MOTHER IN TAMPA FLORIDA KILLS HER CHILDREN BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO MOUTHY

I saw this post on another site this morning.  The person who posted this headline had this to say about this line: "WTF!!!"
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This is what I have to say:

People are so imbalanced and this is why we keep seeing these stories that are crazy and unbelievable.  Until we start addressing the many issues that are in our communities, we will continue to see the same gruesome things in our society and even perpetrated against the children.  This should be a wake up call that something is drastically wrong.  These stories are happening more frequently.  Just sitting back shaking your head saying that it's a shame is not enough!  We have to start talking about the state of our relationships with ourselves and with others.  Talking about children not having people actively in their lives talking with them and teaching them by example and in word about life and guiding them so that issues like teen pregnancy, early sexual activity, drugs and violence and more can be dealt with with responsible adults who have some wisdom.  We have left our children on their own for years to just figure it out and do as they please for a large part in our communities.  We do not take advantage of the presence and wisdom of our elders in our families and communities and so they almost lose their place and we in turn lose their wisdom and guidance.  Parents are getting younger and younger and often do not have the skills, patience, maturity or guidance to navigate the life changing task of parenthood.

The question is: What are we going to do about this as a community to make a difference in what we see?  There are very concrete things that can be done.  We can make a commitment to share our wisdom gained through experience with youth and young parents who are learning what it means to be a parent.  We can go into our community centers and build relationships with the children there and their families.  We can go into the schools and volunteer in the classrooms, go on field trips and be the positive example that children need to see and keep  talking to them.  They hear us, they watch us...they only mirror what they see and hear around them.  Let us give them a grander vision to aspire to and not allow them to be immersed in a culture that is fed through the TV, Internet,  and Radio that glorifies excess vs balance and moderation; materialism vs spiritualism; quick-fixes and short-cuts vs pride in effort, discipline, and determination; egotism, competition, and elitism vs. interdependence and assisting others.  We are the ones who are in control of what our future will look like by the choices that we make each and every day.  Let us CONSCIOUSLY choose now.

Peace.

Giving our power away...

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Soooooo...I go to my son's school today and had a pretty positive experience. I got to reminisce on how much I miss teaching and being around children. Children are so refreshing and enlightening and they tell you so much about what is going on in the homes of the people we never see but make up the world we live in. We find out beliefs and attitudes and more. I like to use these times of sharing with children as a time to check in and find out whats really going on in the world versus what we say is going on.

The only aspect of the visit that had a moment of pause for me was a brief exchange that I had with the teacher while we talked about my son's behavior in the classroom and his academic progress. We both spoke of his difficulty in staying focused on a task and being very interested in socializing and what is going on around him to the point of interfering with the task at hand. So the teacher asks me: "Have you taken him to the doctor to see if they can give him something to help with that? I mean, he is not hyperactive..." 
Now in the past I would have gone into a whole speech about not approving of medicating children in order to get them to behave the way that we think that they should and closing the discussion down. But I chose to teach by example and said, "No, what we do is work on ways to help Solomon calm himself at home. Help him to recognize that he does not have to be doing something at all times. We encourage stillness and time for reflection as a daily practice."

What I recognize is that the very things that we seek to medicate in not only our children, but in society as a whole are things that with a little effort and discipline we can take care of ourselves. Instead we have been conditioned to take a pill to make the undesirable thing go away. We start at an early age teaching how to give your power over to something else. We let institutions control us, other people control us, and the new acceptable form of control: legal prescription drugs. You don't teach a child how to be self-disciplined by giving him a pill to let something else control him. You teach him how to have control over himself! And we wonder why we have generations of children who seem to be out of control! We have been conditioned to give it away...