Vikings Adrian Peterson Needs Counseling

 

Adrian Peterson needs help and here’s what I think he should do:

He should first recognize the need for change in his life and be determined to accept the counsel of professionals.  Then he must find the best self-help advisors and meet with them in the coming months to set him on a better course.

Before going further, let’s get this on the record:  I am not apologizing for Peterson or defending him in this column.

If allegations that he injured his four-year-old son by beating him with a tree branch stripped of its leaves are true, then he has no acceptable defense.  What can a four-year-old ever do to deserve a beating from anyone?  Over the weekend the Vikings running back was charged with one count of injury to a child in Montgomery County, Texas.  A trial date hasn’t been determined.

Peterson has fathered several children out of wedlock, according to media reports, with estimates totaling up to seven.  The four-year-old in the news is among those children, and not the child of Peterson’s wife Ashley whom he married earlier this year.

Fathering children without willingness to make a parenting commitment is epidemic in America.  It has much to do with the emotional turmoil in many homes, the academic failure seen in schools and the life of crime that begins for many kids before they reach adulthood.

A child fathered by Peterson died in South Dakota last year, a victim of abuse by another man.  Media reports in 2013 said Peterson learned only a couple of months before the baby’s death that he was the father.  Now the alleged incident in Texas is yet another worrisome development in the story of the 29-year-old football hero.

Peterson’s father, Nelson Peterson, served prison time for money laundering.  Although his father was absent for part of Adrian’s youth, Peterson’s lawyer stated his client disciplined his Texas four-year-old in a manner similar to what Peterson experienced.  If true, who knows how such an experience impacts Peterson as an adult and father?

As first a high school and college football superstar, and now for several years one of the gods of the NFL, Peterson has known a life of privilege with wealth and adulation.  But how accountable is he in his personal life?  What anguish may churn inside him?

If Peterson wants to self-examine he needs to make that commitment now. Thinking and behavior can be modified.  To do so he needs to apply the same kind of determination that he used in making a nearly miraculous recovery from his ACL injury a couple of years ago.

With professional counseling, people do make changes in their thought processes and how they live their lives.  Counseling requires honesty and willingness to accept changes that will help the recipient and others.  And that help doesn’t have to come just from a psychologist or other professional.  It can be provided by advisors who know what they are talking about.

Maybe one advisor could even be Jim Brown, considered by many authorities to be the greatest running back in NFL history.  The two men already know each other, and perhaps the 78-year-old Brown has the wisdom and willingness to help.  Brown’s own past includes allegations of domestic violence, and jail time.

Football should be secondary to Peterson as he contemplates the future. He is positioned at the proverbial fork in the road.  The high ground is a place where he can not only help himself but also his family and the loved ones who need his support.  He may achieve results more meaningful than anything he ever accomplished on the football field.

Maybe a different-thinking Peterson can even enlighten some of the idiots who have surfaced on social media applauding use of a switch as appropriate discipline.  Society needs that kind of punishment to make for better kids, they write.

No, beating up defenseless children just makes this a scarier world than it already is, and reminds us again the real heroes on the planet are often those who have to pick up the pieces from someone else’s mistakes.