Age and Experience

I've had some interesting run-ins with some teenage neighbors this week. After one such encounter, I had to take a walk to cool down I was so angry. After having worked with youth now for about a decade, I'm no stranger to attitude but these experiences have really concerned me.

While I was discussing the benefits of age and experience, one young lady commented that "you keep telling yourself that" in regards to my belief that those things (age/experience) were beneficial. It wouldn't have bothered me so much except that I don't know her and she wasn't joking. It really was nothing short of rude.

The next encounter was deeply upsetting to me. An 18 year old neighbor came over to use our basketball hoop (without permission). While he was there with his younger (12) brother, my children came out to join them. During the game my youngest son (6) commented that although our Korean exchange student didn't make the shot, he could do it in "his world". The response from the 18 year old neighbor was to call my 6 year old son a "racist Jew". When my 12 year old son came to his aid by calling the offender a "Hippie Punk" the 18 year old then told my son to "shut up, you're stupid". This verbal abuse went on for about 10 minutes until my six year old came in to get parental reinforcement.

Let me just say that both my husband and I were out of our chair lightning fast. The neighbor was lucky my husband made it out the door first and dealt with it because this momma bear was ready to rumble.

My husband informed this little delinquent that he was on our court, at our house and that he better watch himself to which the neighbor boy responded "so your kids are allowed to disrespect on this court"? (Even relaying this experience through blogging is making me want to smack someone.) This kid seriously argued with my husband about our parenting skills for about three minutes before my husband told him to back off. Even after my husband came back inside, the kid had the brass to play basket ball at our house for another ten minutes before finally leaving.

Let me say that I've never had trouble with this kid before but he does have a reputation. I've always given him the benefit of the doubt but after this, I've just decided to keep my distance.

The question I have after all this is what are we really teaching our kids? When I was young (and every generation before) we were taught to respect adults. Without wanting to sound like a media prude, I have to say that all these TV shows about how stupid adults are and how kids/teens should be able to get away with anything is really jacking up our young people. And the fact that we allow our children to watch them is a problem. Parents are so confused about wanting to be their kids friend that they forget to be their kids parent. Enough already, someone has to be in charge and my money is on age and experience.