kids

Junior Golf is growing in St. Johns County!  THE Golf Academy at South Hampton is now enrolling students for its After-School Golf Clinics...Starting April 16th at 3:30 and April 18th at 3:30.  Each class will meet once a week for 6 weeks!  The classes will last one hour and are for kids ages 6-14!  If you wish to learn more please visit our website: www.the-golfacademy.com or call (904) 287-7650!

Golf is a great game for kids to learn because golf teaches kids values that other sports don't!  Like Honesty, Sportsmanship, Integrity, Confidence and responsibility!  Plus golf is a game they can play for the rest of their lives!  

For years our schools have been teaching our children to read, to write, and other subjects to provide them with the necessary knowledge to successfully graduate from High School.

However, crucial subjects which are part of every citizen's life, have been left aside not considering the fact that without these "subjects" our kids are growing in complete ignorance of the laws that rule our society. Rules that will affect them soon or later, in one way or another.

We teach our kids what is right and wrong, the same way our parents did to us 20 years ago! The truth is that, ever since, the laws have become more and more complex and they have extended to touch the limit of juveniles too.

We all grew up breathing the Romeo and Juliet mentality. A couple of teenagers crazy in love trying to defend their love from society. Romantic? Maybe...for other times.

The truth is that the spontaneous relationships from the past have been buried through the years under law suits and today the school sweet harts better be very careful or the modern Romeo might end up behind bars with a label of SEX OFFENDER for the rest of his life.

On January 18Th of 2006 a Task Force for Juvenile Sex Offenders prepared a report to review this law. This report was submitted to the Governor and the Florida Legislature in order to modify the Juvenile Sex Offenders Florida Law as it reads today:

As painful as it sounds, Florida is the fourth state in the US where the child pornography over the Internet accounts for the largest volume of cyber crime. According to Bill McCollum, Attorney General for the state of Florida: "The state authorities know very well the dangerous activities that on line child predators engage in and the amount of risks children face". Therefore, severe new laws have been implemented as October 2007 to protect our children against Internet predators and to prevent children sexual exploitation.

Thanks to these new laws these criminals will face maximum sentences extended three times more to fifteen years. These laws are not only against predators who solicit kids through the Internet but also for those who own child pornography.

Hard to believe when you hear a story like the one I heard this morning about a young mother leaving her new born baby in the vehicle while she went to the mall!

Absolutely nothing justifies leaving a defenseless baby not only exposed to heat, cold and lack of oxigen, but also with a lack of safety. I am not going to make logs out of the fallen tree, but I must say that there is a complete absence of common sense among young people on these days.

Children having children and going through a transition between high school and parenthood with no life skills or simple logic.

So far, two teens have committed suicide because of "Internet bullying", it is amazing how creative can some people be when is about hurting a child. I can even imagine the laughs while writing the terrible things they said to these two teens, while they were feeling defenseless and hunted. How cowardly and cruel can this sound when this verbal attack is coming from other kids the same age? And how unbelievable when the parents of those kids are involved too in the chat-bullying?

Playing with the mind of a minor in such a despicable way, attacking an already damaged self-esteem, and doing all this hiding behind a screen, to the point to push the victim to commit suicide should deserve the death penalty. It is worst than beating a kid to death! And these actions should be punished accordingly.

That's it! The year is almost gone and believe it or not Christmas is closer than we wished. This is the time when we regret not saving enough during the year and with the economy as it is we can expect not only a really skinny Santa Claus this year, but also crime everywhere. Don't let these holidays surprise you unaware and unsafe. Fight crime before it hits you. Here some safety advises you will never regret:

- Leave your small children safe at home with your spouse, your mom or a reliable baby sitter. Crowded stores are ideal to get distracted and leave your children unattended. Remember predators are always looking for the opportunity, don't take any chances with your kids!

Before you go out in a "spooky" night screaming "Trick or Treat" with your kids,  stop for a second and listen to this healthy advise. No, I am not a "Party pooper", just a concerned citizen who has gather together certain facts which I want to share with all parents. In case you haven't heard yet there is a new bacteria (I cannot even pronounce the name) which attacks the immune system and it is transmitted through touch! It is invisible and can even cause death.

It was detected in Texas and it has spread all over certain schools. However with people traveling all the time there is a good chance we might get it here in Florida pretty soon. Nothing more convenient for this type of bacteria to spread than the giving away candy to our kids, even if it is wrapped and looks all right it might be infected already. Paranoiac? Maybe! But "Better safe than sorry!"

One more criminal is behind bars, let's hope he won't be able to be free ever again! This animal raped a 4 year old little girl in a friend's house. My concern is that there are others like him out there and some of them are not even registered yet. They live among us and they are always watching our kids while they play outside with their friends, waiting for a kid to separate from the group to approach him (her).

Did you know that 1 out of 5 girls will be sexually molested before her 18Th birthday? and that 1 out of six boys will be sexually molested before his 18Th birthday? Actually there are over 400,000 victims of sexual assault every year. However what is more concerning is that 76% o serial rapists claim they were molested as children. All these statistics are from a web site www.familywatchdog.us