Sun Shine

I am a girl
I am like the sun
Because I shine in the day time
I feel great!
I wish I was a princess
Tomorrow I’m gonna shine
Because I’m happy when I shine

— Iesha Veglia, age 12

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Man is born neither devil nor saint.
He merely reflects in his behaviour
the nature of relationships he has had
since the time of his birth,
with the people
who were important to him.

                                         — Karen Horney

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The Bloggers

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Delivery Image from another day. A kid needs that extra pocket money. He’s taking his girl out on Saturday night. He’s saving for that skateboard and that new book by — whoisit? This paper-round job gets him out of bed 45 minutes early every morning, but that’s OK, thinking of the skateboard and the book — and that extra edge of fitness which just keeps him on the ball team which he loves. Oh, and it’s that cool feeling of independence — great to be able to say “It’s my money” when the few dollars come in at the end of the week. And he enjoys seeing folks in the neighbourhood, ‘morning Mr Williams’ and, hey Rusty, try and keep up with me! Now his mother is afraid of who might be out there. The paper distributor says he’s going to get into trouble keeping him on the round because at age fourteen-fifteen he will be seen as exploiting under-age youth. The unions are unhappy with a kid doing this work. He might put a ding in a car or kill a wayward daffodil when he leans his bike somewhere to get a paper to the door. Mr Harrison gets all litigious when the papers are late and it leaves a bad taste to the morning rush. Another passing joy in this increasingly joyless world.

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“We assume that life is more healing than we are, and that our intervention is an emergency measure, that our goal is not the complete remaking of a child. What we try to do is to get the child, the family, the school, and the community just enough above the threshold of the requirements of each from the other, so that the whole system has a just-significant margin of probable success over probable failure ... It is possible for a system to work without the necessity of any intrapsychic change in the child at all.”

— Nicholas Hobbs in a paper entitled The process of re-education, delivered at the first annual workshop for the staff of Project Re-Ed, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, 1964

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Run Away It is easy To throw people away But When I hear People talking about me The words just won’t fade And sometimes I wish I could trade My inhibitions And just run away. — Madeline Sime

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If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
If you can overlook when people take things out on you,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can do all these things . . .

Then you are probably the family dog.
                                                                           

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You are worried about seeing your child spend his early years in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy again.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762

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