Instructor Marcel
training the cutter crew
Fun with safety on the kayaks
Just enough wind for some
experimenting!
THE NEXT GENERATION
SOMETHING POSITIVE AFLOAT
BY MICHAEL PIGNÉGUY
An idyllic location. The home of the
1st Waiheke Sea Scouts in Putaki Bay,
Waiheke Island
24 Professional Skipper May/June 2013
T
here's a lot being said about today's young people,
unfortunately much of it negative, with occasionally
some good stuff about how well someone has done
in sports, or won a scholarship. Children are a direct
product of the environment in which they are brought up, and
for the most part their personalities are pretty well formed by the
time they have their seventh birthday.
The old nature versus nurture argument is an interesting
debate, but a child will need good strong genes if they are to
overcome a childhood of watching a lot of violence and other
meaningless junk on television, discord on the home front and a
poor diet, all of which usually goes hand in hand with low selfesteem and low achievement at school.
Many parents today, although well intentioned towards
their kids, do not have the time to invest in the future of their
children. It has become easy to say, "I'm too busy, too tired, too
much into my own thing." Some parents may as well say that
they don't really care and pass the responsibility on to someone
else or an organisation.
Luckily, there are many wonderful people and organisations who
recognise the pressures that parents are under today and take it
