The Phenomenon - Michael Phelps

Michael Fred Phelps (born June 30, 1985 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American swimmer who holds world records in several events. Phelps won eight medals (six gold, two bronze) at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens,which tied the record for most medals at one Olympics, a record set by Alexander Dityatin in 1980.Phelps' international titles, along with his various world records, have resulted in him being named World Swimmer of the Year in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and American Swimmer of the Year in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007.

Phelps has qualified to compete in eight swimming events at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and is attempting to beat Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals at one Olympics, and the lifetime record of nine Olympic golds. As of today Phelps has won three gold medals in Beijing, all in world record time, and he became one of only five athletes to win nine Olympic gold medals (others being Larissa Latynina, Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz and Paavo Nurmi) and by the end of this Olympics he will probably be the person with highest number of individual Gold medals at the age of 23 only.

Background: In his youth, Phelps was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He started swimming at age 7, partly because of the influence of his sisters and partly to provide him with an outlet for his restless energy. He blossomed quickly as a swimmer, and by the age of 10 held a national record for his age group. More age group records followed, and Phelps' rapid improvement culminated in his qualifying for the 2000 Summer Olympics at the age of 15.

Message: Children are immensely talented and have high energy levels, as adults and parents if we just recognize it and direct there energy into a proper channel, then the day would not be far when we will have people breaking records in all spheres of life. When youth don't know what to with their energy and enthusiasm, they get carried away into drugs, bad behavior, suicides, criminal activities, which troubles them, their near and dear ones and the whole society.
Spend time with children, they need you more than the video games, cartoons and other stuff which you offer them.
If you want to know how to deal with children, there is a beautiful program called KYC (Know Your Child) offered by Art of Living's SSRVM team, it is couple of hours program, which provides lots of wonderful insights and helps to provide proper upbringing to our children.

PS: There are other course for youth which I will describe in future posts.