Archive for the ‘Accountability’ Category

Do we now understand you can’t multitask?

Tuesday, February 28th, 2017

The drama of the 89th Annual Academy Awards was not due to the actors or motion pictures being honored. The drama occurred as a result of a blunder caused by the accounting firm of PriceWaterhouseCooper. Accounting firms are not normally known for drama.

Brian Cullinan, one of the two PriceWaterhouseCoopers partners who handled the Oscar envelopes on Sunday night, was tweeting photos from backstage minutes before he handed Warren Beatty the wrong Best Picture envelope.

Multitasking caused this error. Multitasking simply doesn’t work; it just isn’t possible to do two things at once.

The most incredible part was when the accountant jumps up and says, ‘He (presenter Warren Beatty) took the wrong envelope!’ and goes running onstage.”

He took the wrong envelope? Nope. You gave him the wrong envelope.

Now, imagine all the times children need their parents attention. Parents are so often on their phones, children feel less important than the Snapchat stories parents are creating, text messages they are sending, or Facebook posts. It has become such an epidemic that a nursery school post asking parents to pay attention to their kids went viral.

What the incident at the Academy Awards demonstrated was that sometimes the effect of our inability to multitask is immediate.

What we won’t know for some time is the impact multitasking has on our children. If Cat Stevens’s lyrics hold true as written in Cat’s in the Cradle, then I’m gonna’ be like you dad, you know I’m gonna’ be like you.

Finally, how do we define irony? While mentally composing this blog post, I got on the wrong train.

 

Tina Nocera, Founder

Parental Wisdom®

Posted in Accountability, Parenting 101, Popular culture, Raising a Person You Want to Meet at Age 25, Raising children, Technology | 2 Comments »

Boys will be boys is hardly true

Saturday, August 27th, 2016

boys will be boys

 

Sports do not build character.  They reveal it.

John Wooden

The phrase ‘boys will be boys’ has become synonymous for men getting away with unsuitable behavior such as the the ever-changing story of the alleged Rio robbery of four Olympic swimmers — Ryan Lochte, Gunnar Bentz, James Feigen, and Jack Conger.

The Rio Olympics spokesman Mario Andrada, showed the IOC isn’t too worried about the severity of Lochte and friends making up a robbery story that quickly stole the nation’s attention:

I do not regret having apologized. No apologies from [Lochte] or other athletes are needed. We have to understand that these kids came here to have fun. Let’s give these kids a break. Sometimes you make decisions that you later regret. They had fun, they made a mistake, life goes on.

Unbelievable!

That was the only negative story to come out a country that had a dangerous image prior to the Olympics.  Why give them a pass, and not even require an apology?

This is not a case of boys will be boys.

But there are cases where boys should be boys, such as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh who was photographed sitting dazed and bloodied in the back of an ambulance after surviving a regime airstrike in Aleppo highlighting the desperation of the Syrian civil war.

He should not be covered head to toe with dust and disoriented.  He should be playing with other kids his age, and I have to believe that is what the term boys will be boys was originally intended to convey.

Ryan Lochte can wordsmith the event all he wants, but the rest of us have to stop making excuses and exceptions for athletes. They should transition from boys to men just like everyone else.

Have a great week!

 

Tina Nocera, Founder

Parental Wisdom®

 

 

Posted in Accountability, Character, values | 1 Comment »

Hugging your family is neither a strategy nor a solution

Sunday, July 22nd, 2012

We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet. – Unknown

This past week I placed two consecutive online orders for graphics software.  The first order went through with no problem, but the second purchase required that I contact the credit card company to confirm that I was indeed the cardholder.  Both combined purchases were under $100.  Credit card companies use sophisticated algorithms and business intelligence to stop potentially fraudulent purchases.

But in the past 60 days, James Eagan Holmes bought more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition and four guns including an AR 15 assault rifle at gun shops and over the Internet. 

How is it that something as simple as a minor credit card purchase can raise immediate questions, while the purchase of that much ammunition and an assault rifle didn’t raise any red flags? 

Also this week, marked the passing of Dr. Steven R. Covey, author of the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®.  Habit #4 is win-win which sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying.

That comes into play when you think about our challenges with gun control; they don’t have to be win-lose. In win-lose Covey suggests, life becomes a sum-zero game.  I paraphrase the NRA when they say they don’t want to stop individual rights because, after all, you can’t stop crazy.

They are concerned about the slippery slope of individual rights protected under the 2nd amendment.  But in 1789 the founding fathers could not have  imagined why individuals would need semi-automatic weapons.  Can you?

Law abiding citizens open their bags at arenas and sporting events, turn on laptops at airports as they walk around in bare feet doing what they are told to ensure our safety.  And we are willing to do more to prevent such tragedies. 

One thing we can do is demonstrate to our children that we won’t accept the status quo and ‘it is what it is’ is never a good response.

What we can do right now is reach out to our elected officials and tell them that this can’t happen again.  Public service announcements tell us that if you see something, say something. 

To our public officials: can you hear us now?

Have a good week, especially because you can hug your children

Tina Nocera, Founder

Parental Wisdom®

 

Posted in Accountability, Healthy Lifestyle, Safety, Stress | 2 Comments »

No apology needed if you skip the behavior

Sunday, June 24th, 2012

There were two incidents in the news that should cause us to stop and ask an important question; if we judge the degree of civilization of a society by the way it treats its weakest members, then how do we measure up?  

Those incidents involved the two weakest members in our society; the young and the old. 

The Young -The Sandusky trial ended this week with a conviction on 45 of 48 criminal counts related to the alleged assault of 10 boys over a 15-year period.  In an earlier blog, I wrote, Do We Need Laws to Protect our Children?  Sandusky will get life sentence; just like his victims.

The Old –Karen Klein was a bus lady mercilessly taunted by seventh grade boys. 

There was a public outcry on both issues; now come the public apologies.

When are we going to learn that it is better to stop bad behavior in its tracks? Why were there so many Sandusky victims?  What was legally done was not enough.  Were there no students on the bus that could stand up for the bus lady?

Between the young and old are the rest of us, and we are expected to do the right thing, right away.  

Tina Nocera, Founder

Parental Wisdom®

 

Posted in Accountability, Empathy, respect, Responsibility | No Comments »

Reasons why parents are smarter than BP

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

Mazel Tov!

A new cap has been successfully placed on the top of the busted oil well.  The job of a  Monday morning quarterback is always easy, but perhaps BP could take a page from successful parents.

Being a great parent is as simple as paying attention to the little hairs on the back of your neck.  By that I mean parents are aware of subtle changes in behavior; responding and monitoring situations appropriately before things get so out of control that the top blows off.

In the case of BP, you can take that literally.  In the case of parents, here are a few scenarios where situations spiral out of control making them equally difficult to recover from when parents are not paying attention to the little things:

  1. The CEO that isn’t invited to his daughter’s wedding
  2. The seven-year-old that curses out his parents
  3. The 15-year-old who falls face down in the street because he is high

Sometimes a simple reminder is all that is needed.

Please visit Parental Wisdom® to get a copy of the free report “Parenting Rules to Live By” from my book Because Kids Don’t Come With Manuals®.

It’s a perfect souvenir for the most valuable piece of real estate in America – your refrigerator door!

Have a great day!

-Tina Nocera, Founder

Posted in Accountability, Parenting 101, Responsibility | 1 Comment »

Could politics get any dirtier?

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

The short answer is yes.

For every parent that ever told their young children, “You can grow up to be President” we have a new reality – they can’t.

This week the Supreme Court in a 5 – 4 landmark decision called a ban 0n restraint of free speech.

The ruling by a sharply divided court lifted restrictions on what corporations and labor organizations may invest to sway voters in federal elections, meaning both groups now have the freedom to pour unlimited amounts of money into races for the Senate and the House of Representatives for all 50 states.

This opens the door to corporate corruption and closes the door to Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

Hopefully, when asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Johnny will have another career in mind.


Posted in Accountability, Integrity, Social Conscious | 61 Comments »

Nutley Parents paying for detention – what do you think?

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. – Dr. Seuss

Having raised my children in Nutley, NJ I read the newstory surrounding the consideration of charging parents for the costs associated with detention with great interest.

First of all, kudos to the Board members that had the courage to raise the question. Most people sit in the comfortable position of challenging the question and answer like a Monday morning quarterback, but lack the creativity to think differently in the first place.

So before I weigh in on the topic, (yes, I am playing the role of the Monday morning quarterback) I am grateful to the original thinkers, School Board members Steve Rogers and Walter Sautter for recognizing an opportunity to make things better.

My opinion is that we would be better served to have the students do something to improve the school rather than being babysat in a classroom.

* In the cases where they can be directly tied to an offense such as grafitti, they should be held accountable to clean it up.

* Where they were sent to dentention for being rude, late or other disciplinary actions, I am sure there is a laundry list of school clean up, repair activities or administrative work that always needs to be done. In that way, the students are the ones paying the price, not their parents.

After all, the purpose of an education is about learning, and it seems as if the students in detention are the ones that need the lesson. Your thoughts?

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Posted in About Parental Wisdom, Accountability, Education, respect, Responsibility | 52 Comments »