Last night, my wife and I watched 60 Minutes for Sunday, March 27. Every public school principal, vice principal, counselor, teacher and parent may learn an important lesson from the basketball coach featured.

Bob Hurley is tough.  The workouts Coach Hurley demands of his team are known as one of the toughest and most demanding in America, and he doesn’t go soft on the language, insults and shouting.

Yet the results are impressive and prove what Tough Love may accomplish.

What can we learn from the legendary coach that does nothing to build false self-esteem but everything to build confidence, discipline and skill?

If taken seriously, the answer to the previous question is that being a demanding coach, teacher and parent results in stronger, more successful adults.

Watch the video to discover what I mean.

After all, isn’t a parent in the home and/or teacher in the classroom supposed to prepare children to be the next generation of adults—not to have fun ten hours a day?

Another example of this approach to teach and raise children to become stronger, disciplined, adults with a better chance to survive and succeed, comes from Amy Chua, who wrote an infamous essay for The Wall Street Journal then with the release of her memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a firestorm of criticism and support swept across America.

Since Bob Hurley is as tough as Amy Chua, why aren’t Amy Chua’s critics complaining about him?

When I was nineteen and in boot camp at MCRD in San Diego, the drill instructor called us recruits “maggots”.  How is that different from Amy Chua getting angry and calling her younger daughter “garbage” or Coach Bob Hurley harshly criticizing his high school basketball players?

Discover Recognizing Good Parenting

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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

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