But, I must admit between thinking about what I am going to wear, who we are sitting with, chatting with friends, and making sure I don't drink enough to pay the price in the morning, it's easy for me to loose site of why I am there. Other than the three minutes when an excellent video on a Storyteller family was shown, the rest of the four hours were simply a party for me.
Then I woke up, luckily one drink shy of regret, to New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof's Sunday article. It is as if he knew the event was the night before. It was if he knew Paul Tough was coming to speak in SB next month on "Why Kids Succeed."
In Kristof's article, he and Tough discuss that the character strengths that matter so much to success are not innate. They are rooted in brain chemistry by the environment in which we grow-up. One study followed 267 children of first-time low-income mothers for nearly four decades. It found that whether a child received supportive parenting in the first few years of life was at least as good a predictor as I.Q. of whether he or she would graduate from high school.
"This means the cycle can be broken, and the implication is that the most cost-effective way to address poverty isn’t necessarily housing vouchers or welfare initiatives or prison-building. Rather, it may be early childhood education and parenting programs."
TAKEAWAY:
My clarity is back and I am completely reminded why Storyteller continues to be one of the organizations I give my time and money to and in a twisted way, a little piece of me feels my night of celebration helped make a difference.
Is there something you support that you have forgotten why it is so important to you?
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