Hatchett Glenda - Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say!

Opening Remarks
Promises to Keep

Simple Strategy #1
Expect Greatness

Simple Strategy #2
Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say

Simple Strategy #3
Listen Carefully

Simple Strategy #4
Keep Your Word

Simple Strategy #5
Cheer

Simple Strategy #6
Make Money Matter

Simple Strategy #7
Reach, Teach, and Preach

Closing Remarks
Call Him Son

I was not a perfect child. I am not a perfect parent. And my children arent perfect either. Ive made a whole bunch of mistakes, on both ends of the parent-child relationship, but Ive tried to learn from my mistakesto the point where Im at least a little less likely to make the same mistake twice.

Growing up, I learned a whole lot from my mother and father about the kind of parent I wanted to be, and I continue to learn a whole lot in my follow-your-heart, go-with-your-gut, on-the-job training as a mother.

For the most part, Ive got the parenting thing and the professional thing and the personal-time thing down to a fine balancing act, even though sometimes all those balls in the air have to keep themselves from falling. I wouldnt change a piece of who I am or what I do or how Ive chosen to go about doing it, except that I would pay more attention to taking care of me: finding more time in my hectic schedule for exercise, more time for long walks on the beach, more time for nothing much at all.

All of which begs the obvious question: Just who am I, and what is it that I do that has propelled each of us to these pages? Well, Ill get to all that, in some detail. For now, Ill offer the thumbnail version. Im a single parent. Im a lawyer. Im a judgea real-world, heart-weary juvenile court judge who has lately presided on a syndicated daytime television courtroom program that bears my name and seeks to make a difference in the ways we think about responsibility and community and kids in trouble. Im an advocate for children, working women, and family court issues. At work I have been the repository for every manner of parenting misstep you can imagine, and a few more you couldnt possibly believe, while at home Ive sought to take positive strides to ensure that my children and I dont wind up in somebody elses courtroom.

The book you now hold in your hands is all about my efforts to get it right. Its about all those positive strides Ive worked to take as a parent and all those horrible missteps Ive seen as a juvenile court judge. Its about what we parents can do to guide our children along a positive path, even as they are being pulled in so many conflicting directions. Also, and significantly, its about the stories of my professional life. Gang violence. Drug abuse. Arson. Neglect. Assault. Murder. As a juvenile court judge presiding over one of the busiest jurisdictions in the country, Ive seen it all, and a little bit more besides, and when you reduce each case to its component parts you begin to see a pattern. Theres usually a well-meaning parent who cant quite think his or her way through a looming trouble. Theres usually a confused child who doesnt have the support or the guidance to get past that looming trouble. Theres usually an overburdened system, like a school or a family services program, that cant seem to find the resources to diffuse that looming trouble. And there are usually other looming troubles to combine with the first looming trouble to make matters worse.

This is how it goes. Sometimes. And sometimes, with the right mix of love and faith and tolerance and support and mutual respect and patience, situations can turn in other ways. In positive ways. In hopeful ways. And thats what this book is all abouthelping each other to help our children walk the path of purpose and possibility. Drawing on our shared experiences so that our children can make better decisions and so that we can support them with better decisions of our own. Finding the resolve and the reason to give our children the earned benefit of the doubt, to the point where we cant help but come down on the side of hope.

My father used to speak about the crossroads in a young life, about turning the corner onto a street he called New Hope Road. As a kid, I wasnt entirely sure what he was talking about; as an adult, I am absolutely clear on it.

Youve got to turn the corner, Glenda, hed say, and Id nod as if I knew what he meant, but it wasnt until I was a parent myself that I truly got it.

What he meant was that if youre really committed to changing your life, to walking a better road, all it takes is a change in direction and a commitment to that change in direction. Turn the corner, and keep walking, and after a while you look back over your shoulder and you can no longer see the old road. After a while, that new pathNew Hope Roadbecomes the only way.

I always wanted children. Indeed, I earnestly and repeatedly prayed for children, and God answered those prayers and blessed me beyond measure with two wonderful sons. I had fully expected to love my children, but I never understood how magnificent and magical the relationship with my children would be, and how it might grow even more magnificent and magical year after year after year. I have often said, and I make no apologies for it, that my priority in life is to give to the world two strong, loving, anchored, sensitive, purposeful, caring, focused, and successful young menmen who in their own way and in their own time will touch the world and leave it a better place for their being here. Its a lofty goal, Ill admit it, but Im working on it. Actually, were working on it, my two boys and I, and Im guessing that if youve reached for a book like this, its something youre working on too. In your own way. In your own time.

In the very last conversation I had with my father, two days before he died, he turned to me and said, Glenda, you take good care of my grandsons, you hear?

It wasnt at all unusual for my father to part on a loving, positive directive such as thisindeed, it had become his custom to send me off with a charge regarding his grandchildrenbut it strikes me as somehow poetic that those were his absolute last words to me. And poetic too that my last words back to him were a promise in answer: I will, Daddy, I said.

I have tried to keep that promiseand this book is a reflection of that. Its a distillation of my dovetailing perspectives as a juvenile court judge and a mother of two, out of which there emerges a hopeful path. Yes, absolutely, things can go horribly wrong raising kids in these uncertain times, even for the best-intentioned parents. But Im here to tell you things can also go wonderfully rightand when they do, they usually do so for a reason.

And so I present seven simple strategies for parents hoping to raise smart, safe, successful childreneach bolstered by bulletins from my juvenile court bench and reflections from my own kitchen table. Realize, these bulletins have been pulled directly from real-life cases, involving real kids in real trouble, and Ive naturally taken some real precautions here; names have been changed, and in some instances composites have been used to further protect the identities of the children and families involved. If any of these strategies are appropriate to your own situations with your own children, use them and be blessed, for our children are all we have with which to build a new generation of men and women. Lets give it our best shot.