My weight has held steady for the past 8 years or so, I have a BMI of 30 and I’d like it to be in the normal range. I am eager to do the work it takes to get to my goal.

Thanks for your kind and compassionate response to the outpouring of hate since that foolish show aired. We can all learn and grow from our mistakes. Ironically, those mean spirited blogs are far more vicious and hateful than anything Steven said, and overlook the derogatory comments made by the Longs, and others, about you and your sweet family.

Peace to all.

I truly hope that you are only taking a break and that you will soon be producing more of your wonderful podcasts!

Thank you Renee. And stay away from those reality shows!

I believe that your husband is truly sorry for his behavior on the show, and I bet you have been going through some really tough times as well since it aired. All I can say is that I know things will get better in time, and that for you, and your family, I sincerely hope that you don’t let this incident tear up your marriage. This is not your defining moment for either one of you.

I believe that this incident can help you both to define yourselves in your works and actions in your future endeavors. I applaud your husband for removing himself from the Boards of the organizations which he is involved in, and I would like to thank both of you for the selflessness you have in helping others and our environment. Your life of service to others is admirable. Please don’t stop.

You’re work in helping overweight people is a service that needs to continue, and I sincerely hope that you use this moment of attention to capitalize on delivering your message.

Aloha,
Jim

I’ll start at the beginning, happily oblivious and wait for your return.

Contact Tracey Kaplan at tkaplan@mercurynews.com or (408) 278-3482.

This is the article:
San Jose dad in jail — and mom’s on the way — for 13-year-old girl’s chronic truancy
It started back in third grade with polite letters from the school principal to the East San Jose couple: Your daughter has had a series of unexcused absences; please contact us. Back then, Carol Reynoso and Jayvee Geronimo’s youngest attended school about 80 percent of the time.

But the effort by the Alum Rock Union School District ended in a far less gentle way recently after Vanessa Geronimo’s attendance in sixth and seventh grades dwindled to only two or three days a year. Her parents have been convicted of contributing to the delinquency of their now-13-year-old daughter by letting her be habitually truant, and were ordered to serve 50 days each in county jail. Geronimo is already in Elmwood; when he’s released in mid-March, Reynoso goes behind bars.

It is the first time in five years that a truancy case in Santa Clara County has resulted in a parent’s incarceration — and the only time that both parents have been sentenced to jail.

Now, Vanessa said she’s willing to do anything if only the court would spare
her mother from jail, including face her worst fear — school.

“I’m willing to really try this time, to go to school,” said Vanessa, whose family says she was mercilessly teased about her weight. “I know I’ve said that before, but I mean it.”

In between the first polite letters and the unusual jail sentence, court records show the Alum Rock school district and the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office

tried hard to help the family overcome whatever it was that kept Vanessa home.

Parent conferences. Home visits. Intervention by the district’s special Student Attendance Review Board, which offered the family medical and mental health assistance. A chance to work with prosecutors and avoid jail.

‘Fifth-grade dropout’

“It’s tragic,” said Deputy District Attorney Lois Baer, who prosecuted the case. “But she’s essentially a fifth-grade dropout, and the parents haven’t followed through at all.”

The school district couldn’t comment because of privacy concerns. But brief interviews with the family and a review of the court record shed light on the way the system deals with chronic truancy — and, in this case, the difficult path to a conviction.

Under state law, all children ages 6 through 18 must attend school. The district attorney’s office prosecutes parents until truants either reach the last years of middle school or enter high school, depending on the case. Once children are in high school, Baer said, she charges them directly.

California’s dropout rate is estimated at an astronomical 24 percent, so it’s clear school districts and prosecutors don’t have the resources to enforce the law in every case. Baer said she prosecutes about 1,500 high school students a year and about 50 cases against parents.

In the mid-1990s, Baer pioneered a program for parents of young truants that’s been replicated around the state. Parents plead guilty to an infraction rather than the misdemeanor delinquency charge and don’t face jail unless they fail to comply. Instead, the court closely monitors their children’s attendance.

“Jail is an extreme last resort,” said San Jose police Capt. Louis Quezada, who runs the force’s Truancy Abatement and Burglary Suppression Team. “Sometimes the DA has no option. We’re talking about people who’ve been given every opportunity.”

Vanessa’s sister Jaylyan, 17, says her little sister’s difficulty facing school started back in kindergarten when the other kids relentlessly teased her for being overweight, and Vanessa would dissolve into tears. Her father and grandfather, both of whom are not slim, can’t understand why Vanessa found that devastating.

“I told her, there are a lot of big kids in school,” said her grandfather, Rudolfo Geronimo.

It quickly got to the point where Vanessa could barely make it through a school day.

“We take her to school and she’d be crying and crying in class and get sent to the principal’s office,” said her mom, Carol Reynoso. “She has blackouts. She forgets where she’s at. She gets panic attacks when she’s around a lot of people. She can’t be alone. She’s not right.”

Reynoso said she started sleeping on the floor of Vanessa’s bedroom every night to soothe her fears. They keep the mirror covered up with a sheet because Vanessa can’t stand seeing her reflection.

“She’s always putting herself down,” Jaylyan said.

After awhile, nothing worked to get her to school, her father said, not even ”bribes” of new clothes and a laptop from her grandfather.

Counseling urged

Reynoso said the school’s attendance review board recommended Vanessa see a psychiatrist and be put on medication. But the family never followed through, she admits. Reynoso said it was because they couldn’t afford it and Medi-Cal wouldn’t cover it. But in similar cases, nonprofit mental health agencies that sit on the special attendance review boards provide services.

After Reynoso was sentenced, she said, she learned from a friend about a nearby nonprofit program for troubled children, Achieve Kids, that offers free counseling. The agency’s East San Jose campus is only about six blocks away, and Reynoso has already met with a counselor there who recommended that both she and Vanessa come in once a week for separate sessions.

The prognosis is good for children who are treated for anxiety disorders, said clinical psychologist Michael Gennette, executive director of Achieve Kids. He couldn’t comment specifically on Vanessa’s case, but said children can develop a pathological negative self-image and exaggerated fears that prompt them to eliminate most social contact, particularly if they’ve been bullied.

“The good news is, this is treatable,” he said. “But it takes awhile for children to become homebound, and the longer the condition has gone on, the longer they’ll need treatment to overcome their fears. ”

Prosecutor Baer said she is glad Vanessa will finally get help, but that will not change her position.

“If jail was what it has taken to get her to act,” Baer said, ”then it’s absolutely the right thing to do.”

Vanessa said she wishes the court would give her mother a last-minute reprieve.

“It’s not fair,” she said, her brown eyes welling with tears, “I really need her.”

i just started listening to ur podcast yesterday– i was checking out random sites at itunes and stumbled across Inside Out. I’m already listening to the 12th episode, and I found the dreaming exercise to be extremely helpful. My story is very similar to the one that u shared in the prologue…i feel that we’re coming from the same place and even just in that simple fact, I hear a comfort from ur voice…it actually sent me off to dreamland^__^ cuz it took me to such a peaceful place~~~i feel really lucky to have found the resources that ur giving all of us~~i hope that God could use me in a special way to help others the way He’s lead u to thus far~~thank u^__^

love,
liz

I just hope there is peace in your life soon and this whole thing blows over (like I thought it did, after the news of more woes for the economy, ‘bad’ news and the obviously disproportionate outrage to some incidents, like the chimp cartoon in New York Post).

This will fade over time, but will never go away completely, at least not within your own lives, and especially the lives of your children as they grow older. It may have positive results for them in terms of their approach to the world and the people around them. But they may, possibly, also have a lot of bitterness over what they had to go through as a result of their parents’ (mostly father’s) behavior on a TV show where they should not have appeared if they were as smart as they were intelligent, let alone showing restraint in behavior while the world may be watching on TV.

I hope this heals soon, and wish you and your family all the best.