My husband and I have been following Lance Armstrong?s career since he started racing in the Tour de France following his battle with cancer.? We read his books, bought LiveStrong bracelets and clothes, and in 2010 we even went to Paris for the last stage of the TdF, when Armstrong raced his final Tour.
Recently it was announced that Armstrong had been officially stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, and that his best race result would have been 36th? ? before his cancer diagnosis.? This story has been making headlines for weeks, and has been simmering since Floyd Landis (Armstrong?s former teammate and winner of the 2006 TdF) started commenting on the systemic doping that took place.? The recent news essentially eradicates the career that made Armstrong a household name. Pat McQuaid, the President of the International Cycling Union (UCI) said, ?There is no place for Lance Armstrong in cycling.? ? [He is] a serial cheat who led one of the worst doping conspiracies in sport.?
Armstrong wasn?t acting alone.? He was part of a team of doctors, coaches, team managers and other cyclists who were all involved in the doping.? The Tour de France is leaving those 7 years without a winner, as they would be pretty hard-pressed to find a cyclist who wasn?t doping during those years. It?s when the story gets a bit deeper and shows that not only was Armstrong doping, it was how he pretty much bullied former team-mates and others who testified against him.? Many articles appeared that describe abusive voicemail messages that Armstrong used against those who would testify against him.? The wife of one of Armstrong?s former teammate ?described receiving a voicemail from an Armstrong friend telling her she hoped ?somebody breaks a baseball bat over your head,? after her husband spoke out about doping allegations.?? Clearly doping is not good, but covering your tracks and bullying people into helping you cover your tracks?? Well, that?s quite possibly even worse.
Lance Armstrong - Credit Image: ? Claus Bonnerup/Polfoto/ZUMApress.com
Why is this story so interesting story for me, as a parenting facilitator?? Well, Lance Armstrong has 5 children ? 3 from his first marriage, and 2 from his current relationship.? In the past he tweeted regularly about his children and especially the joy he and his partner felt when she fell pregnant ? especially after all his cancer treatment and surgery.? I can imagine that he will get through the damage to his career ? as he said, ?I?ve been better, but I?ve also been worse.?? The side of the story I am fascinated by is how you repair the damage with your family and other loved ones.? This situation provides a wealth of learning.
1. Winning at any cost will most likely catch up with you at some point
When we teach our children to play games, we teach them to play fair and to not cheat.? We?ll say thing like ?cheaters never win?, and even though sometimes it seems that they do, eventually some evidence will come out that will stamp out the victory.
We can work with our children to teach them rules, to advise them about what is and is not fair play.? We can set up a system that rewards values like collaboration or accepting successes and losses graciously.? We can always be on the look out for when our children are exhibiting the behaviours we want to be seeing more of. We need to notice and acknowledge such behaviour.
We want to be raising our children to take pride in their efforts, their improvement and their attitude instead of being the best at any cost.
2. Model honesty and integrity
About a year ago, Melissa Hood, the co-founder of The Parent Practice wrote a terrific blog called 80% of Parenting is Modeling in which she writes:
?Once we?re aware of the influence we have we can consciously set out to influence our children. Michael Grinder, communications expert, says ?The power of influence is greater than the influence of power?.?
Sometimes our children are not copying the things we?d like them to. And for that there is the other 20% of parenting ? we need some positive and effective parenting tools like using rules constructively, setting things up so that our children are likely to behave well, motivating them to do the right thing, understanding the causes of behaviour and responding effectively when they don?t. Sometimes it doesn?t seem as if our children are learning anything in
Source: http://www.blogher.com/lessons-lance-armstrong-affair-modelling-80-parenting-part-ii
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