Growing up on Chicago’s West Side, Crystal Kuykendall often was told by teachers that she talked too much in class. A fifth-grade teacher, though, told Kuykendall’s mom, “She’s got a gift. Develop it.”

Using her gift of high-energy, inspirational speaking, Kuykendall encouraged parents to be “merchants of hope” for children in the community when she spoke Sept. 5 during open house at Golf Middle School, 9401 Waukegan Road, Morton Grove. She also spoke on Thursday, Sept. 6, at Hynes Elementary School, 9000 Belleforte Ave., Morton Grove.

Looking smart in a yellow suit and top, matching skirt and cream-colored hose, Kuykendall said, “I am not the perfect parent, nor do I have perfect children.” She said, though, that her children think she is perfect for them, and she thinks they’re perfect for her.

Described by Golf School District 67 Supt. Linda Marks as “an absolutely wonderful person,” Kuykendall presents more than 100 speeches each year. The Washington, D.C.-based woman is an educator, attorney, author, human relations expert and mother. She also is president and general counsel of her own firm, Kreative and Innovative Resources for Kids Inc. In addition, she was appointed to the National Advisory Council on Continuing Education and served as council chairwoman from 1979 to 1981.

While Kuykendall uses her body language and a simultaneously friendly and fiery voice to draw listeners in, it’s her own personal stories that leave the most lasting impression.

Although socio-economic status is one thing that children are judged on, she said, “My friends, we get past family income.”

Born on a kitchen table in a two-story housing-project building on the West Side, Kuykendall said she didn’t know how often the audience members make it into the city and said, “Don’t go west.”

Too many folks in the community think that “if you’re poor, you’re pitiful,” Kuykendall said. And although she learned that she wasn’t just “poor,” but in fact “po’,” she said she had the most giving mother, who was a true joy to be around. Her mom, who died at age 56, became a mother at 19 and was a school crossing guard, and Kuykendall’s father was a disabled World War II veteran.

Even though she described her mother and father as wonderful, loving parents, she said that they, too, had limitations. The “merchants of hope” in Kuykendall’s life, though, helped her to see past the limitations, such as her “po’” background and her self-image as “the original FLK,” or funny-looking kid.

“I look fine now,” Kuykendall said, but she said she didn’t always like her appearance and the fact that she was growing tall. That all changed, though, after her cousin Irene, a woman 6-foot-2 with one eye of blue, told her, “Girl, you’re gorgeous.”

Young people need to be surrounded by people with hope, Kuykendall said. Offering “tips for a terrific tomorrow,” Kuykendall said people must embrace differences and that every child needs affection.

It’s important to hug not only one’s own children but also other children, because when young people aren’t getting appreciated for who they are today, they often turn to delinquent behavior, she said.

For instance, she recalled a rapper’s saying that he used to hang with dope dealers because they showed him what he thought was love. Also, kids will find a way to succeed one way or another—even if that means becoming the biggest alcoholic or the biggest “pharmaceutical rep” in the neighborhood, she said.

Therefore, people should show love to “that funny-looking neighbor” who lives down the street or “that prim and proper-looking girl,” and if you don’t know how to hug a child with your arms, you can hug them with your eyes, Kuykendall said.

Since children grow and learn at different rates, grownups should focus on their children’s strengths, she said. Some children may need more encouragement to nurture the greatness within them, and everyone isn’t Ph.D. material either, she said.

She recalled how a group of student “misfits” constantly cracked jokes in class, and then a “wise principal” made them form a school comedy club and meet with him regularly. And eventually one of the “misfits” became a successful comedian, for the “misfit” was Eddie Murphy.

While it takes time for a child to overcome deficiencies, parents always can build on the child’s strengths, Kuykendall said. She encouraged parents to, when they got home, write down three strengths they see in their children. And she said she hopes parents will go forward as “merchants of hope” in the community, providing all the CPR they have to offer: That’s “C” for compassion and a consistent display of caring; “P” for patience and persistence; and “R” for resilience.

She elaborated on resilience.

She said that when she was 19, she had completed college and gotten married, and she moved to New Jersey with two suitcases, $200.16 and her “BMW,” meaning a black man working.

Once they moved to the East Coast, she and her husband talked about how he was suspended twice in kindergarten and how she used to get into trouble for talking in class, and then they got to thinking about how they had made it because of the “merchants of hope” in their lives, such as cousin Irene and Kuykendall’s wise fifth-grade teacher. Kuykendall talked about how they aspired to become “merchants of hope.”

Then, as her husband headed to a grocery to buy some apple cider, three drug addicts robbed him, shooting him in the head and killing him in the process.

Kuykendall said, though, that rebounds exist not just in basketball but also in life, and she somehow was able to regain her spirit about becoming a “merchant of hope.”

Two years after the murder, when Kuykendall was finishing a doctorate in Atlanta, she met the grandmother of a man who admitted to murdering her husband. The grandmother told her that the man’s parents were killed in a car accident when he was a young boy, and the grandmother had tried her best to raise him on her own, although it was really hard on her. Kuykendall said that when she walked away from the courtroom, she realized that she was one of the lucky ones; she said that something apparently had died in the boy already, well before he killed her husband.

Reiterating what her anecdotes already said, Kuykendall said that grownups can be a tool of torture or a source of inspiration for young people; they can humanize or dehumanize children, she said.

Adila Khan, of Morton Grove, said Kuykendall’s talk was really inspirational. Khan, who has four daughters—an eighth-grader, a fifth-grader, a first-grader and a pre-schooler—said Kuykendall made her think about ways she should try harder to help her children.

“You just take for granted that they’re there,” she said, adding that she should appreciate them more for who they are.