【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 me?amp。quot。 i said amp。quot。yeah, but you have to promise that you will wear it to the show.amp。quot。 i was trying to make him hold on. i said: amp。quot。when you e to the show i want to see you in this jacket and in this gloveamp。quot。 and i gave him one of my rhinestone gloves amp。ndash。 and i never usually give the rhinestone gloves away. and he was just in heaven.
　　but maybe he was too close to heaven, because when i came to his town, he had already died, and they had buried him in the glove and jacket. he was just 10 years old. god knows, i know, that he tried his best to hold on. but at least when he died, he knew that he was loved, not only by his parents, but even by me, a near stranger, i also loved him. and with all of that love he knew that he didnamp。39。t e into this world alone, and he certainly didnamp。39。t leave it alone.
　　if you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can he dealt with. a professor may degrade you, but you will not feel degraded, a boss may crush you, but you will not be crushed, a corporate gladiator might vanquish you, but you will still triumph. how could any of them truly prevail in pulling you down? for you know that you are an object worthy of love. the rest is just packaging.
　　but if you donamp。39。t have that memory of being loved, you are condemned to search the world for something to fill you up. but no matter how much money you make or how famous you bee, you will still fell empty. what you are really searching for is unconditional love, unqualified acceptance. and that was the one thing that was denied to you at birth.
　　friends, let me paint a picture for you. here is a typical day in america amp。ndash。 six youths under the age of 20 will mit suicide, 12 children under the age of 20 will die from firearms amp。ndash。 remember this is a day, not a year amp。ndash。 399 kids will be arrested for drug abuse, 1,352 babies will be born to teen mothers. this is happening in one of the richest, most developed countries in the history of the world.
　　yes, in my country there is an epidemic of violence that parallels no other industrialized nation. these are the ways young people in america express their hurt and their anger. but donamp。39。t think that there is not the same pain and anguish among their counterparts in the united kingdom. studies in this country show that every single hour, three teenagers in the uk inflict harm upon themselves, often by cutting or burning their bodies or taking an overdose. this is how they have chosen to cope with the pain of neglect and emotional agony.
　　in britain, as many as 20% of families will only sit down and have dinner together once a year. once a year! and what about the timehonored tradition of reading your kid a bedtime story? research from the 1980s showed that children who are read to, had far greater literacy and significantly outperformed their peers at school. and yet, less than 33% of british children ages two to eight have a regular bedtime story read to them. you may not think much of that until you take into account that 75% of their parents did have that bedtime story when they were that age.
　　clearly, we do not have to ask ourselves where all of this pain, anger and violent behavior es from. it is selfevident that children are thundering against the neglect, quaking against the indifference and crying out just to be noticed. the various child protection agencies in the us say that millions of children are victims of maltreatment in the form of neglect, in the average year. yes, neglect. in rich homes, privileged homes, wired to the hilt with every electronic gadget. homes where parents e home, but theyamp。39。re not really home, because their heads are still at the office. and their kids? well, their kids just make do with whatever emotional crumbs they get. and you donamp。39。t get much from endless tv, puter games and videos.
　　these hard, cold numbers which for me, wrench the soul and shake the spirit, should indicate to you why i have devoted so much of my time and resources into making our new heal the kids initiative a colossal success.
　　our goal is simple amp。ndash。 to recreate the parent/child bond, renew its promise and light the way forward for all the beautiful children who are destined one day to walk this earth.
　　but since this is my first public lecture, and you have so warmly weled me into your hearts, i feel that i want to tell you more. we each have our own story, and in that sense statistics can bee personal.
　　they say that parenting is like dancing. you take one step, your child takes another. i have discovered that getting parents to rededicate themselves to their children is only half the story. the other half is preparing the children to reaccept their parents.
　　when i was very young i remember that we had this crazy mutt of a dog named amp。quot。black girl,amp。quot。 a mix of wolf and retriever. not only wasnamp。39。t she much of a guard dog, she was such a scared and nervous thing that it is a wonder she did not pass out every time a truck rumbled by, or a thunderstorm swept through indiana. my sister janet and i gave that dog so much love, but we never really won back the sense of trust that had been stolen from her by her previous owner. we knew he used