As I was walking around the local town park with my boyfriend and brother, we came upon three young kids hanging out after a baseball game. Their parents were about 50 yards away, so they were paying no attention to the children at all. We get a little closer and can see that there is a little girl with a long, blonde braid and a big t-shirt, and two boys both in baseball jerseys. The boys looked like they were around five years old, and the girl around four. We get even closer and did not think anything would happen, we will just pass them and go on our way; boy we were wrong.
As we walked on the other side of the parking lot across from the kids, to our amazement, they started chucking ice cubes at us. They weren't just soft tosses either. They would run halfway across the lot to get closer and purposefully try to hit us! Now let me remind you we had no idea who these children were, or why they thought it would just be okay to throw ice cubes at three strangers, four times their age. We look at them, then look at each other, and all seem shocked at what they were doing. Luckily for us, the kids were obviously not the pitchers on the baseball team, and their ice cubes did not reach us.
As we near the end of the parking lot, the little girl grabs a garden shovel and yells, "Shove a shovel up your butt!" This coming out of the mouth of a 4-year-old girl shocked us all. We just continued on our way and tried to wrap our minds around what just happened.
I found myself thinking about the situation a lot, and trying to figure out why the kids would think what they were doing was okay. I recognize the fact that kids like to mess around, be goofy and make their friends laugh, but shouldn't they know the difference between that and possibly causing harm to others? Especially people they don't know, who are much older than them, and just minding their own business.
Then I recognized that these kids must have learned that what they were doing was acceptable or funny; whether it be from peers, older siblings, or their parents. They could have learned this from people messing around and having an "ice war," but shouldn't they know that it is not OK to throw things at strangers?
The children of today are the future of this world, and our job, either as parents, educators, or older peers is to try our hardest to teach them right from wrong. In this situation, it is undeniably clear that these children have not successfullly learned these lessons. Granted they are still young, but instilling the values of kindness and respect in our children should help them develop good morals and allow them to be beneficial to our world.
So, lets all try to remember and work for that goal. Teach our children how to behave appropriately, disipline them when they do not. Be good role models for our children to learn from, and help them learn to be kind and respectful little humans. And most importantly, no shoving shovels up other people's butts.
