We passed a bill in 1997, signed by Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles, which created a pilot program for a novel experiment called Florida Virtual School. The notion of children using a computer for a classroom and reporting to virtual teachers wasn't exactly mainstream thinking in those days.
In many corners the concept of DACA is a fair and compassionate one, giving reprieve to children brought into the country illegally by their parents. But the way the program is lawfully mandated and implemented matters.
I was brought up when media still kept totally away from violence when it came to children. I don't think it would have made me scared of violence, but I find it repulsive.
Children especially deserve our support after they are rescued from those who have victimized them.
I want my children to know that we often become resilient for others.
They are resilient children, but they are children, and as much as they need help to understand the hard truths in life, they also need what we all need - protection and love.
Sometimes we know the best thing to do, but fail to do it. New year's resolutions are often like that. We make resolutions because we know it would be better for us to lose weight, or get fit, or spend more time with our children. The problem is that a resolution is generally easier to break than it is to keep.
I see children, all children, as humanity's most precious resource, because it will be to them that the care of the planet will always be left.
Children are the world's future, and we need to take care of them like we would any precious resource.
My dad, grew up poor in a copper-mining town in Arizona. The eleventh of 15 children, he learned to be resourceful and entrepreneurial at a young age, shining shoes at local bars and starting his own pinata business at the tender age of twelve.
We're a nation of latchkey children. Manners start at home, and no one is at home teaching manners so that children have respect for others.
Without the EPA and the national pollution safeguards it enforces, more children would have asthma. Our water would be less safe. More chemicals would poison our bodies. And more people would die prematurely from respiratory diseases and heart attacks.
To mark the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to launch an FDNY shirt that pays tribute to the brave first responders who, like my father, risk their lives in the line of duty on a regular basis. All of the proceeds raised from the sale of the T-shirt benefit the New York Police & Fire Widows' & Children's Benefit Fund.
Proper British nannies put the child ahead of everything. They do not like to see children used as accessories, carried around in slings for the convenience of the parents' social life. They want a proper set-up, where the baby is rested and happy, not shown off to all-comers.
We've done a terrible job of hiring, supporting, and retaining the people tasked with the difficult responsibility of teaching our children.
There's an assumption in many of these cultures that these children are mentally retarded, when in fact they're not at all. I saw how the operation affects the child, as well as the child's family and often the village.
On the campaign trail, I have the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life - from residents at a battered women's shelter to mentally handicap children to retirees - and learn about their lives and struggles.
I think if we are actually going to accept our generation's responsibility, that's going to mean that we give our children no less retirement security than we inherited from our parents.
We have a rare and perhaps small window of opportunity to set partisan differences aside, and attempt to achieve what many in recent years have felt was unreachable - greater retirement security for ourselves and our children.
I've thought about bringing my children to retrace my own steps of the morning of September 11, 2001, but they're too young for that. Maybe when they're twenty. Maybe by then, even though it's been only a short subway ride away for years now, I'll have the nerve to see the 9-11 memorial for the first time.
