Boys, Bikes, and The Pack

Dave K., a men’s group pal, sent me this amazing photo. On Vashon Island (near Seattle, Washington), a tree grows carrying a strange passenger – an old bike. There are a variety of stories about how the bike got into the tree. One story goes, a boy went to war in 1914 and left his bike chained to a tree. He never came home and the family left the bike there as a memorial to the fallen soldier. Another less romantic version is that a kid simply put his bike in the tree decades ago and never picked it up, leaving the tree no choice but to grow around the bike. Then, of course there are those who think the whole think is a hoax and just a tourist attraction.

Apparently, you can go to the Country Store and Gardens, across the street from the Bicycle Tree, and get a copy of the "original" history of this island legend written by Aunt Vy (Vy Bie), the woman who lived it and wrote it.While there will always be some controversy, and maybe even mystery about when the bike was left and by whom, the photo of that bike touched something deep in me.

Do you remember having a bike as a kid? My bike memory, when I was 6 or 7, was the boy equivalent of getting a driver’s license. That ride opened up new neighborhood territory, fresh vistas, got me away from my house, and, almost more importantly, got me access to the cool boy pack of young guys who also had gotten bikes. In the summer, we’d swarm the neighborhood, test our skills on rugged park terrain, terrorize other kids, and pedal till we couldn’t any more.

Boys, adolescent males, and even men are simply pack animals. Tribe, team, squad, or troop, guys are comfortable in a swarm and have been for centuries. Were you part of a boy tribe? What was your core experience of being on a team? Do you support a sports team today and, if so, what's in it for you? Who is in your male tribe today, if you have one, and how do you feel if you are without one? Leave your story in the comments section of this blog post below or send them to me and I’ll add them for you.

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Making Mentoring SAFE

A few months back, I reached a limit of sorts, when the news about Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State tragedy appeared. In this tabloid “news” world we live in, we are always hearing about molesters and the layers of tragedy they create. I titled that blog post, “I’m really angry about creepy guys,” and I still am, a little.

The truth is there are so many more wonderful stories about really good men showing up for young males with inspirational tales of lives transformed. But sadly, the dominant media focus always seems to be on the sordid. I know it’s a good thing to shine the light of awareness in the dark places, but how about some balance? I’ll be trying to bring some of that balance in future posts. If you have a story about good men or a man involved in boys' lives, please send it along to me. The world needs to hear these stories.

The good news is that youth-serving organizations everywhere are learning how to do a better job of screening applicants. This creates more protection for young people and the organization. It makes parents more comfortable, and the right prospective volunteers feel safe in applying. When it’s clear an organization is using state of the art background checking and other forms of vetting, volunteers know they, too, will be protected from guilt by association should something or someone go terribly wrong.

One organization in the vanguard of this movement is Friends for Youth, Inc., out of Redwood City, CA. They have been in the mentoring business for a quarter of a century and, out of that experience, they have produced an amazing book titled, SAFE (Screening Applicants for Effectiveness): Guidelines to Prevent Child Molestation in Mentoring and Youth-Serving Organizations. It’s the most current and comprehensive work on the subject I’ve seen in a while. It covers a literature review on the issue of child molestation, offers examples of and instruction in best-practice screening AND monitoring of applicants, and describes state-of-the-art molestation prevention tools and resources. The SAFE book is a good read for anyone who wants to understand what it means to have solid organizational integrity when it comes to protecting kids and the good adults who want to support them. You can order the SAFE book on the Friends for Youth, Inc. website.

As an indication the commitment by Friends for Youth to helping organizations and protecting kids, they are offering a free webinar on this important topic. It’s being offered on Tuesday, Feb. 28th, 2012, from 10:00 AM to 11:15 AM (PST). The webinar is open to anyone who cares enough to be interested. Visit their website Webinar page for more information and to register.

In making involvement with young people SAFE, perhaps it will remove some of the fear of involvement that results in long organizational wait-lists of young guys. Young males are hoping someone like you might come forward and hang out with them for a while, maybe be a man-maker in someone's life!

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Puberty Boy - by Geoff Price

Geoff Price is an author and therapist based in Sydney, Australia. He also happens to be a friend of mine and ally of man-makers everywhere. Just one of his solid publications is a book called Puberty Boy. It’s been called ‘rite of passage’ manual for adolescent males. It’s a book designed to help boys, going through a very complicated (and sometimes embarrassing) time in their lives, understand what’s going on and feel good about themselves and their masculinity in the process. It’s a much needed guide for boys, helping with all the questions surrounding the transition from being a boy to becoming a young man.

Geoff is described as a man who, for the last two decades, has been working to improve the health and well-being of men and boys. Because he is a very boy-literate guide, the book is written in boy-friendly language, with lots of helpful stories. It offers much needed and accurate anatomical information and illustrations, and covers not only physical changes, but new research on brain development at puberty every boy undergoes. One of my favorite charts in the book describes the changes in a young male’s body as he is propelled by his internal chemistry.

You can learn more about Puberty Boy at Geoff’s website. If you’re in or near Australia, you can order the book directly from Geoff. For US readers, the book is available at Amazon.com.

While you’re visiting Geoff’s website, check out his newest book, “What They Don’t Teach Men About Themselves.” You can quickly download the e-book and immediately begin increasing your male literacy.

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The Power of a Mentor

On January 3, 2012, President Barack Obama has issued a proclamation officially designating January as National Mentoring Month. January 2012 marks the 11th anniversary of National Mentoring Month, and this year's campaign, Invest in the Future. Mentor a Child, is being driven by the Harvard Mentoring Project of the Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR, and the Corporation for National and Community Service.

There are plenty of good reasons to designate a month to honor mentors and raise awareness about this transformational form of relationship. Mentor, the National Mentoring Partnership, again tells us what has been clear for a very long time. Studies of both well-established programs and newer ones that provide youth with formal one-to-one mentoring relationships, have provided strong evidence of their success in reducing the incidence of delinquency, substance use and academic failure. These studies further indicate that formal youth mentoring programs can also promote positive outcomes, such as improved self-esteem, social skills and knowledge of career opportunities.

A Ford Foundation study also found that high school students with mentors are more likely to graduate from high school, enroll in college, have fewer arrests, have fewer children, become involved in community service and are more hopeful about their future than those without mentors. These are not uncommon findings. One-on-one mentoring really does work, and it deserves our support.

On the National Mentoring Month website there is a list of 10 things a person interested in this concept might do, including become a mentor! One easy action I really like for those who aren't ready to step into a full mentoring relationship, is to, "Think about the mentors in your life, and post a tribute to them online." Most men have a guy or two in the background of their lives, other than their father, who gave them a boost, some coaching, was supportive, or who showed up at an important time in their lives. You can post a "thank you" tribute to that man by going to the Who Mentored You website for ideas about where, or by telling the readers of this blog about him in the (new) comments section to this post below.

Another simple action listed on the National Mentoring Month website is to simply find a mentoring organization near you and make a donation. With the deep cutbacks in funding, these heroic organizations need your financial support more than ever. For a zip code search to find a mentoring organization near you, look in the center of the home page of Mentor, The National Mentoring Partnership.

In the Man-Making book, I outline a dozen or more ways men can have a positive, and often critical, influence in a young man's life. I know mentoring is not for all men. However, after good and involved fathers, there isn't a connection more powerful than a long-term, one-on-one mentoring relationship. Men who have taken that step will always say both males were made better for their time together. The truth is, every man reading this post, just as he is right now, is perfect for the job!

You make me want to be a better man!

Jack Nicholson (as Melvin)
As Good As It Gets (1997)

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Young Guys and Warrior Energy

Testosterone has been called the aggression chemical. An average adolescent male is experiencing five to seven surges of this chemical a day, increasing the presence of that hormone in his body up to 800% over the course of a day. This results in new and confusing feelings of physical and sexual energy, increasing strength, muscle growth, and feelings of personal power. This is part of the reason young males show up so full of themselves, aggressive, restless, moody, and looking for any opportunity to test their newly-discovered potential. Another way to say all that is adolescent males, full of testosterone, are perfectly primed to hear the call to become warriors.

When I think of a "call" to be a warrior, there is nothing I've come across that can match the War Haka from the Maori people of New Zealand. There are different types of hakas, and they are performed by both genders, but the most fierce is the War Haka. It was traditionally used by male warriors before battle, to demonstrate their viciousness, aggressiveness, strength, and battle skills, in order to discourage and scare the crap out of the enemy. It's still used that way today.

The first video clip of two just below, shows the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team doing the War Haka at the 2011 World Cup tournament. As someone commented on YouTube, It looks like those guys will eat your liver for breakfast and your kidneys for dessert. Yikes! This clip sets the War Haka bar for the boys in the next video.

The second video shows hundreds of adolescent males at the 2011 Westlake Boys Haka Competition. I couldn't help but feel this was a great way for all these high school guys to channel all that young dude warrior energy.

BIG QUESTIONS: Adolescent males don't have a choice about what's going on in their bodies. Does your community provide a variety of positive outlets for this powerful warrior energy? Another question that haunts me is, what is a normal adolescent male to do if there are no positive outlets? If you have answers to these questions, please tell us about it in the comments section for this post, or contact me with your response.

Use this link if the All Blacks Rugby Team clip doesn't show up.



Use this link if the Westlake Boys Haka Competition clip doesn't show up.

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