Bermuda?s young men need to be themselves, make their own decisions and stop simply rolling with the crowd, a community activist said this week.

Social worker Russ Ford said the Island?s boys needed to ask ?whether they would rather be a chicken or a jellyfish??

He explained: ?A chicken has a backbone while a jellyfish just crumbles. A chicken can think for itself, while a jellyfish has no brain. A chicken can go where it wants, while a jellyfish just goes with the flow.?

He made the comments to a packed house of MPs, Senators and many concerned mothers during the third in a series of public meetings organised by Government aimed at helping parents learn the best ways of bringing up boys in Bermuda.

Boys need male role models to help them grow into men, spirituality is lacking in many young men?s lives and that boys simply learn in a different way than girls and should therefore be taught differently, were some of the main messages at the forum.

Mr. Ford said parents should give their children chores in order to help them cultivate ?a sense of work ethic?.

And he said parents need to be particularly careful about what their sons watch on television and what type of music they listen to.

?Cartoons are violent,? he said. ?When I was young and a cigarette advert came on the television, the television just went off. It made an impact on me, because I realised certain things are just unacceptable.?

Police Constable Ian Moe said he thought parents should be more ready to discipline their kids when they do something wrong.

But he added that the main issue was a lack of male role models among young men. ?If you are a father, then you have to be there if he is in the school play... More often than not, when I ask a young man where his father is a lot of profane language comes out of their mouth.?

Sandys Secondary School teacher Dr. Glenn Bascome said young men were lacking spiritual guidance in their lives.

?If you get an appliance or something for Christmas, you wouldn?t throw out the manual would you??

He noted that likelihood of an entire family going to church is raised considerably if it is the father that takes the lead and takes them there.

?Children will do what they see us do. It is not enough to send them to Sunday School if parents are not involved with how their kids are developing. So much youth violence is traced back to the fact that they have so little spiritual base.?

He added that parents would do well to adapt their demands for studying to how they think their son is more comfortable.

?Some people prefer informal design,? he said.

?Sometimes a son might want to lie across the bed while doing his homework. Others need more motivation, while some just don?t want to be bothered.

?Everyone is different. Let them experiment.?

Clearwater Middle School deputy principal Derek Tully said boys simply learn differently than girls.

He said boys may need to be given more ?hands on? things to do in order to reach their full potential.

?Girls learn more easily. They are much more auditory (better at listening), while boys learn things better when they are touching something or moving around... And when boys get bored they get into trouble.?

Chief Inspector Anthony Mouchette said he hoped that the turn out in the audience ? mostly women ? was not an indication of the number of male role models in Bermuda because ?if so, it is a sad state of affairs?.

He said young people depended on the foundations that were laid by adults, and added it was important for adults to ?take the lead? by spending quality time with their sons, being accountable to their responsibilities and setting an example.

Government had not decided yesterday whether the final meeting, which was set to be held at Sandys Middle School on Thursday night but was cancelled due to bad weather, would go ahead at another date or not.