At this moment I am just two days away from going off on holiday with a dead line of finishing my book, “Journey to Chocolate”, before I go. I kept making this blog a low priority but I really couldn’t let another day go past without sharing some of my thoughts on the recent looting and rioting on our streets. I have seen riots at odd times throughout the last 20 years or so but, much as I always will condemn violence of any kind, riots in the past have had a reason; poll tax or poverty and unemployment. Maybe they have happened because there are people who feel their voices are not heard so they turn to violent demonstrations against those in authority whether it be the police or government. But these latest ones were just totally mindless.

Soon after they ended, someone expressed her concern to me that we were powerless to do anything. I had to disagree; there are a growing number of us who are remaining true to ourselves and want to have our authentic voices heard and the more of us that commit to doing this the more impact we will have. Maybe that is why I have chosen to write this blog. I don’t have any solutions but I do have some thoughts that I hope are of greater value than evicting families and stopping their benefits along with the view that we should bring back the birch; in other words treat violence with violence.

I was a health visitor for many years visiting all kinds of houses. One of the things that disturbed me was how many homes had no table, no place where the family could gather to talk about their day and most importantly no place where the rules and the norms of the family could be made. I remember some years ago reading an article by a young man who had been brought up in a sink estate in London expressing exactly those views.

Another thing that I have read a lot about and feel passionately about is in the area of infant mental health. There is a growing body of research which evidences the importance of love on the infant’s developing brain. The impact of abuse and neglect is devastating. I wonder if the growing abuse of drugs and alcohol over the past 30-40 years has meant that the focus of the parents has been on the need to feed their habit rather than the needs of the infants. A great book to read more about this is Sue Gerdhardt’s “Why Love Matters.” I wonder how much love these gang members have experienced? What kind of attachments have they made to their parents?

I fear that the normal knee jerk response of government will do nothing to make any difference. More money needs to be invested in those early years to help these vulnerable babies and children get the loving care they need. But the cynic in me knows that that doesn’t win votes whereas heavy handed punitive measures do.

But what, you may ask, has this got to do with life coaching? Honestly I’m not sure except that I strongly believe that the more we, as a nation, embrace coaching and it comes into the mainstream of our culture the less this kind of behaviour will happen but that is a tall order. Maybe a table in every home would be an easier solution!