Rah Times

In my journey to accomplish the things that I desire, I can see a direct connection between my values, religious beliefs and the cultures, I have lived in. I have lived most of my life in America, a wealthy country where people strive for riches, and I also can relate to that. Belize, where I was born, is a relatively small country, and its citizens focus more on building relationships, as opposed to money. I can understand both cultures because who I am today can be attributed to both cultures. I learned how to persevere from living in this country. My respect and value of people more than material things can be contributed to my Belizean heritage. This does not mean that I do not appreciate the things I have. It simply means that I love my family and relationship more than I do my stuff. When I was growing up in Belize, I aspired to become a missionary. That also can be attributed to my surroundings. I attended a conservative Christian school in my elementary years. Most of my teac...

Who can live up to perfection? That was my daughter's claim this week. "I do not feel as if I belong. The other children in our family are so perfect." That was news to me. It is true they are not troubled or have run-ins with the law but perfect. That is a bit of a stretch. Children all go through stages and what I want and what they chose to do, at times, differs. She was mainly referring to my oldest son, and one of her older sister. My son has some similar personality traits as I do. He is quiet and reserved and in general seems to stay away from his peers that display behavioral difficulties. There are times when he also avoids me like the plague. I find that a bit bothersome but that is easier to live with than oppositional behaviors. I believe that might have been my daughter's point. In other words, his nuisance is nothing in comparison to hers. At this point, I am trying to reassure her, and to give her a sense of belonging. It is obvious that she has som...

We do not live in a flawless world, and things are not always the way we want them to be. We Photoshop flaws and conceal and hide inadequacy. Yet, this is not a perfect world. We can accept that but little else. Yesterday, I attended a family therapy session with my daughter. I listened as she talked about her insecurities. It broke my heart. She voiced her fears of not being able to pick up her life from where it was interrupted. As if we would like to hide her away. That is not the case at all. She is my daughter, and I love her. I found the circumstances that got us here, very discouraging. Being forced to listen has caused me to be empathetic. I cannot say that any of this has been gratifying. It is much easier to do away with troublesome issues, pretend that all is well. After all, we live in a Photoshop world, we cover true beauty. Yet if, it were not for trying times, I would never write. As I thought of her today I wrote: Why can’t you see? I have a gaping wound! It i...

Can children seriously rise to the level of our expectation, beyond what they are capable of? Is it OK to expect them to do what may not be within their capability? Or is it possible for us to will our children into winning or losing? I personally anticipated that all of my children would be successful. I want nothing less than average performance from even my children that have some sort of learning disability. In parenting special needs children, however, it is my contention that one should be flexible. In order for a learning disabled child to succeed, a guardian must know their child’s strengths and nurture that. It is as essential to understand what support is necessary in order to effectively help them or give them what they require. When adopting children from the sate of Texas, prospective parents are required to complete a parenting class. Knowing our strengths so we could draw from that to meet our necessity was one of many points that were stressed several times, ...