Life lessons on (and walking off) the soccer field

Barely a month ago, 11-year-old "Azzy" Mansour was greeted with fanfare as the newest member of the Nepean Hotspurs Selects Under 12 girls soccer team. As their website noted excitedly on Feb. 1:

**********A BIG WELCOME !!!!!!************
The Selects Players and familiys (sic) wish to welcome Asmahan Mansour to the team !!!!

Well, it didn't take long for the budding young Mia Hamms and their coach to prove that behind all those exclamation points was a team with spirit, heart and solidarity.

Last weekend, mere weeks after Azzy made her debut as a forward, the whole bunch of them marched off an indoor soccer field in Laval, Que., when the young Muslim was told by a referee that she couldn't wear her hijab during a tournament match. Three other teams from the Hotspurs organization followed as well as one from Ottawa South.

In less than 48 hours, it was front-page news all over the country, with pundits, bloggers and irate citizens turning it into a debate about everything from politics (courtesy of Quebec Premier Jean Charest) to oppression, racism, the right to free expression, safety and, naturally, insurance liability. The arrival of Posh and Becks in the stands could hardly have generated more excitement.

But regardless of where you stand on the issue, it's hard not to find these Hotspurs inspiring. As someone who has spent a dozen years watching kids' organized sports - including soccer from house league to rep to regional levels - I'd say we could use more teams like them.

If only we had more youth coaches who didn't believe in winning at any cost. Who pushed kids to think about their values and principles as much as their scoring opportunities. And if only there were more kids taught that friendship and standing up for what you believe in is more important than any championship cup.

Over the years, I've seen sensitive, caring, skilled coaches make huge impact on young players. Otherwise my kids wouldn't be in organized sports.

I've also seen appalling stuff from sidelines. Coaches hauling 15-year-olds off the field to quit the game over a controversial call. Eight-year-olds told not to shake hands after a close match. Coaches berating young charges, yelling at refs and dissing opposing players. Players loudly blaming teammates for errors on the field while adults don't bother to intervene.

Whatever you may think about whether the hijab is a safety issue (and I don't) the Hotspurs got it right. They weren't unsportsmanlike, they acted in solidarity on a matter of principle. For a teammate who did nothing wrong. Their message: We win as a team, we lose as a team and if necessary, we drop out as a team. We got this far in the tournament with Azzy playing in her red team socks and jersey and matching red hijab. So we're not going on to play without her.

According to this Ottawa Citizen story, the girls didn't appear to think twice about it. As one 11-year-old said, with others chiming in agreement, "We supported our teammates and our friend. And I think we did a really good thing by walking off the field."

Even for kids and parents who don't feel the same, it's a great opportunity for a "teachable moment." A chance to think and question and explore all sides of an issue and consider solutions. Shouldn't that be part of every kid's experience, whether in the classroom, or talking politics at the dinner table, or on the soccer field?

Some folks say the hijab is dangerous because another player could pull it and cause injury. To which I say, pulling shirts or hijabs or anything else is not allowed and that's why we have yellow cards. Some say it's not up to the ref anyway, because there are issues of rules and liability. To which I say, the rules on religious head gear in soccer are unclear and arbitrary. Otherwise Azzy wouldn't have been playing with her hijab for the past month or in previous games in the tournament. So give the kids a break. They're select, not professional.

Or in the words of one Hotspur: "This is not fair. We're only 11. We just wanted to play soccer."

You go girls.

Plug into what the kids are up to

The following also appears in the Life Section of today's Toronto Star, as part of a regular monthly column.

Cathy Wing has her own MySpace page. She uses MSN every day and logs on regularly to the popular Neopets.com website to check out the virtual creatures.

Hardly unusual pastimes these days. Except that Wing is a 52-year-old mother of two, whose daughters find all this rather hilarious. Not to mention that no way are either of them going to sign up as one of her "friends" on the MySpace social networking site. As if.

Ah, yes. There are few things more amusing to many teens than the notion of their parents trying to be au courant. Especially when they know full well that, most of the time in cyberspace, the adults (at least those of a certain age) are scrambling to play catch-up. I know the feeling. My own kids still haven't stopped snorting up their sleeves that their mother actually started a blog a year ago.

Being the subject of a few giggles, however, has never deterred Wing. She has been an educator with the Ottawa-based Media Awareness Network since it launched more than a decade ago. But she believes it's also part of her other job, as a parent, to be fluent in the technology that modern children and youth have at their fingertips. 

"Parents should be doing the same thing their kids are doing," Wing says. In other words, get with the program, folks. 

Depending on your kids' habits, that could mean instant messaging, roaming youth  hangouts like Facebook, playing the online adventure game Runescape or sitting down with the older ones to watch Ali G.

Not all the time, obviously. But if you haven't heard of the hit shows or video games or technology and you've never seen or used them, it's hard to know what kids are really up to during all those hours they are supposedly doing their homework in front of the screen. Or what influences they are under and the kind of quick decisions and ethical dilemmas they face.

It also doesn't do much for your credibility when it comes time to set limits around media usage or online behaviour.

Last week, there were two more wake-up calls about the perils of the virtual world and how often parents are utterly clueless. In nearby Caledon East, a pile of high school students were suspended for posting vulgar and derogatory comments about their principal on Facebook. And in Pickering, a group of elementary school students videotaped a disabled classmate being tripped and taunted, and posted it on YouTube. 

Clearly, though they may be quick on the keyboard, a lot of kids simply don't grasp the implications of their online conduct.

They mistakenly believe they are anonymous. They don't get the difference between idle chatter in the cafeteria and posting something on a website for all the world to see. They are easily swept up in the intensity and excitement of online conversations. They don't realize that once they hit the Send or Publish buttons, their musings have crossed from the realm of the personal into the public. 

Which means teachers can read them. So can friends and family. So can universities they may have applied to for a scholarship. And so can potential employers, who are increasingly conducting Web searches before making final hiring decisions.

A newer generation of more tech-savvy parents is coming at these issues with much more hands-on experience and comfort. But experts like Wing say too many are still uninformed. 

And while banning access to the technology may work for awhile, that won't prepare kids for the wired world they are being raised in, nor will it equip them to think critically about how to navigate that world.

Debbie Gordon of Mediacs, who runs media literacy workshops for Toronto schoolchildren, says parents have to stop being cowed by the fact that their kids are more adept than they are on the equipment. Instead, parents should remember that media management is mostly about parenting.

Incidents like last week's are not about technology. "They are issues of morals and ethics, the same as in the offline world," Gordon says.

Bullying, gossip, exclusion, profanity, exhibitionism, courtesy and the meaning of respectful friendships - on and offline - are topics that all parents should be discussing with their kids.

Wing notes that while the Caledon and Pickering episodes are alarming, they're also "teachable moments." Ideal dinner table conversation. And a perfect reason to ask your kids to show you around their favourite websites or demonstrate stuff they like to do online.

As a Statistics Canada study released last week noted, families are spending less time together, even when they are all under one roof. And much of that is thanks to multiple televisions, iPods and computers that keep them apart.

So look at it this way. Seize the moment and let technology be something that brings you together.

A brave new world indeed

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Technology was going to be the big saviour, remember? Make us more efficient at our jobs, simplify the household tasks and free us up for countless hours of bike-riding with the kids and opportunities to explore our inner poet.

Well, the dream, it seems, hasn't exactly come true (as if you haven't noticed). According to this study from Statistics Canada, workers in today's wired world are spending an average of 45 minutes less with the family each workday than they did 20 years ago, which adds up to about five 40-hour work weeks each year. Kind of jarring, especially at a time when phrases like "work/life balance" are top-of-mind for employers, unions and Gen-X and Y parents. You have to wonder how many of those extra minutes are being eaten up by Blackberries, laptops and all those gadgets there to provide "flexibility" while ever reminding us that work is no longer something you leave at the office.

Not only that, as this story illustrates, technology is eroding the time families spend together, even when they are all under the same roof. All those iPods, multiple televisions, computers and videogames that are staples of middle-class homes mean tuning out the annoying parents or scrapping siblings is easier than ever. Don't feel like watching the Leafs with the teenage hockey fan tonight? No problem; head upstairs to the other TV and catch America's Top Model by yourself. If the kids can't agree on a computer game, send one off to the Xbox and another with Nintendo Lite.

Once upon a time, siblings couldn't help conversing when they fought over whose turn it was to dry the dishes. Now we have dishwashers. And thanks to MSN, we don't even hear a peep when the teenagers are socializing with their friends.

Yes, we know all the pluses of tech. But there's a cost, isn't there?

Facing the perils of Facebook

In case you're short on dinner table fodder for tonight, here's the perfect opportunity to raise the topic of cyber behaviour with your brood. And yet another reminder that just because kids are smart as hell about navigating web technology and instant communications doesn't mean they're terribly savvy about how it can come back to bite them.

Last week, up to 19 teens were suspended from a high school in Caledon East, just northwest of Toronto, after they used a Facebook site for some vulgar venting about their principal, which included sexually explicit, demeaning and derogatory comments.

This is the latest example of a phenomenon that's not terribly new, i.e. kids who haven't figured out that posting their thoughts online is not the same as writing them in their diaries or spouting them aloud at their lockers.

You may remember the 14-year-old Montreal girl who was arrested a couple of years ago after posting a list of "people I want to kill." Or the mistrial declared in the so-called Johnathan murder trial in Toronto because one of the key teenaged witnesses talked about the case online and contradicted her testimony. Or the many reported incidents of cyberbullying, when the recipients of threatening MSN messages have printed them out, shown them to their parents, and suddenly the cops were involved.

In the latest online episode, much of the banter resembles the same kind of casual chatter you'd hear in a stairwell or read on MSN. So much so that it apparently didn't occur to the teens not to publish their full names with each comment. (In case you go looking, you won't find the site any more, but I've seen some of the postings.)

Somehow, lots of kids still don't get the idea that there's a difference between gossiping at the water cooler and calling your principal a "dumbass" - or worse - in text that all the world can read. A psychologist once explained the disconnect to me in a way that made sense. The blank screen can have the feel of an enticing personal canvas just waiting to be splashed with words and pictures. But in the split second it takes to press "send" or "publish," it morphs into an act of communication and goes from the realm of the personal to the public. Which is hard for a lot of folks to fully grasp. Even adults.

So ignore the eyerolling, endure the yawns and sighs and tell your kids again: Their friends can read, their family can read, their future employers can read, and yes, their teachers and principals can, too. So think twice or 10 times before clicking "Publish."