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      August 12, 2008

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    A Single Mother's Kid

 

   

Who says single Mothers can't raise instense kids into notable adults? Tygert Bruton "Ty" Pennington -- He is most famous for being the host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition which currently airs on ABC. Previously, Pennington was a carpenter on the TLC reality show Trading Spaces. Currently he manufactures a line of Home Storage Solutions furniture with the Howard Miller Clock Company. Pennington was considered an unruly child and had difficulty performing throughout school."I would strip down naked, and swing from the blinds in my classroom as a child and swear along with that if I didn't get my way," he said in an interview for E! network. He was diagnosed with hyperactivity (then the term for ADHD) when he was seven by his divorced/single mother, who was in graduate school in psychology, and by his pediatrician, who didn't "believe" in Ritalin, so it wasn't tried at the time. Instead, Yvonne Pennington designed a system called "A Token Economy" to end his daily trips to the principal's office and his disruptive behavior in class. The Token Economy was used all the way through his school career. It wasn't until he was seventeen years old that he was treated with medication. He is now a spokesperson for the organization ADHD Experts on Call, and manages his condition with Adderall XR. His mother, Dr. Yvonne Pennington, is a psychologist who focuses on the treatment of ADHD and depression. She teaches other parents in extreme family makeover -- how to raise ADHD kids with or without medication. Read On

 
         
         

They told me -- back in the days when I had three little boys ages 4 and under -- that while those early years might be tumultuous and exhausting, the payoff for crazed mothers and fathers comes in the teenage years. Then, while parents of girls are being whipsawed by operatic mood swings and battling over tube tops and short shorts, we parents of boys would be kicking back and enjoying life. I am here to report that it's true! Okay, not entirely. David was moody and irritable for pretty much his entire 13th year and while he has now reached the sunny uplands of 14, he still has his moments. Jon, 16, has developmental disorders of various kinds so that no age is without challenges. But for the most part, the teen years here are actually -- and one doesn't want to tempt the evil eye but -- fun. Well, of course, as the parent of a teenager you do have to have a sense of humor about certain things -- like socks. Teenagers

 
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Congress has passed a higher education bill that, in part, eliminates college funding for some of the nation's worst sex offenders. Speaking on the House floor, Congressman Ric Keller (R-Florida) pointed to his support. "It includes my legislation to curb wasteful spending by closing a loophole that had allowed convicted child predators to receive federal financial aid to take college courses," he explained. Keller cited one case involving several inmates in Wyoming who were released from prison but confined to treatment centers – including one man who had been convicted of sex crimes three times, with one incident involving a four-year-old girl. They enrolled in school, collected the grant money, and dropped the courses. "And [they] used our taxpayer money to buy blue jeans, music CDs, movie DVDs, radios, television sets, and DVD players," Keller added. In Florida, similar grants amounting to over $200,000 taxpayer dollars were awarded in one year alone. Passage of the bill closes the loophole, and makes sex offenders ineligible in the future. Sex offenders and college grants -- loophole closed

 
 

A key feature of the housing bill that President Bush just signed into law was the federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These are the two taxpayer-backed "Government Sponsored Enterprises" that own or guarantee almost half of all mortgages in the country. Of the many words written about this bailout, those in a New York Times op-ed by William Poole, former head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis, contain one of the most relevant and powerful messages: "Critics of the congressional housing package complain that we are now committing taxpayers to huge new outlays to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That view is wrong: Congressional inaction over the past 15 years had already committed taxpayers to the bailout." Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal reviewed in his paper the coverage that it had been giving since 2001 to the rot inside these two entities. Mortgaging our children's future

 
 
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