My Capstone Project

My capstone project is all about how children are academically affected by their home lives. My main focus is to promote awareness and advocate better parenting and teaching through illustrating the effects that home life has on childhood success, and our future as a whole.
I was raised in a domestically violent and unsafe environment as a child. I was born by an addicted mother, and a manically depressed father, both whom had little to do with me in the early stages of my life. Their parenting was not persistent and as a child I found it very hard to trust anyone including my classmates or teachers at school. In Elementary school I became very violent and isolated myself from my peers. Because I was a handful, many teachers referred to me as a distraction and instead of trying to straighten me out, I was further isolated from other students and therefore developed an acute depression at a very young age. This directly affected my learning process, and self image, which both were distorted for a big portion of my childhood and adolescence.
I am now 18 years old and attending a very rigorous collegiate high school where I have found a voice and a passion that surpasses any pain I have experienced in my childhood. That passion is children. I have felt like I have been pulled in this direction and I cant stop until Ive made a difference. I know that somehow Ive managed to save myself from the bad parenting I endured as a child, and that many are not able to do so. Even if its not much, my project is a step in the direction to making parents and teachers aware of how much they can effect the rest of a child's life.