FFS Friday - Confused

We spend a lot of time at the park. At least two hours a day usually closer to four.

There are a few new families who've moved in so there's been lots of kids around for the boys to play with. Most of them are boys so it's been great. 

However, there are some truly awful kids there. It makes me wonder what happens in their homes. They're always at the park alone, never with a parent and they're there for hours.

One boy is 9 years old. Every second word he says is see you next Tuesday. FFS.

He's got the foulest mouth I've ever heard, worse than any adults I know. This kid clearly has problems which is sad. His behaviour is so bad that the boys don't want to go to the park in case he's there. 

Last Saturday Mum took the kids to the park and he abused her. 

The situation has been escalating over the last week and it came to a head on Monday afternoon when he punched Chai in the face. He claims they were play fighting.

I spoke to the kids, couldn't get much sense out of any of them so we left the park. The horror child and his siblings followed us. When they followed us into our street I started to get concerned so asked where they were going. HC (horror child) said that they were going home then spent the rest of the walk abusing me. 

By this time I'd had enough of him and I'd also figured out where he lived. I wasn't planning on doing anything about it until the kids had all calmed down. 

Chai was very upset so did the clever thing and instead of going home went straight to our friends house. The poor guy opened the door to Chai yelling out that we needed help and that there was trouble. 

We told him what had happened, the boys went inside and we went around to speak to the boys parents. 

Thankfully they were good. We had a discussion about the kids behaviour, agreed on some rules and hopefully nothing will happen again. If it does I'm hoping we can sort it out between us.

HC's Mum said that he's been having problems with two other kids at the park. Here's what I don't understand. He's always at the park on his own, never with a parent. If your kid is having issues with other kids at the park, why aren't you there? If you think your child is being bullied, why would you let it continue? Surely you'd try to stop the bullying and keep them safe?

Our job as parents is to protect our children, raise them as best we can and try to turn them into decent adults. We must advocate for them, fight for them when they can't fight for themselves and talk for them when they are unable to. 

We don't leave them to deal with bullies all alone!