School began on Tuesday for most of our neighborhood children. Normally that transition would bring a sense of relief to parents and neighbors. Unfortunately that doesn't ring true in our neighborhood right now. I don't recall any 'play fighting' this past summer, and we seemed to have been free of arguing and fighting in the street overall.
Yet on Tuesday, one boy took swings at another, who vowed he wouldn't hit a younger or smaller boy, but slew words and taunts back. Today the same two were at it in front of L's home. She had planned a party for the group of kids, as a 'thank you' for searching for her lost cat a few weeks ago. She has second thoughts with all this fighting...it wears thin on people. I said I would talk to the kids if possible. I did talk with several, still not the fist swinger.
One of the kids, the no-hitter/taunter, has a lot of personal issues; we talked about what he can control and can't...the fact that he defends his brother and then his brother hangs out with the antangonist; the fact that someone else loses his temper - that B can control only how he acts/reacts...and it goes on. I've asked him to focus on this one situation and write what really troubles him and what he can/cannot control.
Someone fill me in...it appears to me that while these kids got along all summer, when they go to their many schools all over the city, they connect with other small groups with their own summer baggage/history/attitudes and they pick up some of that nasty baggage and carry it back to their home neighborhoods which are usually removed from their school life. Are they acting like some adults who take their negative home life to work or 'kick the dog' syndrome, from work to home?
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