COURTROOM PARENTING Setting their course

By NANCY CHURNIN
KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
DALLAS -- It all comes down to parenting.
Parents who listen and keep their word -- and not economic, ethnic or racial differences -- separate the kids who end up in the juvenile court system and those who achieve their dreams, says Judge Glenda Hatchett.
That's something she's seen firsthand in her courtroom and now on her syndicated TV show, "Judge Hatchett." Even now, she can't say which cases are more heartbreaking -- the kids who never had a chance or the kids who threw away every opportunity because of emotional voids.
Her parents, who always expected excellence, made her believe she could do anything.
And that's why Judge Hatchett, 52, targeted her first book at parents: "Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say!" (William Morrow, $22.95), due Sept. 2 in bookstores.
"It wasn't the book I intended to write," says Judge Hatchett at Dallas' Hyatt Regency, where she recently presented her book at the National Association of Black Journalists convention.
"I started out working on a scholarly assessment of the juvenile court system in America. And then I thought, 'That's not going to help the problem. How do we inspire parents to do what we need to do to keep our kids out of the system? What kind of tools, what kind of strategies can we use?'"
Road to change
She settled on seven principles: expect greatness; say what you mean and mean what you say; listen carefully; keep your word; cheer; make money matter; and reach, teach and preach.
A constant theme is that people can change. You can turn a corner to New Hope Road, as her father used to tell her. If you keep walking down that better road, after a while, when you look over your shoulder, you won't even see that old road anymore.
In her book, she shares case studies of the kids who were able to turn their lives around in the juvenile system, and she tells how her philosophy helped her as a child and as a single, divorced mother of two boys.
Judge Hatchett expects greatness, which means that she doesn't waste time cushioning her kids for disappointments. When her then 6-year-old son, Chris, announced that he was going to win the countywide swim meet, she supported his belief.
"Did I expect him to win? Heck, no. But he didn't know I didn't expect it. I never said, 'Chris, prepare yourself that you probably won't win this.' I said, 'Go for it.'"
Chris came away with two gold medals and a bronze. And while she was thrilled with the results, she says she would have been just as proud if he hadn't won.
"I would have said, 'Chris, did you give it your best shot?' And if he said, 'Yes,' I would have said, 'Good job. That's all I require. That's all God requires,'" she said.
'Lift the vision'
She has tried to set the bar high for the children in her courtroom, too. Her mantra is "Lift the vision." As she puts it in her book: "Whatever the goal, it could be greater; wherever the bar, it could be higher; whatever the commitment, it could be stronger."
She pushes kids to name their dreams. Then she prods them to achieve them. One girl liked to style hair. Judge Hatchett urged her to figure out how to become a cosmetologist, how to earn her license, how she could take business courses and how she could ultimately open a string of beauty shops. And she reminded the girl how difficult that goal would be to achieve if she ended up getting pregnant at 15.
Parents' encouragement
Judge Hatchett says her parents and the times in which she grew up shaped her ideas.
When Glenda was 5, she slipped away from her grandmother to take a sip from a "Whites Only" fountain in South Carolina. She wanted to see if the water tasted different. Two white boys saw her and pushed her down. She was angry. But as further episodes of racism reared up in her life, her parents tried to channel that anger.
When she complained to her father that the old schoolbook that had been handed down from the whites-only school to her school was torn, he sat her down with paper and crayons and told her to write her own story. Later she realized he was telling her that she had the ability to create her own life.
Her parents also taught her to give to others. Her mother, a teacher, packed lunches for or saved her children's worn clothing for the pupils who needed them. In that spirit, Judge Hatchett has arranged for $4 per book pre-sold through bookstores and online through Sept. 2 to be donated to the National CASA Association (Court Appointed Special Advocates, nationalcasa.org) for abused and neglected children.
Sometimes unorthodox
The desire to give back motivated Hatchett to give up a lucrative job in the legal department at Delta Air Lines in 1990 to accept the position of judge at the Fulton County Courthouse, where she became Georgia's first black presiding judge. In May 1999, she left to spend more time with her children. In November 1999, TV producers tried to talk her into doing a pilot of her current show.
She set out her conditions. She would have to be able to help kids in her show. She would have to be able to do intervention and follow-up. The producers would have to pay for the kids' treatment.
They agreed, and the show went on the air in September 2000. She works as a legal mediator, and the participants must agree to be bound by her decisions before coming on the show.
Sometimes her rulings are unorthodox. She ordered a girl who let a man fondle her to spend two nights on the street with former prostitutes.
One prostitute showed her where a customer beat her and left her for dead and told how she ended up HIV-positive. The girl changed course and volunteered to start helping others change as well.
Setting a standard
Judge Hatchett also makes decisions that stress parental responsibility.
In one show, she penalized the mother of a child who punched another child in the eye. There was reason to believe the punch, which resulted in a trip to the emergency room, was accidental. But what bothered the judge was that the mother had not expressed any remorse.
The parent of the injured child originally offered to settle with the other parent for $250 and payment for his deductible on his medical insurance policy. The mother paid nothing. Judge Hatchett fined her $2,500.
"Why wouldn't you want to express some concern?" she says. "It should not just be about her checkbook. It should be about opening her heart and doing the decent thing. Our children are watching these messages we are sending to them."
XFor more information, visit www.judgehatchett.com.