HELPING HANDS: ©ISTOCK; ©ISTOCK HEART: NOUN PROJECT
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THE RIGHT TRACK raising kids with moral courage
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ALEXIS PATTERSON
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DENTON COUNTY BOY NAMED BLAKE LEONARD made headlines not too long ago after he found a bank bag containing $4,000 in cash and checks in a parking lot. He immediately told his dad they should turn it in, and the pair headed off to the Flower Mound Police Department to do just that. The owner, tracked down just hours later, was beyond grateful for the money’s return; it ended up belonging to a youth sports league. In media interviews, then-11-year-old Blake said simply that turning in the money was the right thing to do. We’d all like to think our children would have the same reaction. But kids are … kids. Much is made of the fact that the area of the brain that controls higher functions doesn’t fully develop until adulthood. (And even so, there are plenty of adults out there who wouldn’t have done what Blake did.) So how do we foster moral courage in our kiddos? dfwchild.com / september 2020
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