Jody Smith
09-04-2005, 02:24 PM
Dear Dr. Bradley -
As a middle school principal and a parent of two teenaged boys (!), I have read many books on parenting and working with adolescents to help myself and the parents of my students. I have always gotten something valuable from everything I read but your book is the best I've read so far. I can testify to the issues and the strategies you suggest to deal with them. Of course, as you say, it is FAR easier with other people's children than it is with my own! But your book has already helped so a big thank-you.
I have two items posted above my desk at school:
1) a picture of myself in seventh grade (40 years ago), in butterfly-winged glasses, just to keep me humble.
and
2) a poem by Sharon Olds, given to me when my oldest left for college last year. I think it speaks to much of what you talk about in your book.
The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb
(Sharon Olds)
Whatever he needs, he has or doesn’t
have by now.
Whatever the world is going to do to him
it has started to do. With a pencil and two
Hardy Boys and a peanut butter sandwich and
grapes he is on his way, there is nothing
more we can do for him. Whatever is
stored in his heart, he can use, now.
Whatever he has laid up in his mind
he can call on. What he does not have
he can lack. The bus gets smaller and smaller, as one
folds a flag at the end of a ceremony,
onto itself, and onto itself, until
only a heavy wedge remains.
Whatever his exuberant soul
can do for him, it is doing right now.
Whatever his arrogance can do
It is doing to him. Everything
that’s been done to him, he will now do.
Everything that’s been placed in him
will come out, now, the contents of a trunk
unpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpine
light.
With many thanks and much appreciation,
Jody Smith
As a middle school principal and a parent of two teenaged boys (!), I have read many books on parenting and working with adolescents to help myself and the parents of my students. I have always gotten something valuable from everything I read but your book is the best I've read so far. I can testify to the issues and the strategies you suggest to deal with them. Of course, as you say, it is FAR easier with other people's children than it is with my own! But your book has already helped so a big thank-you.
I have two items posted above my desk at school:
1) a picture of myself in seventh grade (40 years ago), in butterfly-winged glasses, just to keep me humble.
and
2) a poem by Sharon Olds, given to me when my oldest left for college last year. I think it speaks to much of what you talk about in your book.
The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb
(Sharon Olds)
Whatever he needs, he has or doesn’t
have by now.
Whatever the world is going to do to him
it has started to do. With a pencil and two
Hardy Boys and a peanut butter sandwich and
grapes he is on his way, there is nothing
more we can do for him. Whatever is
stored in his heart, he can use, now.
Whatever he has laid up in his mind
he can call on. What he does not have
he can lack. The bus gets smaller and smaller, as one
folds a flag at the end of a ceremony,
onto itself, and onto itself, until
only a heavy wedge remains.
Whatever his exuberant soul
can do for him, it is doing right now.
Whatever his arrogance can do
It is doing to him. Everything
that’s been done to him, he will now do.
Everything that’s been placed in him
will come out, now, the contents of a trunk
unpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpine
light.
With many thanks and much appreciation,
Jody Smith