STANDING UP TO BULLIES

Standing By or Standing Up to Bullies

By Andrew Malekoff ©

My friend, Ralph Kolodny, professor emeritus at Boston University School of Social Work, commented on the brutality of the schoolyard in children’s lives. He said, “we tend to forget the pain that normally characterizes interaction among children. Oddly enough,” he added, “the work of the imaginative journalist or novelist often provides a more accurate picture.”

For example, in Ray Bradbury's short story "The Playground," Charles Underhill, a widower, tried to protect his son from the terror of the schoolyard. Underhill wondered how childhood could be considered the best time of life, when it was the “most terrible, most merciless era, the barbaric time when there were no police to protect you, only parents preoccupied with themselves and their taller world."

Closer to home, four Long Island students - Gavin, Maria, Jake and Sam – had the guts to stand up by giving voice to their pain in a recent Newsday exposé entitled, "In their own words: Battling the bullies" (November 14, 2010). Jake, a freshman, said, “Kids would [harass me] and get detention. Then their friends would do what the other did. It was almost like a virus getting passed from one friend to the next…school was just hell.” According to his mom, Jake recently developed stress-related cardiac issues.

I wonder what the consequences will be for these four young people for publicly revealing their suffering and the powerlessness of adults to protect them.

We all know that the boundaries of Bradbury’s fantasy schoolyard now extend into peoples’ homes through cyberspace, virtually obliterating any sense of sanctuary that children once found in the evenings, on weekends and during the summer.

Attempts by adults to rescue children who are bullied by exposing, reprimanding, lecturing or squashing the attackers typically leads to an escalation of the very behavior they to eliminate, further entrenching everyone involved in the process.

Bullying is not about a fair fight, it is about the abuse of social or physical power. Bullies love an audience and, therefore, depend on bystanders. According to the journalist Marian Wilde, “Bystanders are important because bullying most often takes place in front of peers and it almost never happens when adults are watching.”

According to Wilde, “If the audience shows disapproval, bullies are discouraged from continuing. However, bystanders, especially children, need to be empowered to act. The majority of children won't act for a variety of reasons, perhaps because they are afraid, confused or unsure of what to do.”

Bullying is intensified today by a broad decline in civility. We live in a world of grown-ups who do not think twice about overstepping personal boundaries through rude, intimidating and obnoxious behavior.

If we cannot turn back the hands of time, we can at least slow down and teach our children, after we remind ourselves, the importance of putting a reflective pause between impulse and action. Sometimes this involves making the decision to act and to move from standing by to standing up.

Gavin, Maria, Jake and Sam showed great courage in standing up for themselves and thousands of other victims of bullies. They stood up publicly, even permitting their photographs to accompany their powerful words. We owe it to them to stand by their sides by joining with our children to stand up for those who suffer in silence at the hands of bullies.

Published in the Anton chain of newspapers in Long Island, New York, December 2010

THE TORMENT OF BULLYING

The torment of bullying...bullying in the Schools

Originally published in Newsday: November 19, 2010, p. A37

by Andrew Malekoff

In a Ray Bradbury's short story "The Playground," a father tried to protect his son from the horrors of the schoolyard. He wondered how childhood could be considered the best time of life, when it was the most "barbaric time when there were no police to protect you, only parents preoccupied with themselves and their taller world."

I admire the courage of the four kids - Gavin, Maria, Jake and Sam - who gave voice to their experiences in a Newsday story, "In their own words: Battling the bullies," Nov. 14, 2010. I wonder what the consequences will be for them, for publicly revealing their suffering and the powerlessness of adults to protect them.

We all know that the boundaries of the schoolyard now extend into people's homes through cyberspace, virtually obliterating any sense of sanctuary that children once found in the evenings, on weekends and during the summer.

Bullying is intensified today by a broad decline in civility. We live in a world of grown-up people who do not think twice about trampling personal boundaries through rude, intimidating and obnoxious behavior.

If we cannot turn back the hands of time, we can at least slow down and teach our children, after we remind ourselves, the importance of putting a reflective pause between impulse and action.

Editor's note: The writer is the executive director of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center.

PLEASE DO FIGHT WITH YOUR TEEN-AGERS

PLEASE DO FIGHT WITH YOUR TEEN-AGERS

By Andrew Malekoff© 2011

Teen-agers enjoy a good “fight” with adults who do not feel a need to dominate and are willing to listen. As children progress from the “earthbound” quality of concrete thinking to the “intergalactic” quality of complex thinking, they become capable of formulating contrary-to-fact-hypotheses, of leaping with their minds here, there and everywhere. Herein lays the source of teen-agers’ growing ability and fervor for challenging others’ ideas, beliefs and values and for engaging in furious debate, often to the dismay of parents, teachers and other adults.

One day when my son Jamie was 14, he told me that he was thrown out of class. He had argued with his Spanish teacher about how she had graded a test. One of the questions had a visual component. The class was asked to write, in Spanish, a sentence describing what they had observed in a drawing that depicted two women who were simultaneously holding a gift-wrapped package. Jamie told me that his answer was, “Una mujer está recibiendo un regalo” (A woman is receiving a gift). When the test was returned his answer was marked wrong and points were deducted. The correct answer, the teacher said, was, “A woman is giving a gift.”

He argued that the drawing could be interpreted both ways, giving or receiving. The debate was heated. The teacher was flustered. Jamie pressed on, continuing to argue his point until he was silenced by the teacher

He told me that he then raised his hand. The teacher ignored him at first. Nevertheless, his long outstretched arm became an exclamation point, punctuating the space in the classroom.

“JAMIE WHAT IS IT?” she shouted. He responded, “I just like to hear the sound of my voice.” His enraged teacher then banished him.

British educator Janet Batsleer has spoken eloquently about the hostilities and complicities that young people have experienced in schools. She refers to “Those people who have ‘spoken out of turn,’ or who have not spoken ‘properly,’ or who have learned carefully exactly when to speak in order to please the teacher, or who have become afraid to speak for fear of being spoken about as a problem or in even more hostile ways.”

We should welcome debate from young people. Reasoned arguments gradually replace simple reliance on authoritative pronouncements by grown-ups.

As a child’s brain develops, opposites such as good and bad, or black and white, or yes and no, can be held in one’s mind simultaneously, enabling an individual to examine subtle shadings of disparate ideas and to tolerate the ambiguities that are generated by thoughtful debate. This “quantum leap” in thinking enables one to consider many viewpoints at once, use inductive and deductive thinking to reason and test reality by challenging contradictions and inconsistencies.

Young adolescents find that they can begin to argue for argument’s sake—for the fun of it. When we engage with them in spirited debate we help them to cultivate critical thinking, which is essential in order for a young person to become an active citizen in community affairs; to learn when to stand up and speak out.

So, please do fight with the teen-agers in your life. Fight with them to help them to flex their cognitive muscles and fight with them for fun. If you can avoid becoming defensive or intimidated, you might be pleased to discover that from the same source of adolescent combativeness and intellectual intransigence spring the seeds of inspiration and idealism.

To be published in the Long Island, NY Anton Newspapers in November, 2011.