0 comment Sunday, July 6, 2014 | admin
Naturally, in the aftermath of the recent disturbances which saw school children on BMX bikes shut down cities, terrorise the MET and make the Government recall parliament, there is much talk of why parents were letting their children go out and do this.
I wanted to just comment on this article from Amelia Gentleman in the Guardian entitled 'Being liberal is fine, but we need to be given back the right to parent'.
Throughout this article runs the common myth that there are only two ways of parenting; authoritarian and liberal. Implicit is the idea that authoritarian parenting is out of fashion, but keeps kids on the right track, whereas liberal parenting is nicer for the kids but means they go off the rails. 'parents have become afraid to discipline their own children,' a youth worker is quoted as saying, the suggestion being that children have gone feral because their parents have been too easy on them.
Actually there are lots of types of parenting and authoritarian and liberal parenting are just opposite ends of one particular spectrum, both of them actually damaging to children. Instead of either of those then, how about good parenting instead?
Yes, good parenting. Not parenting where the child is controlled through fear and humiliation. Not parenting where the child is given no boundaries nor rules and so cannot ever learn to function in society. Good parenting, where the child is given plenty of positive attention every day, natural consequences to their actions, encouragement to make good choices, and good discipline to learn right from wrong.
I don't get why any parent would be 'afraid to discipline' their children unless of course you equate discipline with physical punishment and shouting. A mother interviewed in Gentleman's article says, 'People here will call Social Services if they hear you disciplining your children.'
I find it hard to get my head around that.
Discipline in my house is making a child sit and watch you do an hour's worth of ironing instead of being allowed on the DS, because they deliberately scrumpled up the newly ironed clothes in their drawer. Discipline is making a child practice being quiet in their room instead of being allowed to watch TV because they woke the whole household up at 6am. Discipline is confiscating toys and games that are not being looked after properly, until the child has actively demonstrated that they can take care of their things.
Would Social Services be interested in any of that? I am pretty confidant that they would not.
And yet all that is discipline. It's not smacking and shouting. It is me taking the time and effort to try and teach my children that actions have consequences, for them and the people around them.
And it does take a lot of time and effort. I cannot tell you how many times I have wished that smacking and shouting really helped a child, because it would be so easy to do. So quick and simple and also so gloriously discharging of my own rage.
But I know it doesn't help. I know because I have read the books, I understand the science, I've attended the courses. And I know because my adopted children were smacked and shouted at by their birth parents and That's a big part of the reason they're so screwed up. It still turns my stomach when my kids flinch when I make an unexpected move near them.
I'm hearing on the news that a lot of the kids caught up in these riots are now turning up at Court alone, no parent with them. That's your problem right there. Not that these teenagers have parents who go easy on them. But that they have parents who don't give a shit.
I wanted to just comment on this article from Amelia Gentleman in the Guardian entitled 'Being liberal is fine, but we need to be given back the right to parent'.
Throughout this article runs the common myth that there are only two ways of parenting; authoritarian and liberal. Implicit is the idea that authoritarian parenting is out of fashion, but keeps kids on the right track, whereas liberal parenting is nicer for the kids but means they go off the rails. 'parents have become afraid to discipline their own children,' a youth worker is quoted as saying, the suggestion being that children have gone feral because their parents have been too easy on them.
Actually there are lots of types of parenting and authoritarian and liberal parenting are just opposite ends of one particular spectrum, both of them actually damaging to children. Instead of either of those then, how about good parenting instead?
Yes, good parenting. Not parenting where the child is controlled through fear and humiliation. Not parenting where the child is given no boundaries nor rules and so cannot ever learn to function in society. Good parenting, where the child is given plenty of positive attention every day, natural consequences to their actions, encouragement to make good choices, and good discipline to learn right from wrong.
I don't get why any parent would be 'afraid to discipline' their children unless of course you equate discipline with physical punishment and shouting. A mother interviewed in Gentleman's article says, 'People here will call Social Services if they hear you disciplining your children.'
I find it hard to get my head around that.
Discipline in my house is making a child sit and watch you do an hour's worth of ironing instead of being allowed on the DS, because they deliberately scrumpled up the newly ironed clothes in their drawer. Discipline is making a child practice being quiet in their room instead of being allowed to watch TV because they woke the whole household up at 6am. Discipline is confiscating toys and games that are not being looked after properly, until the child has actively demonstrated that they can take care of their things.
Would Social Services be interested in any of that? I am pretty confidant that they would not.
And yet all that is discipline. It's not smacking and shouting. It is me taking the time and effort to try and teach my children that actions have consequences, for them and the people around them.
And it does take a lot of time and effort. I cannot tell you how many times I have wished that smacking and shouting really helped a child, because it would be so easy to do. So quick and simple and also so gloriously discharging of my own rage.
But I know it doesn't help. I know because I have read the books, I understand the science, I've attended the courses. And I know because my adopted children were smacked and shouted at by their birth parents and That's a big part of the reason they're so screwed up. It still turns my stomach when my kids flinch when I make an unexpected move near them.
I'm hearing on the news that a lot of the kids caught up in these riots are now turning up at Court alone, no parent with them. That's your problem right there. Not that these teenagers have parents who go easy on them. But that they have parents who don't give a shit.
Labels: In The News
0 comment Wednesday, May 28, 2014 | admin
News that a record number of children are being taken into care. To quote from this BBC article:
Numbers have been rising since late 2008 and the infamous Baby P case involving the death of a toddler while on the at-risk register in London
...
"Nearly every child involved needs love, care and therapy, either back home or elsewhere," said Mr Douglas, chief executive of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service."All agencies need to factor in these much larger increases into their planning systems, resource allocations, workforce development strategies and service contracts, so that the most vulnerable children in the country continue to receive strong public services."This is the comment I made on the article (comments since disabled)
I am the mother of two adopted children who suffered neglect for over five years in their birth home. Although they are now 9 and 10 years of age and have been in our loving home for more than two years, they are left with the legacy of the damage done to their brain and nervous system in their early years. Our Son in particular is presenting with extreme emotional and behavioural problems. Despite this, our local authority, Birmingham will not assess him or provide therapy.
I am despairing with all these children coming through the system, just at a time when local authorities are cutting their funding to children's services. There will be many adoptive families left to deal with extremely damaged children without any professional support, just like we are right now.
This is a huge scandal of our time. It is estimated that already ONE THIRD of adoptions breakdown. That number is going to rise massively. We're walking into a nightmare.
Numbers have been rising since late 2008 and the infamous Baby P case involving the death of a toddler while on the at-risk register in London
...
"Nearly every child involved needs love, care and therapy, either back home or elsewhere," said Mr Douglas, chief executive of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service."All agencies need to factor in these much larger increases into their planning systems, resource allocations, workforce development strategies and service contracts, so that the most vulnerable children in the country continue to receive strong public services."This is the comment I made on the article (comments since disabled)
I am the mother of two adopted children who suffered neglect for over five years in their birth home. Although they are now 9 and 10 years of age and have been in our loving home for more than two years, they are left with the legacy of the damage done to their brain and nervous system in their early years. Our Son in particular is presenting with extreme emotional and behavioural problems. Despite this, our local authority, Birmingham will not assess him or provide therapy.
I am despairing with all these children coming through the system, just at a time when local authorities are cutting their funding to children's services. There will be many adoptive families left to deal with extremely damaged children without any professional support, just like we are right now.
This is a huge scandal of our time. It is estimated that already ONE THIRD of adoptions breakdown. That number is going to rise massively. We're walking into a nightmare.
Labels: Adoption, CAMHS, In The News
0 comment Saturday, May 24, 2014 | admin
I went to a highly rated University and was pretty much the only working class student in my whole department. In my year, there were only three other people who went to a comprehensive school, the rest were privately educated. In the year below me, they had all been privately educated. Every student apart from me had parents who were well off and their background gave them a sense of entitlement that I had NEVER come across before. These kids suffered no doubt that their lives were going to be fantastic. Life was just there for the taking and they knew they would be taking it.
That, we might say, is a healthy sense of entitlement. They weren't necessarily narcissistic or overly competitive - although some undoubtedly were - they had just been brought-up to believe they were deserving of a great life with a fulfilling career.
There is an unhealthy sense of entitlement, though isn't there? We saw it with our MPs the other year. Yes, they were entitled to expenses, but that entitlement had boundaries. It was after all tax payers money they were spending. What made them think anybody but themselves should be paying for their Duck Houses? And the bankers, yes, it's OK to make serious money, but at the expense of the stability of the global economy? And more recently we've seen it with the elite in the fields of media and the police, the you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours culture, where senior police went to lunch with newspaper executives they were supposed to be investigating. All of 'em getting away with anything they could get away with because they thought it was nothing less than they were entitled to.
We saw it too on the streets of our cities last week. The youth of England rising up not in anger at politicians or in a cry for democracy like their European and Arab counterparts, but in search of free stuff. Thousands of 'em, thinking they could just nick stuff and rob and loot and get away with it. Thinking they were somehow entitled to do what they were doing.
It's made me worried about my son. He has a massive sense of entitlement. If he wants something, he thinks he should have it, and he will tantrum if he doesn't get it. If he wants to do something and is told that he can't, he will tantrum. Every single time. I presume this tactic worked very well for him in his birth home. I can just imagine his birth mother or poor feckless elder sister just giving into his demands for that drink, or that toy, or not having to go to bed just for a quiet life. It doesn't work in this family, but that has not made the slightest difference to him. If he wants something and he's told no, he will scweam and scweam and scweam.
These are not the rages of the child who is struggling with emotions that are too big for him. Although he does have those rages too. These are the tantrums of a toddler who wants to make his mummy give him his sweeties.
I have been trying all this time to teach him more socially acceptable ways to express his disappointment or politer ways to ask for what he wants. I try and defuse his tantrums with humour and wishful thinking. I try not to use the word 'no', being clever and kind when I don't grant him his wish. I try to get him to act like an eight year old rather than a three year old, giving him a chance to see how the world opens up and gives you more the older you get.
None of it has worked and I am getting worried.
It's not just his materialism, although That's bad enough, or the frustration of not being able to do what he wants to do, it's also his opposition to having to do anything he doesn't want to.
The Explosive Child is my bible and it has made a difference to his behaviour. But this weekend things were bad enough for me to realise that my parenting is making all the effort, he isn't making any.
After a day of toddler tantrums I lost it with him on Saturday night. I ended up shouting at him that I had given him a fantastic day, a fantastic holiday, a fantastic life and that I was sick of him screaming and that he was just going to bloody well do what he was told. It seemed to me that he enjoyed my being angry at him. He really let rip. The angrier I got, he met it and upped it a level. I couldn't compete. He is capable of staggering levels of anger, far beyond what I can manage. I broke when he started screaming that I wanted to kill him, that I wanted him dead.
I am left feeling thoroughly ashamed of my loss of temper, but I don't see any shame in him. He got up the next day, business as usual, whilst I could barely function.
I don't think I can change him. I don't feel that I can make him better. I've tried everything for nearly two years and I've not made the slightest dent in his wall of opposition. He wants what he wants and he will fight to the death to get it because he thinks he is entitled.
I am depressed seeing all these images of youths in Adidas tracksuits in the newspapers this weekend, smashing in shops and looting plasma TV screens. I am worried that one day that may well be him.
That, we might say, is a healthy sense of entitlement. They weren't necessarily narcissistic or overly competitive - although some undoubtedly were - they had just been brought-up to believe they were deserving of a great life with a fulfilling career.
There is an unhealthy sense of entitlement, though isn't there? We saw it with our MPs the other year. Yes, they were entitled to expenses, but that entitlement had boundaries. It was after all tax payers money they were spending. What made them think anybody but themselves should be paying for their Duck Houses? And the bankers, yes, it's OK to make serious money, but at the expense of the stability of the global economy? And more recently we've seen it with the elite in the fields of media and the police, the you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours culture, where senior police went to lunch with newspaper executives they were supposed to be investigating. All of 'em getting away with anything they could get away with because they thought it was nothing less than they were entitled to.
We saw it too on the streets of our cities last week. The youth of England rising up not in anger at politicians or in a cry for democracy like their European and Arab counterparts, but in search of free stuff. Thousands of 'em, thinking they could just nick stuff and rob and loot and get away with it. Thinking they were somehow entitled to do what they were doing.
It's made me worried about my son. He has a massive sense of entitlement. If he wants something, he thinks he should have it, and he will tantrum if he doesn't get it. If he wants to do something and is told that he can't, he will tantrum. Every single time. I presume this tactic worked very well for him in his birth home. I can just imagine his birth mother or poor feckless elder sister just giving into his demands for that drink, or that toy, or not having to go to bed just for a quiet life. It doesn't work in this family, but that has not made the slightest difference to him. If he wants something and he's told no, he will scweam and scweam and scweam.
These are not the rages of the child who is struggling with emotions that are too big for him. Although he does have those rages too. These are the tantrums of a toddler who wants to make his mummy give him his sweeties.
I have been trying all this time to teach him more socially acceptable ways to express his disappointment or politer ways to ask for what he wants. I try and defuse his tantrums with humour and wishful thinking. I try not to use the word 'no', being clever and kind when I don't grant him his wish. I try to get him to act like an eight year old rather than a three year old, giving him a chance to see how the world opens up and gives you more the older you get.
None of it has worked and I am getting worried.
It's not just his materialism, although That's bad enough, or the frustration of not being able to do what he wants to do, it's also his opposition to having to do anything he doesn't want to.
The Explosive Child is my bible and it has made a difference to his behaviour. But this weekend things were bad enough for me to realise that my parenting is making all the effort, he isn't making any.
After a day of toddler tantrums I lost it with him on Saturday night. I ended up shouting at him that I had given him a fantastic day, a fantastic holiday, a fantastic life and that I was sick of him screaming and that he was just going to bloody well do what he was told. It seemed to me that he enjoyed my being angry at him. He really let rip. The angrier I got, he met it and upped it a level. I couldn't compete. He is capable of staggering levels of anger, far beyond what I can manage. I broke when he started screaming that I wanted to kill him, that I wanted him dead.
I am left feeling thoroughly ashamed of my loss of temper, but I don't see any shame in him. He got up the next day, business as usual, whilst I could barely function.
I don't think I can change him. I don't feel that I can make him better. I've tried everything for nearly two years and I've not made the slightest dent in his wall of opposition. He wants what he wants and he will fight to the death to get it because he thinks he is entitled.
I am depressed seeing all these images of youths in Adidas tracksuits in the newspapers this weekend, smashing in shops and looting plasma TV screens. I am worried that one day that may well be him.
Labels: Adoption, In The News
0 comment Sunday, May 11, 2014 | admin
I am getting pretty sick of most portrayals of child protection, the care system and adoption in the mainstream media. I can't even remember the last time that I read or saw anything that didn't concentrate on the birth parents' loss, as if children and their right to live free of abuse and neglect is an utterly secondary consideration to the wishes and needs of adults. Take for instance this offensive article by Joanna Moorhead in the Saturday Guardian last week, where a child protection worker is interviewed as if she were some evil child-snatcher and the birth parents are portrayed as harmless saps with society against them.
The following is my response to the Guardian letter's page: Joanna Moorhead describes herself as perhaps appearing an 'over-emotional, woolly liberal' ('Removing a Child is Terrible' Family, Saturday Guardian 14/01/12). Actually to me she came over as immature, ignorant and offensive. To ask Sallyanne Jones, a specialist in child protection, how she would feel if she had to give up her child - as she cradled her seven-month old baby - smacked of a childish 'how would you like it to happen to you then, eh?' and was downright nasty, something I suspect the writer was half-aware of considering she spent the first part of the article defending the question.I adopted my children and am all too aware that birth parents who do not abuse or neglect their children find Social Workers, the care system and adoption frightening. The idea of someone taking away their child and losing them to a bunch of nameless people is too horrific to contemplate. But what people like Sallyanne and other people caught up in child protection and its ramifications, like Foster Carers and adopters know, is that child protection is exactly that; it is about protecting the child. Hard as it may be for Joanna Moorhead to acknowledge that some parents abuse and neglect their children, it absolutely does happen. We now know that such trauma damages the growing brain, causing the child to suffer all sorts of mental and physical dysfunctions. That cannot be allowed to happen because we might be squeamish about causing distress to the parents. She may think that 'removing children from their mother is almost always tragedy', but she is wrong. It isn't 'almost' always a tragedy, it is always a tragedy for everyone involved, most especially - Joanna Moorhead should perhaps contemplate - for the child who needed protection from their own mother.
The following is my response to the Guardian letter's page: Joanna Moorhead describes herself as perhaps appearing an 'over-emotional, woolly liberal' ('Removing a Child is Terrible' Family, Saturday Guardian 14/01/12). Actually to me she came over as immature, ignorant and offensive. To ask Sallyanne Jones, a specialist in child protection, how she would feel if she had to give up her child - as she cradled her seven-month old baby - smacked of a childish 'how would you like it to happen to you then, eh?' and was downright nasty, something I suspect the writer was half-aware of considering she spent the first part of the article defending the question.I adopted my children and am all too aware that birth parents who do not abuse or neglect their children find Social Workers, the care system and adoption frightening. The idea of someone taking away their child and losing them to a bunch of nameless people is too horrific to contemplate. But what people like Sallyanne and other people caught up in child protection and its ramifications, like Foster Carers and adopters know, is that child protection is exactly that; it is about protecting the child. Hard as it may be for Joanna Moorhead to acknowledge that some parents abuse and neglect their children, it absolutely does happen. We now know that such trauma damages the growing brain, causing the child to suffer all sorts of mental and physical dysfunctions. That cannot be allowed to happen because we might be squeamish about causing distress to the parents. She may think that 'removing children from their mother is almost always tragedy', but she is wrong. It isn't 'almost' always a tragedy, it is always a tragedy for everyone involved, most especially - Joanna Moorhead should perhaps contemplate - for the child who needed protection from their own mother.
Labels: Adoption, In The News
0 comment Friday, May 9, 2014 | admin
When the world's banking elite recently created a meltdown of the global financial system, there were a lot questions asked about how this had been allowed to happen; how were the banks allowed to get away with these immoral, risky borderline criminal acts?
But not many bothered asking why the bankers did it.
I think That's because we all knew why. It wasn't hard to fathom that very rich people had been busy keeping themselves very rich by any means possible.
The world's banking elite took sickening risks with the stability of the world economy to make lots of money. Nobody stopped them and so they carried on taking more and more risk and making more and more money. That's why we've got a financial crisis That's crippling country after country.
These past few days another level of society has gone about wrecking things. This time it's people from the cities going to to shopping centres burning and looting shops. The MET shot someone, this caused some civil unrest, which them turned into a looting free-for-all for every criminal, gang member and thug in the country. These are not political or civil protests. These people are not running at the police or targetting symbols of the government. They are going out into their local high streets and doing a smash and grab on every shop they can get into.
Some people are asking why. Why are these (mainly) young people, teenagers, kids, doing this? Is it mass unemployment? Is it lack of prospects? Is it lack of respect from the Police?
Well, I'll tell you why I think these people are doing this.
They are doing this because criminals, gang members and thugs wanted to loot shops and nobody stopped them.
Now - it would take a lot of time and no one would agree on an answer - we can ask why some people turn into criminals, gang members and thugs in the same way that we can ask why some people turn into CEOs of leading banks.
But let us not ask why criminals, gang members and thugs would want to go out thieving from shops, creating chaos and throwing bricks at the police, because That's obvious isn't it? Thieving, chaos and disrespect for law are pretty much what criminals, gang members and thugs are all about, aren't they?
You might as well ask why leading bankers took breathtaking risks to make lots of money, risking the economy and billions of people's livelihoods and homes across the world. Banks are out to make money. That's what they do. Bankers aren't going to risk making less money on our account, are they?
What England needs to concentrate on right now is how we stop these looters. Oddly enough, a very large police show last night seems to have got things more under control. Perhaps if the Police Chiefs had decided to organise that on the first or second night of the riots, they wouldn't have given the impression to every criminal, gang member and thug in the country that shops were there for the looting.
Society needs the Police in the same way that banks need a financial ombudsman; to protect normal people from those among us who can't control themselves. Twas ever thus, and until we invent a drug that injects a conscience into those who never had the chance to develop one, twill ever be.
We seem ready to accept that the rich can be motivated by greed, but when it comes to other classes we assume that their motivation must come from fear or desperation. That is not so. Some people only exercise restraint in reaction to external influences because they do not have an internal moral code. Fact. Doesn't matter whether they're from Park Lane or Peckham, some people just think they can get what they want and fuck everybody else.
UPDATENorm says similar to me here, only better.
But not many bothered asking why the bankers did it.
I think That's because we all knew why. It wasn't hard to fathom that very rich people had been busy keeping themselves very rich by any means possible.
The world's banking elite took sickening risks with the stability of the world economy to make lots of money. Nobody stopped them and so they carried on taking more and more risk and making more and more money. That's why we've got a financial crisis That's crippling country after country.
These past few days another level of society has gone about wrecking things. This time it's people from the cities going to to shopping centres burning and looting shops. The MET shot someone, this caused some civil unrest, which them turned into a looting free-for-all for every criminal, gang member and thug in the country. These are not political or civil protests. These people are not running at the police or targetting symbols of the government. They are going out into their local high streets and doing a smash and grab on every shop they can get into.
Some people are asking why. Why are these (mainly) young people, teenagers, kids, doing this? Is it mass unemployment? Is it lack of prospects? Is it lack of respect from the Police?
Well, I'll tell you why I think these people are doing this.
They are doing this because criminals, gang members and thugs wanted to loot shops and nobody stopped them.
Now - it would take a lot of time and no one would agree on an answer - we can ask why some people turn into criminals, gang members and thugs in the same way that we can ask why some people turn into CEOs of leading banks.
But let us not ask why criminals, gang members and thugs would want to go out thieving from shops, creating chaos and throwing bricks at the police, because That's obvious isn't it? Thieving, chaos and disrespect for law are pretty much what criminals, gang members and thugs are all about, aren't they?
You might as well ask why leading bankers took breathtaking risks to make lots of money, risking the economy and billions of people's livelihoods and homes across the world. Banks are out to make money. That's what they do. Bankers aren't going to risk making less money on our account, are they?
What England needs to concentrate on right now is how we stop these looters. Oddly enough, a very large police show last night seems to have got things more under control. Perhaps if the Police Chiefs had decided to organise that on the first or second night of the riots, they wouldn't have given the impression to every criminal, gang member and thug in the country that shops were there for the looting.
Society needs the Police in the same way that banks need a financial ombudsman; to protect normal people from those among us who can't control themselves. Twas ever thus, and until we invent a drug that injects a conscience into those who never had the chance to develop one, twill ever be.
We seem ready to accept that the rich can be motivated by greed, but when it comes to other classes we assume that their motivation must come from fear or desperation. That is not so. Some people only exercise restraint in reaction to external influences because they do not have an internal moral code. Fact. Doesn't matter whether they're from Park Lane or Peckham, some people just think they can get what they want and fuck everybody else.
UPDATENorm says similar to me here, only better.
Labels: In The News
0 comment Monday, April 7, 2014 | admin
Like you I imagine, I've been watching the Arab Spring unfold across the middle east and north Africa, as we've gone from the amazing scenes in Egypt which showed the beauty and indomitably of the human spirit, to the enraging brutality meted out to the people of Libya and Syria.
For the past decade al-qaeda have hijaked the voice of the Muslim world, trying to tell us that Muslims want nothing less than the western world to burn.
But what we see in all those repressive states is people who want to live like human beings; to be free to speak their minds, to live without fear of death and torture from their ruling elite, to be part of a democratic process that sees their country and its people thrive. They want to work, love, play, be with their family without living under the shadow of a repressive regime that enjoys nothing more than to stamp on the face of humanity.
There's not a lot we can do to help these people as they grasp this one chance to throw off the darkness and live in the light. Our leaders will do what they will, our armies will do what they have to and bless them for it. There's not a lot that us ordinary people, in our thankfully ordinary lives, can do to help these amazing people giving their todays in order that others may have their tomorrow.
But, if you will, take five minutes out of your day, forget your worries, your bills, your work difficulties and the 'thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to', close your eyes, listen to this song and think of them. Just think of them.
For the past decade al-qaeda have hijaked the voice of the Muslim world, trying to tell us that Muslims want nothing less than the western world to burn.
But what we see in all those repressive states is people who want to live like human beings; to be free to speak their minds, to live without fear of death and torture from their ruling elite, to be part of a democratic process that sees their country and its people thrive. They want to work, love, play, be with their family without living under the shadow of a repressive regime that enjoys nothing more than to stamp on the face of humanity.
There's not a lot we can do to help these people as they grasp this one chance to throw off the darkness and live in the light. Our leaders will do what they will, our armies will do what they have to and bless them for it. There's not a lot that us ordinary people, in our thankfully ordinary lives, can do to help these amazing people giving their todays in order that others may have their tomorrow.
But, if you will, take five minutes out of your day, forget your worries, your bills, your work difficulties and the 'thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to', close your eyes, listen to this song and think of them. Just think of them.
Labels: In The News