Posts Tagged ‘dealing drugs’

As my children were growing up, two of the three had friends who had a parent in prison. All three had friends with a parent out of the picture entirely. The crimes were drug related. The children were wonderful, incredibly decent and any of them could knock on my door today and I would do whatever I could for them.

Not everyone feels that way. Some people turn up their noses at a young person who has a parent in prison. Some children are ashamed because of how it makes them feel. This is why mentoring programs are becoming more and more important.

Every person is an individual, someone independent of others. In families, some people can sing, some can draw, some can dance. Not every person is the same when it comes to the talent he or she possesses. Not every person is the same when it comes to the mistakes and bad choices made by other family members.

Mentoring programs are effective because they teach children and teens that they are not their parents. They can love their parents, it is quite natural and nothing to be ashamed of. They do not, however, have to follow the path a parent chooses. Dealing or taking drugs is not a family business. Just as not every person follows dad into the medical field or mom into the legal field, a parent in prison can be just that: a parent in prison. You love him or her. You do not have to be him or her. Most parents who find themselves incarcerated have a lot of time to think and realize that they do not want their children to end up like them.

If you or someone you know has a parent incarcerated in the Texas prison system, check out a mentoring program for his or her children. Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Girl Scouts Behind Bars, Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents, Family Forward, Connect for Kids: these are just a few of the mentoring programs available for children growing up with a parent in prison. Find out which programs are near the child in question. If you do not know of one of these in your area, call the local welfare department and ask them or the prison in which the parent resides.

Children are always worth saving. None of us are perfect and we need to understand that every person is an individual and deserves the right to have a chance in life, no matter what the family background is. If it were your child, you want him or her to have every chance, right? Help a child today: sign up or find out where help is for a child you know who has a parent in prison.