Parents have it tough. Kids have it tough, too. And few people are in a better position to guide readers through these tough times than Judge Glenda Hatchett. As chief presiding judge of one of the largest juvenile court systems in the country, she gained a front-row perspective on the hot-button social issues of our time -- including drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, date rape, and school violence. As presiding judge on the hit television series Judge Hatchett, she continues to build bridges between parents and their lost, angry, and alienated teens. And, as a parent, she's turned her professional experiences to personal advantage, helping her own children navigate through some of the more difficult dilemmas facing young people today. Using her experiences as a judge and a parent, Judge Hatchett shares with readers seven simple strategies to becoming more involved in a child's life and maintaining a strong relationship. Including concrete examples and illuminating anecdotes, Judge Hatchett says what she means and means what she says in this essential guide to raising safe, smart, and successful children ... even in the tough times.

Opening Remarks: Promises to Keep	p. 1
Expect Greatness	p. 6
Side of Hope	p. 30
Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say	p. 37
A Place to Belong	p. 57
Listen Carefully	p. 64
Answering the Charge	p. 82
Keep Your Word	p. 93
The Path Taken	p. 122
Cheer	p. 131
Cases in Point	p. 151
Make Money Matter	p. 158
Have a Little Faith	p. 184
Reach, Teach, and Preach	p. 192
Closing Remarks: Call Him "Son"	p. 216
Resources	p. 223
Acknowledgments	p. 229
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Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say!
Saving Your Child from a Troubled World

Simple Strategy #1

Expect Greatness

Allow me to repeat myself: expect greatness. Setthe bar high. Encourage your children to reach beyond their wildest dreams.

There, that gets us past the easy heading, but I can'tmove on without overstating what may or may not be soobvious: it's not the greatness that matters, but the expectation of it, the reaching for it, the setting it out as a goal or ideal. Let's be honest, even the greats stumble from time to time, but greatness is not the point. It's the prospect of greatness, the preparation for it, the willingness to let it into our lives. Expect it and it will come; reach for it and it will instill hope and dedication and purpose and all kinds of great things; take it for granted and it will always slip away. It has to do with destiny, don't you think? If we teach our kids to move about as if greatness is within reach, then it will be so. If we teach them to hang their heads and despair about ever reaching their objectives, then they won't.

We parents must demand the utmost of our children, whether we're teaching them to tie their shoes, or read, ordrive a car, or develop good study habits and a responsiblemoral code. And why stop at parents? Teachers, mentors, bosses, aunts and uncles ... judges. We should always expect the very best from our charges if we hope to see thevery best in return. It's basic. And just to flip it around, we must also expect the very best from ourselves -- because after all, we set examples by our actions. You can't lead where you aren't willing to go.

No mother is certain about what she's doing when she first has children. In a world of uncertainty, this is one absolute. Me, I wasn't clear on a whole bunch of things, but I had some ideas, and one of the big ones was that I should give my kids something to shoot for, help them walk a path that might allow them to discover their dreams and realize them as well. In so doing, naturally, I set the bar high for myself, but I figured my children had a right to expect a kind of greatness from me if I was expecting it of them. It's only fair, don't you think?

I got this notion from my own parents, who nurturedand inspired my brothers and me to reach beyond our circumstances, but as hard as my mother and father workedto instill in me a sense of boundless opportunity and wonder, there were others working just as hard to tell me what I couldn't do, where I didn't belong, and when I shouldn't even bother trying. For every piece of positive reinforcement I took in at home, there were a dozen negatives out there in the rest of the world, and I came away thinking I'd have to level the playing field a bit when it came my turn to raise children. I didn't want them to have to deal with all these disapproving messages if they didn't have to, at least not at home, at least not on my watch.

It's funny the ay a lot of my well-meaning friends andrelations lined up to tell me how much trouble my boyswould give me when they reached adolescence, based onhow much trouble their own children had been givingthem, especially boys. It's as if they needed to drag usdown into whatever it was they were struggling through, either because misery loves company or because theycouldn't bear the thought that they might have missed anopportunity to set things along a more positive path withtheir own children. "Enjoy them now," I'd keep hearingwhen my children were young, "because there's gonna bewar in your house when they get older."

Each warning was more ominous than the last:

"Just wait till they become teenagers."

"There won't be peace in your house till they're bothoff to college."

"I don't envy you. Two boys. You're in for some realtrouble."

I refused to claim this mind-set as my own. I flat outdidn't want to hear it. Why? Well, if you go in anticipating a negative outcome, the positives won't know here to find you, so from the very beginning I turned a deaf ear when someone tried to counsel me on what almost everyone assumed would be problems in my relationships withmy sons. I wouldn't listen. When there was no avoiding it, when someone needed to download her troubles and letout a little steam, I nodded politely until she was through. I'd half hear these terrible things and promptly set them aside, never once believing that any of these worst-case scenarios would have anything to do with the positive relationships I'd carve with my own adolescent and teenage sons when the time came. Those negatives weren't mine,I told myself; they have nothing to do with me or mychildren.

There's an old adage in the world of sports that suggests that great teams sometimes play down to the level of their lesser opponents. Conversely, there are lesserteams -- less talented, less physically gifted, less dedicated -- that play up against tougher competition. I've always believed that in cliché there is truth (sometimes, at least), and at this point I've seen enough high school football and basketball games to know that the adage applies, but I could never accept allowing my children the wiggle room to play down to expectations. What I mean by this is that I wouldn't give my kids an out, or an easy excuse ...

Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say!
Saving Your Child from a Troubled World. Copyright © by Glenda Hatchett. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Excerpted from Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say!: Saving Your Child from a Troubled World by Glenda Hatchett, Daniel Paisner
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