The "Yes, I Can" Child

This should make you ANGRY

     This story should make every person in America angry enough to go out and do something with our youth. A 13 year old boy in Montana driving a car, carrying a gun and shooting at police officers.

    Click on the link if you haven't read about it already. http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/boy-13-killed-in-highway-police-shootout/20070424024609990001?cid=2359

     Thirteen!! Thirteen years old!! Can you believe it? It's not like we're dealing with gang violence here. We're in Montana people! Not only is the boy not old enough to drive but reports say he stole the car. Now I don't know if that's true or not at this point in the articles that are available, but this should not be happening. This is pathetic and we are doing our youth a disservice.

   So you read this and ask, "well what are you doing about it Lesa?" Well, in my neck of the woods I work with children everyday. They learn responsibility, how important attitude is in their daily life, and respect for others around them. They would be in shock if they knew such instances at these were happening out there around them everyday.

   I am completely aware that we could probably come up with a hundred difference issues as to why this is happening. Whip-tee-do, we've been coming up with reasons this has been happening for too long. Let's do something about it.!!

Let's Empower Our Children Positively

    Today is my first day of hitting the blogging world and I'm looking forward to interchanging with people around the globe with this vehicle. My plan wasn't to start this whole thing for about a month and get my techy to work with me to get the blog going, but the Virginia Tech massacre caused me to start now, and typepad seemed easy enough that I could do it on my own.

   I'm about to launch a new book in September titled, "How to Get Your Child to Say... Yes, I Can, & I Will" and truly I hope it helps every household that has children ages 2-12 years old. This book has been waiting to be written for 5 years now and I did it kicking and screaming. You see I'd rather be out there with the kids and families coaching than sitting in front of the computer writing the book. But I've had some great people asking me now and then, like each time they saw me, how's the book coming? Sometimes I'd growl and other times I'd say I'm working on it and have a goal of when the current phase would be done. So it's written and will be off to the printer in the next couple of weeks expected to be ready for readers in June.

     Let's get back to what jump started me to do this now, the incident at Va Tech. My emotions go from one end to the other when thinking about this. One of sorrow and compassion for the victims families and the other pride for the young people still at Va. Tech who are choosing to stand firm and stick together no matter what. I taped the Oprah show on this and was moved by her guest on the show. A young man who lost his sister in the Columbine shooting and he now travels all over this country talking in schools and youth programs to stop violence amongst our youth. A man taking a tragic incident and choosing to doing something positive where he can leave a legacy behind. I sat there at the end of the show asking myself, "what more can I do?" I don't have a clear cut answer to that but I'm taking it step by step daily. It says that "united we stand & divided we fall". I think it's time we come together as a whole and decide to empower our youth in a positive way. There are pockets of people out there who have a passion and are making a dramatic difference in our youth, but it's gotta get bigger and become more united.