Tough Love

“Sprints on the hill. All because I love you.” These were the words coming out of the mouth of my spin instructor Ken at 6:35 AM this morning. Of course, that made a person like me work even harder. I am definitely a tough love type of person. Ken is right. Working hard in that class and in many other things in life is tough love to myself. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and stronger, and stronger.

I am a tough love parent. Although I wanted my sons to enjoy their childhoods, I felt it to be an obligation as a parent to also make sure that they could withstand the cruel world. People who know me have observed me coddling my sons just like the rest of the helicopter parents. They also know that all of my sons have attended military school. Their father and I choose to send them to instill in them discipline and respect, but also learn how to tough it out in a austere environment which can be extremely humiliating sometimes.

Do you get the idea about why I am talking about tough love, respect, and withstanding humiliation? There is an epidemic going on in our country in which “good” kids are jumping off bridges because they cannot cope with embarrassment which we now call bullying and “good” kids who belong to model minority groups who have admirably high SAT scores and grades have been breed in a society that values those things over integrity and moral character.

I am wondering, if the good kids are the bullies and the good kids are leaping to their premature death, the explain to me who is left? Did it ever occur to anyone that we need to assess something other than how one tests to move from point to point in life? I once had a teacher tell me, as they gave my son an F for the year, that he was a very nice and respectful boy. Most parents would be upset when their child failed a course. Although his chances of getting into a top college vanished with that F, his chances at succeeding and thriving have increased as he learned another valuable lesson in how to deal with adverse and move on when things are  not perfect and potentially affect his choices in the future. He learned that life goes on, that his parents still love him, he still has the same friends and now he knows it’s minor that his parents made him repeat a grade (yes an entire school year) because he slacked an needed a do-over.

Tough love is what raises us all to a higher level. So I thank my teaches who held me to a high standard and made things tough for me. My sons thank their parents for displaying and teaching integrity even if it meant that they didn’t get the top spot. They also thank me for keeping it real and showing them that the world is a tough place, so they better suck it up because lots more things will come their way. Roll with the punches.

And just in case things really get bad, I made sure that they had Black Belts in Tae Kwon Do and are masters in wrestling and ground fighting. When people know you are tough, they know that they just better not try some stupid stuff on you. (I have a Black Belt too, by the way). Earning that black Belt is a nice achievement on their resume and also counts for a few points on those college applications.

If you wonder how all these kids went so wrong on both sides of this, just look around at what is going on in the media, politics and Wall Street, with all the Mean Girls and Greedy Boys who masquerade as the leaders and smart people, a la Bill Clinton

The events have been clouded by a discussion on sexual preference and harassment over that  compassion and resilience. My heart goes out to all the parents and families involved. I can tell you that most parents do the best they know how and I believe that the parents of the three students involved did their best. It is society that is that failed all three of these young adults.

Now how do we apply tough love so that we reduce the amount of these type of egregious behaviors and their dramatic reactions in our entire society? Tolerance and multicultual programs as well as anti-bullying programs seem rather trite at this point in time. Let us calm ourselves, step back come up with some new paradigms.

Dr. Veronica-Wellness for the REAL World