Leap Year Day – A day that happens every fourth year to keep our clocks on pace with the rotation of the Earth around the sun. This is also the day my Grandfather gladly told us to celebrate as it was his birthday.

My Grandpa was born in 1898 and had seen many things in this world of ours. True this is the year 2008 and no he is not 110 years old as he passed away in 1996 from Alzheimer’s. He was the adventurous one of his family. Some would call him the black sheep of the family but he was just a bit eccentric in his quiet way.

He enjoyed his daily beer and his pipe for the majority of his 98 years on this Earth. He was never without the lack of a desire of a good laugh. When you got to talk with him (when Grandma was distracted), you gleaned much wisdom from his travels around these United States seeing everything from the world transitioning from horse and buggy to cars, the development of the airplane, and space travel. So much wisdom was to be learned from him.

But the day to be remembered was Leap Year Day – his birthday. He would remind us every year that he wasn’t as old as the calendar said as his birthday was only every four years.

That was the case until 1997 when we got to look at his birth certificate. We should have seen this coming. All 3 of his children, his 3 in-law children and I forget how many of us grandchildren should have seen this coming. After all, my last name is fairly unique only because my Grandpa changed the t to a d on our last name because he didn’t like how the t looked.

What awaited our eyes on his birth certificate? He was born well into March.

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There are a large number of issues considered to be a disability. Whether it is one of a myriad of potential physical disabilities ranging from temporary to degenerative to fatal, emotional based disabilities, learning disabilities or cognitive disabilities, there is one that stands above them all.

This disability is the most common disability held by many. There is no medication for this the most debilitating disability of all. I have taught children with Emotional Disturbances and a large portion of them have this. I’ve taught many Cognitively Disabled children and they do not have it. Those with Learning Disabilities are varied.

Men and women could be said to have it equally and it is not genetic. Age is not a factor either as it can strike just about anyone except the youngest. As I’ve said this disability is not based on genetics. There is no medication for it. But a cure does exist except the cure is hard to come by.

So what is this greatest disability that can ruin all aspects of your life? Some will know the answer immediately, while others will never be able to answer the question. The greatest disability in life is a bad attitude.

A bad attitude is not genetic based. There is no medicine for a bad attitude. There is no excuse for a bad attitude. But there is a cure. The cure is change. You choose what you are exposed to. You choose what information goes in your mind from what you watch, what you read, who you listen to and who you hang out with. Garbage in, garbage out. Do you want to get rid of a bad attitude?

Then you must be willing to do the hardest thing that a person can do.

Change.

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When the going gets tough in the academic arena, there are a few options. You can spend more and more time trying to figure out the topic on your own. There is the option of hoping your friends know what they are doing, have the time and the skill in teaching you. Or if a topic is really over your head due to a communication gap with the teacher, challenges with how the textbook was written or any other reason, then it is time to call in the pros.

Having been a tutor in the past and still doing private tutoring off and on today, I know it is useful to parents and kids to have resources to lean back on. So if you can arrange for a private tutor to help your child at school who has a teaching degree that would be the most ideal especially if you could access the pool of tutors from online.

Club Z! does exactly that involving degreed teachers and professionals that desire to help children with the curriculum they have in front of them. One on one tutoring in a subject of need at a time of the parents’ choosing is a valuable tool to be utilized.

So if anyone who is taking a class needs that little extra help to translate something tough into an easier way of understanding, this is a website to check out.

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