Putting children on campaign radar in FL
Around 22 percent of American children live in poverty. So why are we talking about child poverty only 2 percent of the time? That’s what we asked in our recent report, which found that children’s issues hardly came up during the months of primary candidate debates for the presidency.
But The Children’s Campaign, our Florida member organization, is working to raise children’s issues to prominence in the 2012 election. Roy Miller, the group’s president, figures that children’s issues are complex and don’t boil down to talking points, but that’s no excuse for neglecting important topics like poverty, foster care, and school readiness.
“Problems aren’t going to go away; they’re just going to get worse. We’re going to invest in failure instead of success. These are the children that during campaign cycles are kind of out of sight, out of mind,” Miller is quoted in an article on the campaign.
Check out our Kids in the 2012 Election page to learn more!
Portal
Comments
September 17, 2012 at 12:46 am by MariusKimberly, this is great! We do many of these things, but I relaly plan to print this out and try to go more step by step with my children. Many of them are older and we thought we were done (what was I thinking??) But, now that our 4 yr. old is coming up, we’re teaching everything all over again:) I do have a question that I’d love your opinion on. I have a blended family. I have a very difficult time with two of my stepchildren and teasing. This is something they learned to do very early on and I cannot seem to get rid of it. As they are older, I ignored the behavior and had their Father work with them on it because they pretty much just do it to each other (in the past) Now, we have our youngest child, and J & C relaly tease her way over the top it relaly angers me and leaves the 4 yr. old angry without relaly understanding why. Do you have any advice on dealing with this?[] Reply:October 8th, 2009 at 10:08 pmThank you all for taking the time to leave a comment. I enjoy hearing from you! Heather I feel completely out of my league talking about step children. I haven’t thought about that and am not sure if being a step parent warrants a different reactions. That issue aside. I would suggest you sitting everyone down and explaining what you expect from here on out. If you have been wrong for ignoring the behavior, then I would ask for their forgiveness. Clearly tell them what you expect, even writing it down and posting it where everyone can look at it so that there is no question. Then be consistent in enforcing your standards. Kimarie You are absolutely right about parents needing to be good examples in repentance. My children are all VERY aware of my besetting sins, firstly because they see them displayed way too often, but also because I constantly ask them to forgive me. This is important and something that I will add to the post when I have time. Thank you!Kristen We have also been very imperfect in our application. I’m thankful that God gives us so much more than we deserve. I pray that God will give you wisdom as you deal with your son.Sandpiper I understand what you are talking about. When we have children who seem to be having particular difficulties, we make even more of an effort to stay close to them. When it gets out of control we sometimes don’t even go into the who, what, when, etc. I simply ask them if they were kind and loving to their sibling, if they say no then we deal with the unkindness without going into the specific details. Ultimately it doesn’t matter who started it or who did what. What does matter is if they obeyed God’s command to Be ye kind one to another. Chantelle Thank you for sharing the link.[]
Leave a Comment