We all know THAT kid. The child who just can’t or won’t fit in. The one whose behavior makes you simultaneously wish a) your child would spend more time with them so they could be a good influence and b) they’d keep away so your child would never have to deal with them.
My son was bitten by THAT kid at school last week. It wasn’t a deal where they got into a fight and the boy was losing so he bit my son. It wasn’t a long simmering feud that got out of hand. It wasn’t even personal in any way. It was a random biting in what turned out to be a series that the boy administered to various students throughout the day.
What do you do? It is a fact of life that kids with emotional problems are out there. We can try, but we can never completely isolate our children from them. Trust me, I know enough home schoolers who have tried to know that it just doesn’t work. Eventually you’ll encounter THAT kid at the park or the mall or scouts or somewhere.
And even if we could avoid THAT kid altogether, it would only postpone the inevitable. It is also a fact of life the adults with emotional problems are out there. Left uncorrected, the child bully grows up to be an adult bully. Sooner or later, your child will have to learn to deal with THAT co-worker or THAT neighbor or whatever.
We can’t be there every time THAT kid is around. All we can do is teach our children to deal constructively with THAT kid. We can teach them to be sympathetic and kind to the odd man out. We can teach them to defend themselves when absolutely necessary. We can teach them to avoid the problems if at all possible.