EURweb

Back to the Article » Click Here

Click here to post your comments.

Name: BigMamaThang

Comment: JCP I really appreciate your articles that tackle this type of subject matter - family, relationships, etc. - and wish you would write more. That being said, please leave politics alone. Your political articles often display a one-sidedness that many times defies logic.

Name: TGen

Comment: Typo JPhillips, you meant, "The answer is the latter" in that "was our son the only boy" paragraph. You meant you and your wife were the only all-knowing, all-righteous superior parents who lubded their son sooo much, much more so than apparently the "lost" parents of the other kids. *Sigh* You may mean well, JPhillips, but as much as you say you're not passing judgement, that's exactly what you did in this article...and to your own detriment. Here's why. I've seen first hand parents pull a child out of baseball as a "punishment" (a term you don't like) or some kind of twisted motivation to improve grades, and I can tell you, generally speaking your tactic is counterprodctive. For your specific case, your son's grades may have improved, but you took much more away from him than just "fun." Sports is not just about fun, it's about discipline, social skills, building confidence, time management, etc., all critically important life skills especially for young Black men imo. I'm not sure how much your son practiced or whatever, but I doubt there wasn't enough time to do both football and maintain high grades. Maybe bench him or something (which would have strenghthened the discipline principle, patience, priorities, etc.) but "bowing out" from responsibility does not seem to be the best option. Maybe those other parents believe so too. Maybe there are other things they are cutting back on, instead of sports. Maybe they believe sports does more good than harm for their children. I can tell you that when I witnessed this "give up sports" tactic, it backfired, and the child never recovered. Taking away something he loved (and was really good at it, which apparently is not the case with your son) directed him not in a more positive direction, but in a more negative one. "Idle minds are a devil's workshop." Schoolwork is not enough to fill up a child's life and there needs to be more than just more schoolwork to fill his time, like piano or choir or something. Your heart is in the right place, but your tactic is not the best, and your looking down on the other parents (at least they're involved with their kids) is not a real good look. Jmo...

Name: HarrisThomas

Comment: our children are suffering from lack of consistent follow through . . . . . I know family and friends who brag on their children who are involved in sports activities and also know that those same families never brag about the academic accomplishments of their children: they tend to low rate the bookish children

Name: jazzfan

Comment: I agree. We need to have the auditoriums filled for Spelling Bees, Science Fairs, Honor Roll %*$emblies and other academic events like the gyms and stadiums are filled for football and basketball games. JCP, just curious - how, below the high-school level, did your kids end up on a field with kids that outweighed them by 50 lbs. a player?

Name: Exmun

Comment: Good article. I kept waiting for the punchline, for you to make the transition into your usual political diatribes, and... surprise to me you didn't go there. I saw the title "Nuclear Option" and assumed that it referred to the Senate's nuclear option... or a reference to Sarah Palin's constant mispronouncement of "nuclear" in her backwards Alaska drawl as "nuck-u-lar." You didn't go as planned. Instead you actually followed an article through to its end and your piece didn't devolve into an Obama hate fest, something you're known for 'round here. Congrats on a good article. Raising children is tough business. I'm glad you stood up and got the attention of your son. Note to the Author: I would refrain from referring to your sons as my "number one son" and my "number two son." Something about the use of those two words that sounds like favortism. I refer to my two girls as my "older" daughter and my "younger" daughter. But I wouldn't dream of calling one my "number 1."

Name: MzTee

Comment: This is a good article. I agree with BMT that JCP's forte is these type of articles versus his political op-ed pieces.

Name: McNasty

Comment: Once you identified the problem would it not have been more prudent to offer to tutor the ones on the team having difficulty?! You know, I realize that this is a real problem for a lot of schools but for the life of me it just sounds like pompous, high fallutin' jcp again to me.

Name: Kofi

Comment: Come on folks. I come harder at JCP than most but, on this one he made the right call. I once dated a woman whose son was very good at sports. He now plays football for USC. Got a full ride scholarship. If his grades suffered sports would have come to a complete halt. I think the problem with many folks is that we are even debating the issue of sports vs. school work. JCP made the right call period!!!!

Name: McNasty

Comment: Kofi JCP is a good writer he's an actor and I'm not even gonna hold against him that he's a rethug. The fact is this is his neighborhood we're talking about and if he can attend a game, coach a game and see that there is something wrong - why not, like a whole lot of other coaches - offer to step in to help remedy the problem insted of getting swole up cause he found the answer for his kids. What happened to each one teach one? Or even 'it takes a village?! Its one thing to see the problem, 'nother whole ballgame to get involved to try to straighten it out.

Click here to post your comments.

Back to the Article » Click Here

...