Being Good at Being Bad
José Rosado, author of Being Good at Being Bad, grew up in “rat- and roach-infested” projects on the south side of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He was the son of an alcoholic father; yet his early childhood years were blissfully unaware of the pressures his environment placed on him.
In his teenage years, he was not so fortunate. Drugs, underage drinking, school difficulties and fighting became part of his expression of anger. He became “good at being bad”.
Rosado was the product of a challenging environment
Fortunately, Rosado’s mother urged him to complete high school, a real accomplishment in the milieu he was living in. Another mentor took it further, urging him on to college and a B.A. in sociology with an emphasis on Criminal Justice Administration. A third mentor steered the young man into venting his anger through the discipline of boxing, which served as a kind of therapy for him.
Now José Rosado is a mentor himself to the hundreds of students he serves as the Assistant Principal of Broughal Middle School in Bethlehem. He has firm ideas on how to help kids who are good at being bad and has expressed his ideas in a book of that title.
Rosado names the home, school and community as the three areas that count most in the development of each individual. In this, he is directly in line with the character education movement, which declares that these three major entities in a child’s life should ideally serve as a mutually reinforcing safety net to keep kids on the right path.
On the home front, Rosado decries poverty and abuse—substance, physical and emotional—yet admits that there are no simple solutions to these social problems. His experiences as a counselor taught him that middle-class families also experience great traumas when issues like divorce come up. No one is immune to strife and struggle on the home front.
Still, he feels that people’s characters are what determine outcomes. If a family is resilient in character, with a network of support and friendships around it, then “with pride and determination, poverty and prolonged financial hardships can be overcome and the cycle of failure can be broken.” The welfare system does not work well, he finds; it encourages people to try to game the system, and it fosters dependency. Rosado insists we need government programs that promote family and education.
Grateful to have experienced the discipline of a training gym for boxers, Rosado feels boxing has been given a bad rap and is a great outlet and channel for the rage that comes out of a difficult home life and spills over into the community. Rosado founded the Bethlehem Boxing Club after “endless lobbying” of community-based organizations and elected officials for support. Such organized sports serve as therapeutic outlets, promoting the constructive use of time for aggressive teenage boys.
Organized sports, including boxing, help at-risk young men to control their aggression
Rosado regards contemporary culture as part of community influence, and he especially decries the “hip-hop invasion” with its encouragement of violence, sex, degradation of women, drug and alcohol abuse and other antisocial messages. He calls upon African American civil rights groups to bring more pressure to bear on the music industry and “gangsta rappers” to stop being bad character influences upon young people.
The community, of course, includes gangs, and gangs are fueled, Rosado argues, by the criminalization of drugs. Although he does not specify which drugs he is referring to, Rosado makes a case for legalization, stating that the thirty-year-long war on drugs has failed. He claims that many law enforcement experts privately agree that decriminalization would break up cartels, gangs, and even reduce usage. What is more, it would eliminate the large amounts of easy money to be made by illegal drug dealing—a temptation to kids who have always been deprived. It is hard to convince an at-risk teenager to work for minimum wage when dealing drugs is so much more lucrative.
For at-risk teens, minimum wage cannot compete with the easy money to be made by dealing drugs
Legalization of controlled substances, of course, is a controversial stance. The United States’ experience with Prohibition, when alcohol was illegal, is usually considered a good argument in favor of legalization of controlled substances. Prohibition is generally thought to have led to the rise of organized crime. Yet, alcohol consumption has led to numerous social problems and is arguably a terrible blight.
Teen experts like Michael Bradley, a veteran counselor of three decades, claim that alcohol (illegal for minors but highly tolerated by society, its usage often enabled by adults) is the greatest killer and destroyer of teens and should always be a primary concern when we talk about “drugs”. Legalizing alcohol has been a mixed bag at best for our society, and it has not eliminated the enormous tolls, including traffic-related and other deaths, alcohol takes on our society.
In spite of his controversial stand on drug legalization, Rosado makes a powerful point that the real solution to teenage drug use is to focus on reducing demand through education, prevention, and treatment. The war on drugs, he claims, has focused too much on cutting off supply. “Supply,” Rosado says, “will never diminish as long as demand is viable.”
There is much to be said for the idea that drug addiction calls for treatment, help and compassion rather than incarceration and punishment. However, it must also be acknowledged that treatment and prevention are imperfect sciences. As Bradley points out, “We are seeing a growing body of research that strongly suggests that we can seriously worsen a variety of adolescent problems by treating them in therapy groups with other offenders. The effect might be like sending Sallie to druggie graduate school.” Only if a child is heavily involved with life-threatening drugs does Bradley recommend rehab, for it often introduces new problems and does not solve the existing ones.
Rosado feels that the other major area of influence over a person’s development—school—is sometimes more a part of the problem than a part of the solution. Rosado states that schools that deal with minority youth tend to look down upon and discourage them with low expectations of performance and future success. Rosado has worked hard to connect high school youth with career and educational goals and to help them glimpse a vision of becoming productive members of society.
Being Good at Being Bad is part autobiography and part social policy commentary. It is the story of a man who, despite severe disadvantages, managed to live out the American success story, the ingredients of which are hard work, education, and marrying and staying with the same partner for all of one’s adult life. Rosado would add another important ingredient: sobriety. Rosado has fought a long and difficult battle with the tendency toward alcoholism he inherited from his father. It is a testimony to his strength of character that he has won so many battles against the demons that stalked his environment.
Rosado is a living example of a person who not only climbed out of a difficult and devastating situation—he went back in to help others climb out too. His story is a good lesson in character. While the reader might not agree with all his policy positions, there is no denying that José Rosado cares passionately about helping young people live better lives. He urges them to turn away from negative influences by encouraging them, even against all odds, to live responsibly. He urges society to care enough to ameliorate some of the negative influences upon young people and to be likewise responsible to its most vulnerable members: kids who are “good at being bad”.
José Rosado has a website with information about his background, book and activities at
www.joserosado.org. Parents, Kids & Character, 21 Strategies to Help Your Children Develop Good Character
This book is recommended by one of the premier character educators in the United States, Dr. Philip Fitch Vincent, who says it is probably the best general all-around guide to parenting with character in mind. Dr. Vincent is head of Character Development Group, a publishing house and a great character education resource. Dr. Vincent has over twenty years of experience in education. He has taught at the elementary, middle, and high school levels in North Carolina and Alaska and at North Carolina State University. He served as the director of the Center for Ethics, Public Policy and Leadership at Greensboro College, Greensboro, North Carolina and has worked with school districts all over the United States to help them create character education programs and to put them into place.
Dr. LeGette was a guidance counselor for many years before she became the Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Burlington, North Carolina. Dr. Vincent asked her to write Parents, Kids & Character, and he was not disappointed with the result. Dr. LeGette’s years of experience and her broad knowledge of the fields of education and character make her book succinct, simple, thorough, and full of wisdom.
In a Nutshell
The 21 highly useful strategies she recommends are:
1. Model good character in the home.
2. Be clear about your values and beliefs. Tell your children where you stand on important issues.
3. Show respect for your spouse, your children, and other family members.
4. Model and teach your children good manners. Insist that all family members use good manners at home.
5. Have family meals together without television as often as possible.
6. Plan as many family activities as possible. Involve your children in the planning.
7. Worship together as a family.
8. Don’t provide your children access to alcohol or drugs. Model appropriate behavior regarding alcohol and drugs.
9. Plan family service projects or civic activities.
10. Read to your children and keep good literature in the home.
11. Limit your children’s spending money. Help them appreciate non-material rewards.
12. Discuss holidays and their meanings. Have family celebrations and establish family traditions.
13. Capitalize on the “teachable moment”. Use situations to spark family discussions on important issues.
14. Assign home responsibilities to all family members.
15. Set clear expectations for your children and hold them accountable for their actions.
16. Keep your children busy in positive activities.
17. Learn to say no and mean it.
18. Know where your children are, what they are doing, and with whom.
19. Don’t cover for your children or make excuses for their inappropriate behavior.
20. Know what TV shows, videos and movies your children are watching.
21. Remember that you are the adult!
The Importance of Parental Investment
Many, many books like this one begin with outlining the need to educate for character. This one is no exception. In the beginning are the usual horrific stories of irresponsible and even criminal youth behavior. The general decline of society in manners, morals, language and the content of entertainment are duly noted. The introduction offers the bright spot of hope that many concerned parents, educators, writers, and thinkers are seriously reviving the responsibility of adults to educate children in character.
The book then briefly goes into theory. Many parents and educators feel that character is “caught not taught”. In other words, example is the best and only teacher. Dr. LeGette maintains that in a better society, in a better age, children would be able to absorb character through osmosis—indeed, they do absorb a great deal from their parents’ examples. However, explicit teachings are needed just as much as good examples in an era when younger and younger children are offered drugs, alcohol, casual sex, and vile media entertainment. Character nowadays must be both caught and taught.
Dr. LeGette strikes a good balance between an old-fashioned strictness that is perhaps too much for today’s youth and too much modern permissiveness, which has proven to be disastrous. She seems to embody and understand well the proven theory that the best parenting is neither autocratic nor permissive, but builds a great deal of positivity and understanding into relationships in the home even as parents are recognized as the final, but loving, authorities.
For it is the home, Dr. LeGette maintains, that is the ultimate molder of character. Schools, church and community influences all play significant parts. Yet the primary school of character is the family.
Practical Tips
Dr. LeGette recommends building good home relationships through such simple things as listening and sharing family meals together. She tells of a deaf mother who nevertheless sat down and “listened” to her children each day after school. Because of her hearing problem, the mother had to listen with her whole body—studying her children’s lips, trying to gauge their emotions, noting their body language—and, as such, was a master listener who successfully raised children of good character.
She emphasizes family meals—a seemingly simple thing, but one that is increasingly hard to achieve in busy lives. Often practice sessions for sports and other activities occur right over the dinner hour, Dad gets home late from the office, Mom works and may be relieved that Dad picked up a hamburger on the way home and the coach took the kids out for pizza after practice because that means she doesn’t have to cook. However, Dr. LeGette cites several studies that have shown that family meals together, at least several times a week, socialize children well, supporting them in higher academic, psychological, emotional and social achievements.
Another important and neglected ingredient of parenting for character is time, Dr LeGette says. Yet, she asserts, “Many modern parents are torn in a constant tug-of-war between the marketplace and the home.” Parents, wanting to provide their children with abundance, often strive hard to make money to pay for more material things than the family really needs, at the price of time spent with their children. Dr. LeGette cautions that children grow up all too soon and the opportunities to both enjoy and influence them are all too fleeting. She advises families to build their riches spiritually and in their relationships. That is what counts most.
As an illustration, she tells the touching story of a father with his son in a public park. The little boy kept begging for a few more minutes on the playground equipment, and each time, the father genially agreed that they could stay a few more minutes. When a nearby parent complimented him on how patient he was with his small son, the father explained that his other son had been killed by a car. Many times, he wished he could have just a few more minutes of time with his lost son. Now, when his younger son begged for time when they were together, he was only too glad to grant it, because it meant also that he got to spend more time with a precious child.
It shouldn’t take death to remind us how precious time with our children is—how it is more important than more material things. Of course, many parents must work hard just to make ends meet. Fortunately, children understand these kinds of parents, especially later in life, when they are mature enough to see the sacrifices their parents went through on their behalf. They know that the parents were working for their benefit and they emulate their example of hard work for a selfless cause—the cause of raising a family.
The Role of Spirituality
Dr. LeGette’s book, while not a religious book, certainly recognizes the role of religion in molding and benefiting character. Statistics show that families who worship together tend to have fewer problems with the social difficulties that surround us in our society. Also, encouraging children in the religion of the family—whatever that religion may be—honors something natural in children—their spirituality.
The work of Robert Coles is noted, and it is particularly noteworthy. Coles has become interested in the spirituality of children when, as a psychologist, he could not help but notice how important a role it played in many children’s lives. Coles cites the case of Ruby Bridges, the first black child to desegregate a school in New Orleans. Each day this child faced hecklers who used all kinds of harassment, hate speech, and threats to try to dissuade her from entering school. One day the crowd got particularly riled when it appeared Ruby was addressing them. Coles, assigned to the job of supporting Ruby psychologically through the ordeal, questioned her about the incident. Ruby said she had not been talking to the crowd, she had been praying for them. After all, they needed praying for. God had to be asked to forgive them for their bad behavior because they “knew not what they did.”
Coles, the expert child psychologist, was humbled before the deep and mature spirituality of this child. She was the product of a deeply religious home and a loving, supportive community that nurtured its children spiritually to insulate them from the white hostility that surrounded them. The righteous character molded in Ruby by adults who nurtured her spirituality gave a nation pause—and ushered in a new era of improved race relations.
Children of Peace
LeGette’s book is full of gems in regard to character development. It is full of sound, wise, common sense buttressed by scientific study. It is the voice of an educator as well as the voice of a parent and an adult sympathetic to the trials of children. It is clear that Dr. LeGette truly wants the best for children and sees character molding as ultimately the most merciful, beneficial, and helpful thing parents can do for their children to turn them into successful, happy, productive adults.
This parenting handbook is readable, short and to the point, yet teeming with good will toward children, parents, and society. It is really a “gold standard” book on parenting for the formation of character and highly recommended for all those interested in raising children of peace. "Why Good Things Happen to Good People" by Stephen Post, Ph.D., and Jill Neimark
To Give Is to Receive: Stephen Post’s Research-Based Recipe for Happiness
A Book Review of "Why Good Things Happen to Good People" by Stephen Post, Ph.D., and Jill Neimark (Broadway Books, an imprint of the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, A Division of Random House, Inc., New York, 2007)
Stephen Post’s wonderful book, Why Good Things Happen to Good People, is a clear-eyed look at how science supports the idea that people of virtue live longer, better, happier, and more successful lives than people lacking in virtue. Those who are benevolent, compassionate, grateful and helpful experience the greatest physical, mental and emotional health as well as receiving the most joy out of life. The old adage: “To give is to receive” seems to be scientifically valid.
Author Stephen Post is a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University and founder of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love located at Case Western Medical School. Sir John Templeton, grantmaker and humanitarian, suggested to Post the idea of starting an institute to study love. Believing that “love is actually powerful medicine”, Post then worked to establish the Institute to scrutinize scientifically the effects of giving love.
Post says that five hundred serious scientific studies demonstrate the beneficent power of giving unselfish love: “The remarkable bottom line of the science of love is that giving protects overall health twice as much as aspirin protects against heart disease.” For instance, the Institute’s work has shown that high school volunteers enjoy increased mental and physical health benefits as a result of their giving that last over fifty years—all the way into late adulthood. Giving also aids adolescents in avoiding depression and risky behaviors.
Even when initiated late in life, giving lowered the likelihood of dying within a certain time period by 44% among those who gave when compared to those who did not give. What is more, providing emotional support to others tends to support one’s own emotional health. To give is to experience relief, even for those who are suffering themselves.
Ways of Giving
Giving, Post says, entails many things, but he breaks it down into ten areas or “ways” of giving: celebration and gratitude, generativity, forgiveness, courage, humor and joy, respect, compassion, loyalty, listening, and creating. Each of these ways of giving receives its own chapter. Each chapter ends with a survey for the reader to take to evaluate him- or herself on how well he or she functions in this particular way of giving.
Some highlights include:
• When they keep daily gratitude journals, after just a few weeks, people (even those with difficult personal situations) find themselves feeling more upbeat about life, sleeping more deeply, feeling closer to others, and feeling generally happier about their lot in life.
• Nurturing others (generativity) results, for teens, in attaining higher social status later in life, being more spiritually inclined, and having warmer, happier family lives. Teens who are nurturing enjoy greater health benefits throughout their lifetimes than those who are not nurturing.
• According to a 2003 research study at the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Michigan, forgiving others is linked to well-being. Forgiveness is an anti-depressant, a mood enhancer, and an anger-reducer. It also lowers stress hormones and improves heart blood flow in cardiac patients.
• Courage, according to a study by character educators William Damon and Anne Colby, both of Stanford University, leads people into joy, certainty, faith, and high standards.
• Humor and laughter cause the body to release the feel-good natural chemicals of dopamine and endorphins and decrease the stress hormone cortisol.
• Respect lubricates human relationships, building social trust and capital, which in turn reduce stress.
• A study in 2005 found that compassion significantly reduced depression and stress.
• A 2005 study of 147 couples in marriages of long duration (over twenty years), showed scientists that a lifetime commitment of loyalty was the main ingredient of a happy marriage, the health benefits of which have been well documented.
• Research indicates that being listened to reduces the stress response in persons in pain. Empathic listening is, in the words of one doctor, “a powerful drug” that aids in healing.
• Creativity is linked to a healthy self-image, positive self-regard, and high social status.
Post’s book is persuasive. He proves that giving contains manifold benefits for those who give as well as those who receive. Indeed, the giver is twice blessed.
The question arises, then, how can each person become more giving in these various ways in order to experience more fulfillment as a human being? Post gives a few practical tips.
First, he advises the reader to take the evaluation questionnaire at the end of each of the ten chapters on ways of giving. Second, he suggests, practice giving for one week in the highest scored area. This should be easy, as the person is already most developed in this area of giving. Then, Post suggests, the reader should devote a week to the next highest area, and so on, until he or she has reached a week of practice in the lowest score area. At that point, Post suggests, the reader retake the evaluation questionnaire and look for improvement.
Post enjoins readers to find the way of giving they most enjoy and then revel in it. He urges them to enjoy the so-called “helper’s high”, to concentrate on the peace of forgiveness, to relish the joy of celebration and gratitude, and imbibe the calming connectedness compassion brings. This will prompt a person to give more, and to generate more and more benevolent power in the lives of others and in his or her own life.
If character is indeed destiny, anyone’s destiny can be improved and made happier by studying Stephen Post’s book and applying its findings. In spite of its scientific rigor, this book is written for the layperson. Post’s clear and sensible prose provides a convincing guide for anyone seeking to improve his or her character and enjoy the fruits of doing so. |
