As a background, Kenrick Monk (on the right) had previously come out in the media claiming to have been deliberately hit by a car while riding his bike, launching a police investigation. Ultimately, it emerged that he made that up and had actually fallen off his skateboard and lied (quite badly) to cover up his involvement in an activity he shouldn't have been participating in. Much more seriously, D'Arcy horrifically assaulted a former swimmer, Simon Cowley, in a nightclub. He received a suspended jail sentence, and was found to be civilly liable to pay damages to Cowley, but then declared bankruptcy soon after.
The behaviour of these young men illustrates a couple of issues that face males in the late teens/early 20's today: firstly the emergence of a new life stage for young men somewhere between adolescence and adulthood; and secondly, the development of a skill called consequential thinking.
Taking the first point, in Australia, the legal age when you are considered an adult is 18, but I often see men all the way into their mid-20s who say that they still feel at least somewhat like kids, with behaviours to match. So although the legal age says 18, when adolescence ends and adulthood actually begins is much less clear cut. Kenrick Monk looks and sounds like a man, but he lies and acts like a teenager (or, arguably, a child). One of the major changes that is pushing adolescence upwards is the involvement of parents in managing their children's interactions/conflicts with their world, thereby limiting the child's ability to establish self-determination and autonomy, and importantly learn from the consequences of their mistakes. Nick D'Arcy had a history of assault prior to his attack on Simon Cowley, but it would seem his father, a prominent surgeon, had a history of mitigating consequences faced by his son. By offering restitution to his former victims, he was undoubtedly doing what most fathers would seek to do - protect his child. However, misguided attempts to manage these situations (while Nick D'Arcy displayed a propensity for extreme violence in the face of minimal provocation) via stop-gap, short-term measures usually leads to more serious long-term issues.
Therapeutically, the ability to develop skills in considering and weighing up consequences (i.e., consequential thinking) of behaviour in the moment is the task at hand for these young men, and many young men like them who present for therapy with these sorts of issues. But this is easier said than done. We are a society that seems to encourage emotional and behavioural reactivity (ever heard, "if it feels good do it"?) at the expense of a considered response. Dealing with relatively low frequency behaviours such as violent assault which may happen, at least in D'Arcy's case, every 6 to 12 months, and particularly when under the influence of drugs and alcohol is a tough ask. Additionally, the issue is sometimes not be a skill-based deficit, but a characterological problem that skill-based therapy cannot assist with (i.e, part of an emerging personality disorder).
It will be interesting to see how D'Arcy and Monk handle themselves over the next few months when the Olympics will be front and centre in the sports-mad Australian mind. Will they reveal themselves to be boys again, instead of men? Behaviour usually reveals itself in patterns, and problematic behaviour often takes a long time to change. It's no accident that these two boy/men ended up participating in an ill-considered photo that leaves that their status as "adults" pending.
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