JUMP OUT OF BED IN THE MORNING TO LIVE!

How are you today? You feel worthless, you say. Nobody likes me. I don’t even like myself. Probably God doesn’t even like me. Perhaps you feel so outcast you think you should just get on the Wal Mart parking lot and hold up a sign, Will Work for Food! The world might just be better off if I weren’t breathing up all the air.

We all get depressed. We all feel very insecure sometimes. If you feel your friends and peers dis you or trash you or whatever you feel—remember, it is only a feeling. This too will pass! If it seems to happen all the time, just ask the question, Why me? I know it hurts when you are on the receiving end and it seems like an endless stream of those who dish it out.

Have you ever felt like a worn-out football? You know—kicked around, squashed, thrown from here to there and all your paint is coming off? You’re worn to a frazzle! Tired of the action!

You may not want to hear what I am about to say, but, CHEER UP! Try it. Remember: act as if. . . Act as if you felt good, better, or best. Act as if you could go out and have a great day and then get up and do it. Act as if someone else is extremely important to you and get out there and do something for him/her. Run down to Wal Mart and hand one of those guys a dollar. (I wasn’t belittling those folks even a little bit. I feel for them).

If you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water he will hop out every time. Put him in cold water and slowly heat it. The frog will sit there and boil to death. I have never tried that but it is one of those things anyone will tell you, Sure! It’s absolutely true! Continue putting yourself in bad situations and thinking negatively and eventually you’ll just accept all that as normal. You will be like that poor old frog in cold water. Before you realize it you are in deep trouble.

Don’t forget—all of life is a choice. Be the frog thrown into hot, boiling water. Choose to get out of that bad, negative, defeating attitude or feeling. Recognize yourself, not as a frog but as a prince or princess. Remember, the frog didn’t jump out to die. He jumped out to LIVE! And live he did. And, he finally came to the conclusion, Life isn’t so bad after all! Then as time progressed, he woke up one morning and screamed, Boy do I feel great! Do you know what? I bet he had a great day that day. Try it! I think you’ll like it. If you don’t think you would, write me and tell me why. If you do, write me anyway. Know I love you or I wouldn’t have written this. h

THE SUBJECT THAT IS TABOO!

What if we were to openly discussed suicide with our children? What if we discussed it with our neighbors and our peers? What if we recognized we have a real problem with youth suicide? What if. . .? Let’s go one more with the specifics. What if we discussed suicide as openly with our kids as we do, well, let’s say sexual responsibility?

And the general response, I haven’t ever talked to my children about sexual responsibility either. So, the point is well taken. The problem is parents do not talk to their children about the really critical issues in life. Oh a child might be told, Be careful! Don’t get into trouble! I know how it is with parents. I was a kid a while back. I remember. But, as I have mentioned, parents today do not want training and do not necessarily know what to say to their children. And, to compound the problem, too little, if anything, is said before the child gets into trouble. Let’s don’t say or do anything about it yet! It won’t ever happen to us! I don’t think my children are ready for that yet!

It doesn’t matter what the excuse is. It is the primary responsibility of the parent to teach the child. It is not the government’s job, it is not the school’s job, it not the church’s job, although each entity can play a helping role. Let’s say it again: It is the responsibility of the parent(s) to do the job of teaching their own children about such critical issues. Let’s get real. Do you really want to leave such critical issues up to someone else?

Or, as with sexual responsibility: When I was growing up I believe we were expected to get all this off the street. Parents didn't talk about it. The schools didn’t talk about it. The churches didn’t talk about it. Where then is a child going to learn. Our youth hunger for the same things most of us want. They want to be loved. They want someone to listen. They want guidance. But, too often they just keep on receiving things, which must somehow substitute for genuine relationships.

You might say: You are carrying this thing too far. I am not! Education has long been said to be the key to our drug problem—especially education that begins at a very early age, before there is a possibility of using drugs.

So, let’s get really serious. What if we began very early giving our kids positive affirmations about our love for them, about their own personal value, and about their value in the family and to you personally? Yeah, that’s what we need today! We need lots of that. No, our children need it. Why isn’t it forthcoming? Is it that our needs as parents are so great we have no room left to fulfill the needs of our children? I have seen that to be the case too, too often.

So, begin today! It may be too late to work but it is never too late to try. Affirm you love for your children. Express to them how much their lives are worth to you personally, and to the family. Show them proof of love. Don’t just go buy them something! Hug them! Hug them! Love them! Love them! Tell them! Tell them! I love you! I love you! I want you alive! I want you alive! That might just be enough.

I love you for loving your children. h

WHY THE YOUNG KILL!

The article Why the Young Kill by Sharon Begley addresses an acute problem we face in our nation today. It’s not just a problem of city ghetto gang activity but one that might as easily occur in Small Town, USA, given the proper circumstances.

It is these circumstances Ms Begley addresses in this well-written article. I’d rather be wanted for murder than not wanted at all. That statement summarizes at least part of what the author was trying or portray. Bad parenting is certainly a problem of epidemic proportions and one that leads to the problem under discussion. Why do the young kill? Parenting styles certainly play a role in this problem: especially is this true of authoritarian parents and those parents who never give any support to their children whatsoever. These children are abused, neglected and/or left to raise themselves.

The author begins with child development by looking at that era (0-3) where there is such a huge potential for learning. Suppose during these formative years the child is exposed to either physical or psychological abuse? Dr. Bruce Perry is mentioned and has done tremendous work in this area (his courses are available on the Web).

This same child grows older and receives nothing but mental and verbal abuse among his peers and comes to feel completely ostracized by those same peers. A Child like that often ends up withdrawing into behavior that is only conducive to antisocial personality.

Then the child will perhaps go on to compound these early difficulties with the later withdrawal of the child into today’s pop culture, becoming even further ostracized from the mainstream. This can lead to misconceptions about death—the magical concept that when the hero dies the child expects to see him or her again. Many of the games these children get involved in deal in death and violence.

Perhaps not all young people who get into the Gothic culture will end up staying on the dark side but this article is more about their brains than nearly anything else, except perhaps parenting. The abusive parent raised the risk of his/her child resorting to violence. Why? A change takes place in the brain due to the constant abuse.

The constant exposure to abuse and violence can make the brain’s system of stress hormones unresponsive. It is compared to a keypad that has been pushed so often that it just stops working.

Finally, the child gets to the point nothing hurts anymore. He/she has lost the ability to feel and to react. The conscience is dead. Aggressive antisocial kids have no sense of feeling but they do retain a keen sense of the fact that all injustice is aimed at them.

Behavior is the result of a dialogue between your brain and your experiences. . .Although people are born with some biological givens, the brain has many blank pages. From the first moments of childhood, the brain acts as a historian recording our experiences in the language of neurochemistry (D. Neihoff).

There are so many important things in this article but I believe the discussion of the brain’s cingulated gyrus was quite interesting. When it becomes impaired, people get stuck on one thought. Compound this with the fact that the prefrontal cortex, which acts as the brain’s supervisor is sluggish in some murderers. If the young person has an impaired CG and his thoughts are violent, he gets stuck there. With no supervisor that can result in a major possibility for trouble.

Dr. David Grill is a Los Angeles based Clinical Director of “Treatment for Traumatic Life Experiences” He is a lecturer nationwide on the subject of childhood trauma. He got involved in child trauma studies as the result of suffering trauma himself as a child. In a recent seminar “Managing and Discharging Activation (in the Brain)” he brought up the question that has long been an issue in child trauma studies. I believe Dr. Perry would concur with him. So. . .I pose this question to you, faithful group of wonderful people that have shared so long with me, and faithfully, I might add: Can the Child’s brain tell the difference between physical trauma (child abuse with blows to the head, etc.) or psychological trauma (parental neglect, verbal abuse, etc.)? If it can’t, is there any difference in the trauma for the child? Or, if it can’t tell the difference, which can lead to greater maladjustment in the child?

Or, (how about another one—a little more practical): If a child is maladjusted, antisocial, ostracized from others his/her own age and that child threatens suicide in dramatic fashion (drawing a crowd or just your personal attention), how careful should you be in trying to negotiate with the child if you know that a person who is suicidal can also as easily be homicidal as well (it’s a fact)? Or, should you try negotiating at all? Why don’t you try some feedback?
I love you for staying with me. h

(See original article at www.tces.fcps.net/OLD/resources/Why_Do_Young_People_Kill.htm

NOTHING COULD BE THAT BAD!

I am going to begin today to share some writings that are close to me heart. I hope they help you, stimulate someone that's about to make the wrong choice in life, and generally inform readers. Disclaimer: This is no effort to counsel anyone but you can write or respond to what is said. You will get an answer, I promise. So, we begin. . . . . .

Suicide kills people, especially kids. That's who I am most concerned about today. Too much of that goes on. One suicide completion is too many, in my opinion. Why do people do things like that? Someone told me the other day: Nothing could be that bad! He was talking to me about a man we both knew who completed suicide just last weekend.

Nothing could be that bad! And, most of the time that’s exactly how most folks feel; how could it be that bad? We rationalize: surely adults should know better. Suicide is the ultimate solution for absolutely nothing. It really solves nothing and is so often such a selfish act. Look what it does for those left behind. Catastrophic illness and death leave such an empty hole in the hearts of those left behind. Think what suicide does to folks like that. Would you really like that to happen to you?

I believe one of the toughest things I have ever heard had to do with young people responding to one of their fellow teen’s suicide: He was my best friend and he never even told me a thing. He just did it. He never even game me a clue. I was his best friend! I didn’t get to tell her goodbye. That latter statement often causes so much anger to well up in the individual’s heart who said those words. Anger is a valid response to a friend’s suicide.

Why did he do it? Could anything really be that bad? One of the major reasons teens complete suicide today is the compelling feeling of being trapped with no light at the end of the tunnel. I have no where to turn! There is nothing to live for anymore! I made a mistake and the pain is too great! I just can’t bear the shame!

Alone! Insecure! Empty! Hurting! PAIN, Pain, pain! But—let’s reason together just a moment. Don’t forget that many have had the same feelings, the same burdens, and the same struggles; they waited. Even if suicide crossed their minds they thought, None of this is worth killing myself over!

Incorporate this thought into our mindset. Grab that new perspective for your life: Nothing in all the world could be worth killing myself over. No feeling! No thought! No emotion! No situation! Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

At this very important moment in your walk through life, make the right choices.