It all started in a little 1st grade classroom in Florida, I noticed that there were more emotional issues with some students than with others. Some kids seem to naturally come with more coping skills. I started to question why some students could deal and even flourish when problems and conflict arose between classmates but most students needed help. I wondered if it was possible to teach these emotional skills that I believed at the time, should come from home. I also believed that students should be able to "know right from wrong" and be able to produce a good emotional response from what they learned previously and what I was telling them they should do. I soon learned nothing could be farther from the truth...I was not helping them become better citizens by telling them what they should think and correcting behavior. At the beginning of school, within the first few weeks I spent too much time on personal problems that students had with each other than teaching lessons plans. Within the next few weeks, I came up with a plan to empower the students to handle their own issues in their own way.