Today, I took my 14 month-old son to our neighborhood park. We've been going there for a few weeks, but today was the first day we had been there since school had let out for the year. Needless to say, we were in for a bit of a surprise...
In the past, we generally had the play area to ourselves or shared it with one or two other families. Today, there were about a dozen school-age children and with only 3 parents "supervising."
And today I got a glimpse into the horror of what lies ahead as far as discipline. Being that my son is a mere 14 months old, my practice with disciplining children is pretty limited. Apparently, some of the parents in my neighborhood have decided that no discipline is the way to go. Let me fill you in on the events:
About 15 minutes after we arrived, most of the children and all of the parents decided to start a pick-up game of soccer on the field just below the playground. About 4 children stayed behind to play on the equipment. Three of these were boys ranging in age from about 5 to 9. I was walking by these boys with my son when they started calling "the baby" a "poopy-head" and "poopy-pants." Harmless childhood banter, I thought. I'll just ignore it, especially since it had no apparent impact on my son; he was oblivious to their chanting and was just having fun exploring.
Soon after the name-calling, one of the boys started saying, "Let's attack the baby!" Others joined in with, "Let's shoot the baby, let's kill the baby!" That's when my mommy-instinct took over, so I walked my son over to the side of the playground by our stroller. As I was getting him his sippy-cup, I see one of the boys throw a fistful of little rocks right at my baby! I was shocked and outraged. I grabbed my son (who was not hurt) and told this little 4-foot terror that we don't throw rocks and, most certainly, we don't throw them at defenseless babies. One of the parents witnessed this scene (not sure if she was responsible for bringing him into the world) and chose to ignore it. And the boy's response to me: one of the meanest, ugliest looks I've ever seen on a child. At that point, we were done with the park...
All day, however, I have not been able to get the scene out of my head. And two worries have been preoccupying me: 1) I was there to defend my son today, but I just can't imagine him out there alone in a few years; and 2) How do I prevent my son from turning into one of these little monsters? I welcome your comments!
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