BNB Documentary - TRUTH 4 THE STREETS

I must say I am proud of my son Teddy for not only graduating High School, but for being accepted in NYACK COLLEGE। For a kid who grew up in foster care since 5 years old that is a tremendous accomplishment. He's currently taking a 5 week summer course so he has officially started.

I just completed the trailer for the DOCUMENTARY "Truth 4 the Streets" and I believe you will be inspired to hear from Teddy and other youth like him who have been able to benefit from Beats N Blessings a ministry I started 10 years ago that has been a tool for transforming lives of disconnected youth in NYC.




Documentary "Truth 4 the Streets" Part 1



Documentary "Truth 4 the Streets" Part

Helping Children with Severe Behaviors

This past year my wife and I have taken on one of the most challenging tasks of our lifetime and that's parenting children from foster care who have SEVERE BEHAVIORS. I just received a book as a gift from Pat Obrien Founder and Director of You Gotta Believe, The Older Child Adoption & Permanency Movement, Inc. The book is titled "Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control, A Love-Based Approach to Helping Children with Severe Behaviors" and the authors are Heather T. Forbes, LCSW, & B. Bryan Post, PhD, LCSW.

I just read the 1st chapter THE STRESS MODEL and it's main point is that children sometimes commit severe behaviors out of one the key human emotions FEAR which triggers a traumatic memory in the child which leads to a distorted way of thinking which causes the child the to behave in a severe way. Therefore the point is that these children with these traumatic experiences (Abuse, Neglect, Foster Care etc.) are unable to control how they respond to the emotion of FEAR.

Maybe this will help you to understand better. This is a story that actually happen in my home with one of my kids. One of my boys wakes up in the morning to find that his bike is missing from his room. A bike that was there last night when he went to sleep and he locked it up with the combination lock I gave him for it. After finding out the bike was missing my wife and I confronted his brother who was the only person to leave the house at that time in the morning and the only one who knew the number to the lock. He had just returned with sweat on his face and my wife asked him where is your brother's bike? He said he didn't know he was just in front of the house. We had 4 other boys still in bed at the time and plus they didn't know the number to the combination lock. I assumed well he's lying about not having taken the bike out the house because maybe someone stole it from him. After asking him over and over again where was the bike he kept replying with an bad attitude I don't know I didn't touch it leave me alone. You can imagine how I felt about this especially since It was a new bike that I had just purchased for $500. It cost so much because it's a special mountain bike that I got for him so he can bike with me on the mountain bike trails at Cunningham park in Queens, NY. I thought well someone must of stole the bike and he doesn't want to admit because he's scared or FEARFUL of what he thinks can happen to him if he tells us that he got up early in the morning and took his brother's bike out without asking. So I jumped in my car thinking the theft couldn't have got that far so I'm going to drive around in my car looking for him so I can recover this $500 bike I just purchased. I drive around with his brother looking for the bike and it's no where to be found. We get back home and he's playing video games and I ask him again did someone steal the bike from you? Once again with a bad attitude He tells me no I told you I didn't touch the bike leave me alone. I said which way did the theft go with the bike? He tells me I didn't touch it someone else could have took it out the house why don't you ask them where it is. I said they are all still in bed you are the only one who got up extra early and left the house without even asking if you can go out. Plus I heard you bring the bike down the stairs when you left out the house this morning. He said well did you look in the backyard for the bike. I go running out to the backyard and low and behold the bike is in the backyard. I also realize that the front of my BMW is scratched up from someone who tried to squeeze through my drive way to take the bike in the backyard and the pedal scratched up my car. I called him outside and asked him why didn't you just tell me you put the bike in the backyard. He continued to lie with the same attitude. I let it go and I just had to come to the conclusion that he was operating out of the emotion of FEAR and it triggered a traumatic memory from his past which led him to lie because he believed that if he told the truth about taking his brothers bike out without asking he would be disciplined (be grounded). Being that he's in foster care he has experienced past trauma from being moved around so much and having lost his family, his father who is incarcerated and his mom who abandoned the family and lives down south. So being that he was afraid of being disciplined he decided to lie. Maybe he thought that I would call the foster care agency and have him removed and he was afraid of loosing another family and a great home.

This is an example of how the STRESS MODEL played out in my family. As I continue reading the book Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control I will try to update my blog regularly with real life experiences, so stay tuned.

Signing out Craig S.O.G. PEACE! SHALOM!!!!!!!!

Pitbull Pups 4 sale

Our dogs Tyson and Diamonds just had a litter of 8 pure breed pitbulls. Pitbulls are very loving and gentle dogs. They have been given a bad rap like most of our kids in the ghetto have. We just sold out all of the dogs but we think we have a new litter on the way in a couple of months. So stay tuned. www.myspace.com/pitbulldiary

Teddy Graduated High School

We are so proud of our son Teddy Smith. He graduated High School despite the traumatic experience of growing up in foster cares since age 5. He is on his way to Nyack College this fall. He graduated in the middle of the school year. Teddy met so many friends in school and he was able to bring many of them to church and saw many of them become saved. It's amazing they way God has used him since he got saved a few years ago. We know that God has great plans for him.

Planet Bboy Movie

I took my son Jairus to see Planet Bboy in Manhattan last Saturday. It's an awesome movie. We met the director and a
an actor from Step Up 2. My son really enjoyed himself and it was a wonderful night out at the movies for us.

Movie Planet B boy

Movie Recommendation Planet B boy

I want to recommend that you take your child to see "Planet B boy". It just came out today. You will really get some cool points if you take your child out to see this movie.

Here are some reviews

“This crowd-pleasing doc is a literally head-spinning tribute to hip-hop
globalization!” - New York Magazine


"No one ever told Europe and Asia that break dancing was over. Now they
are at the forefront of a growing international art form. This new
generation has invented a movement." - The New York Times

Conduct Sheet

A Conduct Sheet is a great tool that parents and teachers use to help manage a child's behavior.

Here's a story about my experience with using one.

I went up to one of my kids school the other day the and his teacher began to complain to me about his behavior in class. So I asked her to give me a conduct sheet. You may be asking, "what is a conduct sheet?" Well that's a sheet that's used by the teachers at the end of each class to grade the child's behavior. When he came home that day I requested the conduct sheet and noticed that he tried to change one of the grades from an N (needs improvement) to an S (satisfactory). The teacher even noted at the bottom of the page that he tried to change the grade, so he was caught in the act. At first he tried to justify his acting out in class but I wasn't going for that and had told him that I expect to see an improvement the next time around but, I made sure to praise him for each class where he had good behavior and for doing his work.

Parenting Teens in Foster Care

In NYC alone there are 16,000 children in Foster Care and each year about 1,000 of them age of care into homelessness in NYC. Many people ask where does the homeless population come from. Well now you know. Over 50% of the homeless population in America are people who once live in the foster care at some point in their life. Organizations like You Gotta Believe, The Older Child Adoption & Permanency Movement, Inc. are helping to serve this neglected population of children. YGB has already helped to recruit permanent families for teenagers in foster care in NYC.

We are facing a serious crisis in America. We have a fatherless generation, children growing up with no real connection with there father or a father figure. And this includes Fathers who live with there children but who don't really parent their children. Families are very disconnected and there is such a huge communication divide between the older and the young generation.

God's word tells us in James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
My wife Zola and I have been ministering to youth in foster care for the past 17 years. We are currently providing a home and a loving family for four teenagers in foster. Plus we are caring for another teen who was kicked out of his home by his family. So we have 3 nineteen year olds and a 12 and 13 year old. Is it a challenge? Yes. Is it impossible? NO. You may ask why do we do it? Well GOD has given us the love and compassion for them.

Of our five children we first connected with Teddy. Before we took Teddy in our home I built a close relationship through my program Beats N Blessings. And Channel 4 NBC News did a Father's Day Story on me which was aired in 2007. Here's the video for it
We have a very special family that God has put together. My wife and I have done something very radically, but has been so rewarding for us. It has truly amazed me how God has formed our family. We are not perfect because as you know there is no perfect family.

Our Pastor Pete Scazzero of New Life Fellowship in Elmhurst, NY just preached a sermon that I believe every parent should listen to titled "Honoring Your Parents". He mentioned that there are 4 Qualities that's needed to parent God's way.

1 - UNIQUENESS - God loves each of us based on our own individual UNIQUENESS. And parents need to care for each child according to that child's uniqueness. Some parents want their child to be a doctor of a lawyer, but what happen to what the child wants. Remember each child has a unique calling and design. What works for one child may not work for another. So it's very important to know your child and their strengths & weaknesses.

2 - INITIATES - God initiates by pursuing us. We love God because he 1st loved us. And each parent needs to pursue their child by taking the initiative to help that child in whatever way possible. Initiate Conversations, Initiate a Family Meeting, Initiate a Family Night Out. Don't just wait for something terrible to happen before taking the initiative. And most of the time the teen is going something you may not like to get your attention, so why not beat them to it by giving them positive attention. Take the Initiative!

3 -DISCIPLINES - Discipline takes time, care, thought, follow up and energy to do it well. Proverbs 22:15 says "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him."

Are we encouraging physical discipline? NO. In regards to children in care, if you hit them they may hit you back, plus corporal punishment is illegal with children in care. And there are so many other ways children can be disciplined.

Every child is born with folly. Just because a child is from Foster Care that doesn't make them any worse than your own biological children. Each child needs to be disciplined correctly.

4 - Power Under - Most parents like to "Lord it" over their children. Meaning they always want to tell their child want to do. Rather than seeing ways in which they can serve their child and see how that can push them up in life.

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God Bless

BNB Rescuing Youth From Poverty & Homelessness

Beats N Blessings has become a place where the most under served population (ages 17-25 years old) in Queens have been able to develop job skills while earning a part-time income. After I spoke to 30 youth in a job training program at the Child Center of NY in Jamaica Queens, five of the Young Adult Interns decided that they would like to work as interns with BNB so that they can learn multimedia skills.
I didn’t realize how crucial it was that I accepted these young adults into BNB until I learned the following things about them. One of the five interns lived in a homeless shelter while working to improve his life with BNB. Another young lady was in and out of Covenant House homeless shelter while attempting to learn graphic designing skills at BNB. And one other teen was living with his friend’s family while developing skills in video production. Only two of the five actually lived with there biological family. Three out of the five young adults successfully graduated from their BNB internship and together we celebrated their accomplishment by treating them to some delicious Jamaican cuisine at “the Door” restaurant.


After reading about what statistics show regarding the state of Black and Latino young adults ages 17-25 years old, I realized how crucial it is for Beats N Blessings to provide a place where they can build their resume while learning cutting edge multimedia job skills they can use to obtain future employment.

While working with them I noticed that it was due to the lack of family support that two of the five interns dropped out of the program. Everyday I'm reminded of how important it is for us to continue doing what we have done by providing a permanent family for four teens in Foster Care. Without the support of a family I saw first hand how it can make it almost impossible for these individuals to progress in life. And with 16,000 children in NYC foster care we also recognized the desperate need for Christian families to open their hearts and homes to children in Foster Care.

As mentioned in James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world”. Over 50% of NYC homeless population comes from children who have aged out of Foster Care at 18-21 years old.

In many respects these young people are going from the cradle to the prison pipeline. We need to stop the rail to jail. We have the ability to stop this. We have the ability to be what Jesus wants us to be. What would Jesus say about us if were to watch and know that these children are being abandoned to this emerging disaster. This is an opportunity for us to take action to save our youth, save our children, save the next generation. Join BNB’s campaign to preserve the next generation. Help us, help save our children. Please seriously consider giving your time, your talent and/or your treasury.

These children have been abused, abandoned and traumatized due to the lack of a place they can call home. But thanks to New Life Community Development’s vision which is to serve the poor and the marginalized, BNB has become a New Life Opportunity for Youth.