Of CNN’s list of the 27 Deadliest Mass Shooters, 26 of Them Had One Thing in Common: Only one was raised by his biological father since childhood. The other 26 were all fatherless. :-( In the article I read Susanne Venker of Fox News goes on to explain that “Indeed, there is a direct correlation between boys who grow up with absent fathers and boys who drop out of school, who drink, who do drugs, who become delinquent and who...
Today I spoke to the secondary pupils at Maple Hayes Hall Dyslexia School. The title of my talk was: 'It's not what happens but how we choose to respond that counts.' I wanted them to know that despite (and perhaps because) of their challenges with reading and writing etc they can still lead happy, loved and successful lives. Thank you Jackie Tweedie for your repeated requests to the head teacher to get me in to talk. It's hard to say...
I have been seeing my resistance to asking to have my needs met recently. I notice that sometimes I don't ask for what I need for, for fear of rejection...for fear of the other saying 'no'. And that somehow if they were to say 'no' I would somehow be less, I would be worse off than if I had kept my mouth closed. But I also know that this is not true. Whenever we ask for what we need we...
Yesterday was my last mentoring session with James (not his real name). I have been seeing James for an hour and a half every two weeks for over a year. Now the funding has run out as he has finished school and moved on to college. The primary objective of the mentoring was to prevent him from being expelled from school. We achieved that at least. I am sad that I won't get to see him anymore but he knows...
As I headed out for my morning walk today I walked past a mother with two toddlers. One was in his push chair and as I walked past he kept shouting ‘Hiya’ to me. I turned round and waved to him and his little voice kept chirping out ‘Hi’ as I walked into the distance. I was aware that his mother didn’t reprimand him and that it was mutually considered to be cute and acceptable. This led me to wondering...
