I was helping out in my daughter’s elementary school 4th grade class today having a ton of fun with the kids making holiday-specific crafts and stuff and I suddenly and unexpectedly had my little world rocked by an unlikely dude under 4 feet tall.
I made a special point to interact with all 30 of the students over my short one hour stay and they were super-surprised when just before the end of class I was able to call all 30 of them by name, one-by-one. Even the three other parents there were impressed that I even included their names too.
I learned a little known secret several years ago about names and it never fails to create a huge connection with people, because a person’s name is said to be the sweetest sound to anyone in any language.
Minutes before I left the room I was blindsided by one of my daughter’s classmates when he approached me in confidence with the following statement. “Man, I wish you were my Dad.” Caught off guard a bit, I paused for a few awkward seconds then said, “If your Dad found out that I was your Dad he would probably be pretty upset.” Then he smirked and giggled nervously as he said, “Nahhh… He wouldn’t care, I never see him because he lives in Vegas and he never talks to me.”
Well, needless to say folks, that comment broke my heart. I wish I could say that I’m surprised by his plight and situation, but unfortunately I’m not. You see my friends, our country and world is littered with these types of kids.
I have several group-home boys and other “spare” neighborhood, absentee fatherless kids that I commit more than 18 hours of my time to every week and I always wish that I could do more but even I have my own limitations with only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in every week.
So today I say to all of those within eye and earshot of my message please reach out, reach over or reach down to scoop one or two of these “casualties of an absentee” up and sow some quality time into them. They’ll be glad you did and you may just be surprised what it actually does for you too. 🙂
Let’s make a little time to help others to Make it GREAT!
Undeniably believe that which you said. Your favorite reason seemed to be on the net
the simplest thing to be aware of. I say to you, I definitely get
irked while people consider worries that they plainly do not know
about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and defined out the whole thing without
having side-effects , people can take a signal. Will likely be back to
get more. Thanks