Just the other day, I saw 2 primary school boys smoking and swearing. Profanities were all over the place. There was another time, I saw a very young girl (think she is barely 5 years old) shouting “I hate you!” at her own mother.

How many times have we seen children behaving like little rascals? Worse when you find their parents to be the grown up versions of their children? I was brought up in an environment where we were told to be respectful, courteous, and considerate. My parents believe that you have to teach the right values when the children are young by setting the examples. Pretty much like the Chinese proverb, 上梁不正下梁歪，if the upper beam is crooked, the lower beam will not be straight. Children, after all, have impressionable minds.

Let me share my experience with you. When I was coaching part time in a neighbourhood secondary school during university days, I made it a point to be there 10 or 15 mins early to ensure that things are in order. My players however, seem to like wasting my time, always strolling in 5 or 10 mins late, sometimes, more than half an hour. They were like a bunch of monkeys, ill-disciplined and inconsiderate. I had a hard time pulling the kids together, especially the 15 yr olds. Being their coach, I had the chance to speak to some of their parents and there was this striking resemblance, which was unfortunately, not limited to the looks. You know, someone once said, “For rarely are sons similar to their fathers; most are worse, and a few, are better than their fathers.” I think it’s quite true.I tried all ways, from scolding to persuading to denying them the chance to represent their school, in order to instill discipline. I had to resort to strict ground rules. One of the rules I had, was that they have to apologise to everyone if they were late. Likewise, MC has to be produced if they are sick.

I remember a girl who was giving me particularly more problems than the rest of the girls. She was one of the better players, yet she would either turn up late, or go missing in action. After the rules were set, she was missing for 1 week and when she came back, she was late. In fact, she sashayed in 45 minutes into the training session. Obviously, I waited for her MC and apologies but she didn’t produce any of those. I was pretty irritated by then. The conversation then went something like this:

Me: Why are you late?
Her: Overslept.
Me: What happened to u last week?
Her: Sick.
Me: Haven’t you forgotten something? Where’s your MC?
Her: What?
Me: Didn’t I say if you are sick, you need to give me your MC and if you are late, you have to apologise to the team?

She kept quiet and stared defiantly at me. Furious, I lashed out.

Me: Where is the basic courtesy? Don’t you have my number? Why didn’t you call me? Why do you think I give my number to you? For fun? If you know you can’t wake up in the mornings, you jolly well go to bed earlier the night before! If you are not interested to come on time, why should I waste my time and everybody else’s time to go through what I’ve taught again? Since you want to behave like a princess, you can go home now. I don’t need a princess in the team.

With that I turned back to the rest of the team and continued coaching. She shouted from behind, saying that I was being biased and she was not in the wrong. I couldn’t be bothered. The rest of the players suddenly behaved more like human beings.

Guess what? The following week, she was early! In fact, everyone was there earlier than I was! She apologized to me sheepishly saying that after thinking about it, she realised I was right and she decided to be punctual for all the trainings.

Be it parents, mentors, teachers, or friends, we are all influential people in some ways, believe it or not. It is very important to set an example and to lead by example, whether you like it or not. I have seen parents with children in tow, jumping restaurant queues, being rude to elderly and punctuate every sentence with a profanity, sometimes a whole string of them. Imagine how the kids will grow up to be! A friend, who incidentally is a discipline master in a school, smokes like a chimney, gets drunk every weekend and does the most absurd things.

In summary, children and in fact, every single one of us pick up things very fast especially the not so good ones. We should try and set good examples for the people around us. A gracious society? Or a malicious environment? I’ll leave it to you to decide for yourselves.