A lesson for the kids from the Tour de France.
Well, chalk this one up to one of those instances when the morning news offers up a lesson in ethics and acceptable behavior. This morning at breakfast, news of Floyd Landis' recent positive drug test cracked over the radio prompting a pretty heady conversation between my kids and I. - A little background, for 3 weeks in July my productivity at home and at work goes to its lowest point all year as Le Tour becomes the center of my attention (curse you OLN.) It's been a favorite of mine since Greg Lemond's epic win in 1989 and never fails to entertain.
It's always refreshing to listen to the questions that my eight-year-olds ask when the discussion turns to issues of right and wrong. When such opportunities arise, I make it a point to stop what I'm doing and keep the discussion going until every last question is asked and answered. (After all, I'm guessing that I have a few years of open exchanges left before I'll need to adopt a more stealth approach for the pubescent years. ) In this case we discussed the details of the allegations against Floyd and the consequences for him if they are proven to be true. The ethics lesson then morphed in a science discussion about performance enahncing drugs and how they work.
Earlier in the week, it was another discussion concerning cycling that revealed that our mini-lessons actually are taking root. In this case, I was a fly on the wall as my sons TJ & Jason were telling their friend Marcus about the movie Breaking Away. To my surprise, rather than telling their friend about the cool bike race and how the underdog cutters went on to win the race, they instead talked about the subplot where the lead character poses as an Italian exchange student in order to woo a girl. They talked about how he was really lying to her and that he paid the price when she found out. Wow, that was pretty cool. Whady'a know? They're listening!
Well, chalk this one up to one of those instances when the morning news offers up a lesson in ethics and acceptable behavior. This morning at breakfast, news of Floyd Landis' recent positive drug test cracked over the radio prompting a pretty heady conversation between my kids and I. - A little background, for 3 weeks in July my productivity at home and at work goes to its lowest point all year as Le Tour becomes the center of my attention (curse you OLN.) It's been a favorite of mine since Greg Lemond's epic win in 1989 and never fails to entertain.
It's always refreshing to listen to the questions that my eight-year-olds ask when the discussion turns to issues of right and wrong. When such opportunities arise, I make it a point to stop what I'm doing and keep the discussion going until every last question is asked and answered. (After all, I'm guessing that I have a few years of open exchanges left before I'll need to adopt a more stealth approach for the pubescent years. ) In this case we discussed the details of the allegations against Floyd and the consequences for him if they are proven to be true. The ethics lesson then morphed in a science discussion about performance enahncing drugs and how they work.
Earlier in the week, it was another discussion concerning cycling that revealed that our mini-lessons actually are taking root. In this case, I was a fly on the wall as my sons TJ & Jason were telling their friend Marcus about the movie Breaking Away. To my surprise, rather than telling their friend about the cool bike race and how the underdog cutters went on to win the race, they instead talked about the subplot where the lead character poses as an Italian exchange student in order to woo a girl. They talked about how he was really lying to her and that he paid the price when she found out. Wow, that was pretty cool. Whady'a know? They're listening!
posted by Rob Mathewson @ 10:28 AM
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