Bravery

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid.”
~ Franklin P. Jones

Five warning signs that technology is turning you into a machine

• Instead of reading to your children, you e-mail them web-interactive bedtime stories.

• You've been known to e-mail your spouse when he/she is in the same room of the house as you are.

• Given your habit of communicating entirely via e-mail, you haven't spoken to your cubicle neighbor in over three years.

• You've been hospitalized after spraining a thumb on your Blackberry.

• You unwittingly offend your friends by simply saying “LOL” rather than actually laughing at their jokes.

Home Schooling vs. a Mandated Mental Health Agenda

from the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC)

You may not know it, but you are in the middle of a battle for the minds of your children.

In 2003 the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health recommended that every American be screened for mental illness. One recommendation was that public schools were a great place to start, and that’s “where the kids are.” This message was repeated at a presentation on TeenScreen®, a depression/suicide screening tool.

Perhaps the most chilling part of the presentation was when Jan Miller, a TeenScreen® supporter from Oregon relayed that, “We are trying to look at how we can reach out into the community and offer that [mental health screening] for families that are home schooling.”

Consider some mental health screening questions:

• Has there been a time when you felt you couldn't do anything well or that you weren't as good-looking or as smart as other people?
• How often did your parents get annoyed or upset with you because of the way you were feeling or acting?

Who could answer “no” to questions like that?

Mental health screening leads to false positives, dangerous drugs and more.

Texas is moving forward with a “mental health transformation” effort that involves mental health screening tools included in your child’s routine doctor visits. This is certainly a way to bring mental health screening to the home school community. We may be able to avoid placing our children in government schools, but we cannot and should not avoid medical care.

Much like the recent vaccine controversy, it is a matter of state government deciding what we should discuss with our physicians. This intrudes on one of the most intimate relationships one can have outside of one’s family.

It would be wise to let your elected officials know how you feel about mental health screening and Texas’s mental health transformation effort. You might mention House Bill 940 by State Representative Diane White Delisi. It appears to be the vehicle for the mental health screening effort. Let your officials know that you, and not the state, are in the best position to determine the physical and social needs of your child.


Articles Regarding Mental Health Screening: Parenting Skills Should Trump Mental Health Screening