Kids in trouble

I usually try not to say too much about my job, for many reasons, but lately it is all I have thought about. Mostly because I have been so busy with my job and not as much time with my family. My job requires traveling and I hate missing my family. Ryan, I will tell you now and a thousand times more that I am sorry I have been gone so much and you have been wonderful through this difficult time. I love you more than anything.

Anyway, lately with my job, I have been dealing a lot with kids, and I say kids because they are under the age of 20 but over the age of 17 and the law considers them adults. As I sit and type this, I pray that my children will not do some of the things that I have had to deal with. There are some kids who come from good homes, or at least I think they are good homes, who are completely screwed up. By screwed up, I mean into drugs, into violence, drug trafficking and that scares me. Then I have some kids whose home life I'm sure is less than "normal", who are the same way. There was a kid who lives in Oklahoma who was placed on probation for Possession of a Controlled Substance. The controlled substance he possessed was shrooms. This kid is 18 years old and is on felony probation. He lives at home with his mom and dad, mom and dad pay for him to go to college and will probably wind up paying his probation fine and court costs for him. At the same time, I had a 20 year old who was placed on felony probation for Possession of Marijuana. He is the oldest of 4 boys and he lives with his uncle in Florida. He had to drop out of school to start work to help support his brothers. He will more than likely spend the next 5 years trying to get this paid off. The reason I mention these two particular stories, is this is just not happening in Carson County. Most of you know there is a particular case that I have been dealing with and the parent(s) seem to ignore what everyone is telling them. They still think that their child is fine and he is not. Not by any means. As a parent, if anyone sees either of my children do something they are not suppose to be doing, please get on to them or tell me and I will get on to them. I do not want my children to go down a wrong path. I do not want my head to be buried in the sand or minimize what my child is doing. My parents kind of had the philosophy that it takes a village to raise a child. If I did something wrong, someone got on to me, whether it was my parents, a neighbor or someone in the community. I know I made some wrong decisions in my life, but those decisions did not land me in jail and in serious trouble. I'm trying to raise my children to be smart, not to be tempted, to stand up for what they believe in, and to do what is right, even if it means they will not be popular. (I'm starting to sound like my parents!) My ramblings probably do not make much sense to anyone but me. And I think I have been spending way too much time at work. But I am serious if you see my children acting up or doing something they are not suppose to, please correct them or let us know.