by Mark Borries

Created on: March 17, 2009

We tend to idolize and put our winning athlete's on a high pedestal. The problem comes when we have to face the fact that no matter how much athletic talent they have, they are still only human, with all the weakness's and flaws that defines the mortal condition. It's hard to explain to a child, when someone they admire and look up to, falls short of the mark of perfection. The Michael Phelps incident is the most recent and vivid example of an athlete being caught in a real person moment.

The best we can do is explain to our children from an early age that athletes and public figures can be people to look up to and admire. But they have to remember, they aren't perfect, and make mistakes just like the rest of us. Athlete's and Hollywood celebrities have been what we model our "perfect" life after, for as long as there have been figures that stand above the crowd. The saturation of media coverage of our celebrities has never been at this level before. And everyone is looking for that big story, that will sell papers and get viewers to tune in to the show. Unfortunately our society doesn't seem to notice when people do good things with their wealth and position. But boy do we eat up a good scandal.

It goes without saying that you should have an open and honest dialog with your children about drugs. You need to have the type of environment where kids feel free to come to you with any questions they have about drugs. If they don't hear it from you they are going to hear it from other kids on the playground, who are all just overflowing with false ideas and misinformation. Once you have an open environment where your kids aren't afraid to ask questions, it's just a matter of relaying information, but you have to be informed, so you aren't the one handing out the bad information.

The image or story of our favorite athlete doing drugs, can be heartbreaking for a child. We have to remind them that just because they have a lot of athletic talent, and make a lot of money for what they do, they are just as susceptible to temptation as anyone else. Show them that what is really important is how the person in question handles the situation. If they accept responsibility for their actions, take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again, and ask their fans for forgiveness, they are someone worth looking up to. If they lie and try to cover things up, no amount of athletic talent can compensate for a lack of character.

We hope our children look up to us as role models, but we also know that they have favorite celebrities they look up to and hope to be like one day. If we do our jobs right, we know that they will follow the good examples, and steer clear of the bad. And to all of the "role models" out there I'd like to say, before you do something stupid, remember, a lot of kids are watching.

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