It has been a really negative year for everyone, you can't even turn on the news without seeing more negativity.

Fighting and name calling are becoming par for the course. Our own government is acting more like a class of preschoolers than a leadership body made up of mature adults. Not just one party, but both are playing the "I don't like you so you can't come to my birthday party" game.

I used to joke that maturity was overrated, but a little bit of maturity wouldn't hurt any of us right now. If you have a truth to speak, then by all means speak it but the minute we resort to including personal attacks and name calling we can no longer consider ourselves responsible adults.

One of my favorite parenting experts is a woman named Susan Stiffelman, she calls her parenting approach Passionate Parenting

Through her program I have learned many things, but most of all she has taught me the futility of power struggles. The more you seek to control another person, the more they resist that control, and the faster you lose the control you seek.

Perhaps she should expand her book to explain that that applies to every situation, not just our own children. We can all share our views as loudly and even as aggressively as possible, but if it is important enough to share then it should be our goal to try to get other people to hear and hopefully understand us?

When we shut them out before they even get a chance to hear it, what is the point of saying it at all?

It has been a year since I made the commitment to remain positive no matter what the situation. I picked a bad year to do it, and as hard as I have tried I still have a very long way to go.

Along the way I have had to cut out a lot of activities, going to my much loved locals only site is just one of those things. Not because anyone there has been unkind to me or attacked me in any way, but because the negativity is not only a physical but an emotional drain.

Those who teach positive living say that it takes five positives to counteract a single negative. If so then the cloud of negativity hanging over this country is going to take centuries to conquer.

Those same experts also teach that we should not focus on what we don't have, but what we do have. Instead of focusing on what is going wrong, we are supposed to focus on what is right.

I'm not saying that it is a bad thing to speak your mind or to disagree with what is going on in the government right now. I'm just saying before you complain, see if you can find a way to turn that complaint into positive action.

One thing I have always stressed to my children is that bitching has never solved a single problem. Instead of focusing on the problem, focus first on the lessons we can learn from it and then focus on finding the solution.

My children understand this concept, but so few adults seem to these days. Even my children know that smart people use their brains, the rest resort to calling names.

What are we teaching our children right now?

That is is better to hate than to love?
That it is better to complain that to take action?
That it is okay to call other people names as long as you don't like them?
That anyone who does not agree with you is the enemy?

Children do learn these lessons whether we mean to teach them or not, and it might seem okay to teach them to attack that which they do not like but... there will be times in every child's life when they do not like us.

When those lessons come back to us, they sometimes hurt.

One area of our life affects every other. If we insist we are teaching our children respect but can't offer respect to our neighbor or even our president, then we aren't teaching them respect at all.

We are teaching them to hate, and we really have no right to be surprised when that hate comes back home. Teach them love, and compassion, teach them to speak their truth respectfully, teach them to create not to destroy.

My baby girl is turning fifteen today. What an incredible feeling, it’s one part pride and one part scared to death. I keep trying to prepare myself for what comes next, but it’s all so overwhelming.

When you look into the eyes of your newborn child you never really comprehend that there will be a day you will be looking into those eyes and see an adult looking back at you. A painfully short fifteen years later you see that adult peering back to you and part of you wants to beg them to go back to being little.

That future is now three years away. It’s not possible, but it is. On one side of the line I have this beautiful child, on the other an adult will appear. Dating, and driving, and college are heading at me full speed and it’s all flashing in front of my eyes.

Now more than ever, I pray that I don’t screw this up, that I have accomplished my goal. There is this huge overpowering thought that you are responsible for another human life. I am supposed to be giving them all of the tools they will need to live life as an adult, and it scares me.

Some parents focus on discipline, they run a tight ship. I realized early on that that wasn’t going to work for me. Discipline is important for a young child, but what I wanted to give them more than anything was love. Not just my love here and now, but a love for themselves and others that would carry them through their lives.

When I realized I only had 18 years to accomplish this goal, and that it was supposed to last them another 40, 60, maybe even 80 years I realized just how important my job really was. I am not raising children, I am raising adults and I only have 18 years to do it in.

The first half of their young lives I struggled to give them roots, now I’m struggling to give them wings. Encouraging them to be what they want to be, not what the world expects them to be. Trying to help them figure out what makes them happy, not allowing them to live for me or anyone else.

They have such small voices, but I want those voices to be heard. I want to be the first person to listen to them, I want to be the person they can come to not as a parent but as someone they trust. That means having difficult conversations about alcohol, drugs, sex, friends, and peer pressure, not once but every single day.

If my kids come to me with a serious problem and I over react, that damages their trust in me. Trust is the foundation of every relationship. If I lose the trust of my children, I will lose my children. They will find others to replace the relationship they crave with me, to accept them like I should have.

I want to protect them and make the right decisions for them, I have to separate myself from my own instincts and allow them to make mistakes. The worst thing I could ever do for my children is deprive them of the consequences of their own actions.

I have to step back and allow them to grow and learn, and that means watching them fall on their face sometimes. It means not rushing in to rescue them, but standing there with my life preserver and waiting to see if they can figure it out.

I still remember the exact date I formulated most of these goals. April 20, 1999. I watched the news horrified, along with the rest of the nation. I was holding my young son in my arms, awaiting the birth of my youngest. They showed photographs of the two young boys responsible for the carnage that day, and I looked into my own sons eyes.

Their parents never saw this, not even in their worst nightmares. People kept asking how could the parents not have known. I kept thinking how could they have known? I made up my mind that day that I would not screw these three kids up. I would devote my life to making sure they give to the world, not take away from it.

I think about a lot of things. Sometimes I think too much. These thoughts are with me today as my daughter celebrates her birthday halfway around the world. I’m supposed to be there and I’m not. She has the most awesome step-mom in the world, and a father who loves her with all his heart.

She is loved there, she is loved here, and many places in between. Today she turns fifteen. Tomorrow she will be eighteen. The day after that could be college, and the day after that maybe she will become a mother herself. As frightening as that is, she will always be my baby.

When my son was little more than a toddler, he had an invisible friend aptly named “Friend”, Friend was a pest. He colored on the walls, he got into things, he messed up my sons room. I finally had to tell my son that Friend was not allowed in our home anymore since he didn’t seem to be able to follow our rules. Then I had to ask myself where my son learned to blame others?

How many times do we hear somebody blame their actions on others? It’s not my fault, he/she made me do it. We blame our parents, we blame our friends, we blame our teachers, but where does that really leave us? Allowing others to determine where our life is headed?

Have you ever wondered why creation was immediately followed by blame in the Bible? Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the snake. Maybe there is some significance to that order. I have no doubt people have been blaming others for their own actions since the beginning of time.

When you see someone playing the blame game whether it be relationships, legal problems, parenting, or any other area of life you know what you are seeing. It’s obvious that, no matter what has happened in their life, it is somebody else’s fault. Excuses are transparent, everyone can see though them but the person using them.

People have been playing the blame game since the beginning of time, and that isn’t likely to change. Blaming is easier than the alternative, which requires the ability to be honest with ourselves. In life we come across many who are incapable of accepting responsibility for their own actions.

Taking responsibility for your actions is a crucial part of growing up. Someone might grow older every year, but in reality without personal responsibility they have failed to mature past childhood. They still think the world revolves around them, they still think that others control their actions, and they still think they are not responsibility for anything that happens in their life.

While they may be able to live guilt free, they are also at the mercy of others to determine their course in life. They are giving the control of their life over to others, and they will never feel truly in control of anything going on in their life. They are doomed to live life as a ship without a sail, going wherever life takes them with no direction of their own.

By refusing responsibility, they are also refusing the joys that come with responsibility. That feeling of security that only comes with making your own decisions. The sense of pride that comes with accomplishing something worthwhile. The simple joy of just doing the right thing. All they will ever receive is small glimpses of these feelings, but true empowerment only comes from being the captain of your own ship and choosing your own destiny.

A child is never going to learn to take responsibility for their lives if they see the adults in their lives refusing to take responsibility for theirs. We do learn from our parents, but we don’t have to repeat their mistakes. Each of us has the capability to grow and learn, to become responsible citizens, and add to rather than take away from society. When my children see me blame others, they learn to do the same, but when I am able to not only admit my mistakes, but take responsibility for them, they learn to do the same.

Our gift to the world is to be an asset not a liability. To take responsibility for ourselves and not expect the world to take responsibility for us. To stand on our own two feet as much as possible. To give back more than we take. To be honest with ourselves and others, and accept the consequences whatever they may be.