Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Swimming Rats, Salinda, and Hope

Again, I am quoting from the ADD Parenting Podcast and a story they told this morning. I'm sure the details won't be exactly right, but you'll get the point.

Rats were put in a vat of water that was covered. They only swam for a little while before giving up to die. The next group of rats were in the same vat of water with the exact same conditions except that the cover was rolled back just a few inches. Under these conditions the rats kept swimming for over 36 hours! The podcaster concluded that when we say "where there is life, there is hope" may not be the case. Instead it just might be that "where there is hope there is life."

I am stating this today because once again I have hope for Salinda. She responded better to her latest fiasco than she has so far. She apologized and accepted her consequences. She actually has something to do this summer (babysitting) that she wants to do and may pay her. There will still be lots of challenges, but as long as I can see some hope I can keep going.

Ironically one of the things that has given me hope is the CD that she has been listening to. She usually listens to this vile rap stuff that I constantly have to confiscate. It's angry, hopeless, and nasty stuff. However, here are two of the songs that she had on that CD..... I don't agree with every line, but it is certainly more hopeful music than she has been listening to in a long time. And that, combined with everything else, gives me hope.



2 comments:

Torina said...

Love the tunes. Who is it?

Keep up the great work, Claudia! You are an amazing woman!

Angela :-) said...

Sara Evans' song "You'll Always be my Baby" is inspiring to me in my parenting. I struggle with balancing discipline/consequences with letting my kids know that I love them no matter what, even more than anything they might break. I don't want them to think it's okay to break things, etc. I hope that makes sense, I'm struggling to get my point across here.


Angela :-)