We can save our country trillions of dollars and relieve whole communities of the burden of an untimely death of their loved ones in what are preventable events by using youth and school sport to have kids regularly practice the mental skills necessary for emotional health. Social emotional learning has been shown to be very effective in reducing these incidents plus raising academic achievement. See www.casel.org

My greatest concern is that this new Office will get caught up first and foremost in the corporate and celebrity-side of the Olympics as opposed to focusing their efforts on teaching and having kids across the country practicing simple skills (e.g., recognize, categorize and change thought to change outcome) that Olympians practice daily.

After just coming back from a wonderful conference at Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society on Sport and Social Responsibility, I enthusiastically welcome the President's message.

I am the founder and director of GetPsychedSports.org, a nonprofit devoted to using sport, and education generally, as a significant tool to combat the budget-killing, human misery index-raising line items of violence, addictions, eating disorders, obesity and depression. These are not just statistics – they are your children, your friend’s children, your community’s children. Right now we have no long term plan to reduce these maladies.

http://www.getpsychedsports.org,a501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

This is to Rachel Flinner and to the Obama team regarding education in pre-and elementary schools.:

If we start teaching proven cognitive mental skills in pre and elementarly school, we can practice the skills necessary for self-control, how to think to achieve, and how to be emotional healthier. This will result in a reduction of violence, addictions and eating disorders (incl. obesity) across the country.

In its most simplistic form, we can train young children how to recognize thought, categorize it and change it., where necessary.

Our education system should reflect these sciences, which it does not do currently, in a systemic way, where both children and teachers know the skills they must practice mentally to lead a happier, more fulfilling life.

If we want kids to want to learn, first we must teach them how to think, a science into itself. If we change what we teach kids to include these sciences, we can change our culture in just a few years.