"Rising Above Adversity" ~ a Young Man's Journey

May and June are graduation times for students everywhere!?How many of you are looking forward to your child graduating into their next level? I am blessed with relationships of several young kids and teenagers, like Tracy below, and what a cool opportunity it is to invest in their lives. Assisting with their school work, taking time to attend their sport events, and investing in their future is what we do as parents, right?

You've heard me say it in earlier posts, I believe parenting is a privilege. It's not easy. But it sure does teach us about ourselves and how we get to inspire our children today who are looking for their future. My adult children all dealt with different scenarios when they were young in order to move on to the next class each year. Graduation into the next level of education or grade is an incredible opportunity to shine!

But what IF our student isn't ready because they fell behind in their studies? Perhaps circumstances with their health, a family situation, or lack of learning ability has been an issue. We hoped they would change on their own but it keeps getting worse. Maybe our student has a learning disability but we don't want to embarrass him/her. Should we pay for tutoring? Should we make them go to summer school or counseling? Or should we just 'let it go' and find a way to cheat the system around the difficulty so they can still move forward with the rest of the class? Can you relate to these challenges? Several articles are circulating recently about kids not making it through school testing or coming up shy of graduation requirements. This has been a very difficult few years for tons of students!

What does graduation really mean? It symbolizes the work that has been done to reach a certain level of accomplishment. Standards of excellence are set to encourage growth and learning. It also marks academic or athletic skill requirements in order to move up and begin a new chapter in life. What happens if my student doesn't want to learn these skills but quits or wants to cheat the system in order to move up? If I don't encourage integrity, I allow an entirely different circumstance to take over in their life for potential failure down the road. We all know we are responsible as parents and some of us are now standing in the gap with other parents.?Mental illness and depression are situations that may show up, but we get to love our kids through these scenarios and truly offer the right kind of help.?

What if more kids could help other kids??Would some of these issues change if students were encouraged to help other students? Is this really a possibiliy? YES IT IS! I'm excited to introduce Tracy Tang. He's a young man of 14 years who just graduated from eighth grade, and will be a Freshman in August attending a college-credited school through ASU with AP classes. Tracy wrote this eBook on his own time while going through many difficult scenarios during his last school year. (see his bio in the eBook) He was inspired to write the concepts he figured out and how he implemented them into his own life. What an amazing tool this can be for others! When he asked me to read this and help him edit the content, I was shocked by the high level of sincerity and scientific explanations. His Mom, Grace, is a single mom, and we were both amazed at how he spoke to the issues we even face as adult parents! Tracy wants to reach out to other students to help them find relief from the 'negatives in life' like he did.

If you are a parent, share this eBook?written by Tracy with your students. If you are a parent who already raised your kids, what are you doing to help others? Perhaps you never had the opportunity to have children but you might be willing to help others if you could. Share this eBook!?If you are a single parent, you may be exhausted and needing assistance with your kids, you are not alone if you reach out and stay creative to find support. Raising my kids as a single mom was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But I allowed others to step in and enjoy the journey with us. As they grew up, we had more support along the way. My hope, once again, is to continue to create a network of organizations and people who love to help kids grow up well! I will be highlighting more students like Tracy who are making a difference among their peers. Hope you enjoy his eBook! (clink on the link below)

https://mcusercontent.com/13b852d9d0791dbdc639d1148/files/f7607bb7-0be4-b101-ed5e-56aa90e14a95/Tracy_Tang_e_book.pdf