Stephen and I were driving home and we were approaching a stop light. We had not quite reached the stop light yet. The intersection was somewhat of a busy intersection. Its right off the freeway and its a main street. So as we were approaching the intersection our light was red so we were coming to a stop. We see cars that were turning left and were then passing by us. Suddenly we see this little boy who is not near the crosswalk, the side of the road that we are on that has 3 lanes is full, and we see this little boy just start crossing the street and running through the cars not looking around for cars. Suddenly we see a green car that had turned left and this little boy is headed right for the other side of the street that is going to put this little boy in front of this car and he is going to get hit. We both are looking and say that big, "Huhuhuhuh" sound as we see this little boy and think we are going to see him die right there in front of us. Well luckily the green car saw the little boy and screeched to a stop. The little boy didn't realize he nearly got hit and just ran across the street and made it to the other side. My first reaction was, "Phewwwww." Then suddenly Stephen is pulling into the gas station where this little boy ended. Stephen rolls his window down. Now my reaction is, "What is Stephen going to do." Stephen, then as nice as can be, asks the little boy where he was going. He said he was going to the gas station. Stephen asks him where his parents are and the little boy says that they are at home. Stephen asked him where home was and the little boy pointed over the car and said, "Over there."
Okay, at this point there are a couple of different thoughts. 1. That the little boy could possibly think what is this man asking me all these questions. 2. That has the little boy not been taught about talking to strangers and especially when its a man in a car. (This appears as if we are going to kidnap this little boy. Not good for us. 3. That I was thinking that this little boy is so willing to just give these answers to a complete stranger. 4. That he is giving the answers, BUT that he is all alone! He looked like he was only about 7 years old. 5. So then, what kind of parents does he have??????
So to continue, Stephen talks to the little boy about how the street is really busy and that he needs to use the crosswalk so he doesn't get hit. I'm in the passenger side and making comments, "Ask how old he is?", "Ask if he knows what a crosswalk is?", "Ask what...?". Stephen asks what I'm saying and I have him explain what a crosswalk is.
(Who knows? This little boy is somewhat young. At this age, you can't expect the child to just 'know.' Especially if he is darting across the road, he may have never been taught about crossing the road and to look both ways. Did his parents not know that when this child came into the world he didn't know about the world and they were going to have to teach him about the world. That is there job as the parent. The child is not going to know what a crosswalk is or what a street or what a corner or what a road or a light or 'dangerous' means until they, the parents TEACH him. This is my soap box for parenting, since I taught parenting classes to drug users for so long, I get really fired up when parents who aren't drug users don't teach their kids and expect them to know to 'STOP THAT', 'DON'T DO THAT', 'NO', 'STOP IT'. I say, "Stop WHAT, Don't do WHAT, No WHAT, Stop WHAT???????" EXPLAIN IT TO THE CHILD!!!!! Okay, I'm done with my soap box.)
So Stephen asks the little boy if he knew where the crosswalk was. The little boy pointed to it. Stephen then explained to him that when he crosses the road he needs to use the crosswalk and to wait for the light that shows the person walking and when he say the hand to not walk across the street. Stephen explained that there was a car that almost hit him and that the reason to use the crosswalk was so he would not get hit. I poked my head out there so the little boy could hear me and I told him that it would have been sad if he had gotten hit by the car and gotten hurt really bad. I told him that his parents would have missed him a lot. We asked him to be safe and to use the crosswalk from then on. We start to drive off and we see that the little boy is turned around to head back across the street. He started to walk toward the sidewalk and walked toward the crosswalk. But before he got to the crosswalk, again we see he is about to just bolt out into the street. This time though we see that he hesitated because he saw a car coming towards him. He saw some people standing on the corner and he walked toward the crosswalk. It was the people's turn to walk across. He saw the people start to walk and he started to walk. This time he was looking around more and he was not just running full speed to the other side of the road. He hesitated some even in the crosswalk but he made it across the street, much more safely that time. We were glad to see and hoped that maybe by having talked to him and explained about using the crosswalk that he learned something and hopefully it will stick and will help him in the future.
After that little experience we talked about it and we were was shaken up by it quite a bit. I mentioned maybe having called the police and then Stephen was thinking that we should have called the police to have them come take this little boy back home. I had a thought and told Stephen about it and we decided that maybe it was just better that we explained and taught him what we could and hopefully that will stick with him more than what could have possibly happened in my thought. This was my thought: if the police were to come and take this little boy home they would talk to the parents about making sure the little boy is not out running around in the streets alone. Possibly. After the police leave, the parents though would not take in anything that the police had said and instead end up getting upset and angry at the little boy for going and getting in trouble that brought the police to there house which made them look bad. Then possibly hurt the child, punish the child, and basically the bottom point of the child being the one to get in trouble. Now I only thought that this is what would possibly happen since the little boy is out running around alone in the first place, and the parents are not taking any responsibility in that regard so why would they take the responsibility if it was said to them straight face that THEY need to take care of there son and make sure that he is always safe.
The lesson here is not the child having done anything wrong. Its just so sad to Stephen and I who work (or worked) with so many of these kinds of parents. They take no responsibility for their actions. They as the parents are responsible for this little boy. To teach him how to cross the road, to teach him its not safe to go wander around on a busy street by himself, to now that if the police were to bring their little 7 year old boy home because he was not safe was an irresponsible action on their part and not paying attention to knowing where their child is and making sure he was safe.
We don't know what would have happened if we would have called the police and we don't know the circumstances of this little boys life. What we do know is that there are a lot of people that we have worked with that are in that situation I just mentioned. We as individuals all need to take responsibility for our own actions. We need to not make excuses for EVERYTHING, we need to not blame EVERYONE else, and we need to BUCK UP and deal with the consequences we are handed for the choices that we make.
Stephen and I experienced this situation of this little boy nearly getting hit by a car and could have gotten hurt badly to the extreme of dying and that would have been because of parents who didn't take responsibility of making sure their son was safe that day. Stephen and I were so shook up by this for a few days and how glad we were that the little boy didn't get hit. This is a situation that LUCKILY he didn't get hit, but is he going to be as lucky next time?
We talked about this and thought about this and it was a very interesting lesson to learn in a very unique kind of way, about being responsible. We all need to be responsible and I am going to work on being more responsible in my own life!
4 comments:
I love this post! Scary though about that boy. It is so sad how little parenting is done in some families...
Anyway-hope you are doing well! :) I miss your comments over on my blog.
Very scary situation for both you & the little boy, but especially him. It would be very interesting to know his age, as it wasn't clear if he was old enough to have an understanding of what a busy street is. I also wondered if he maybe had a mental isssue that caused him to dart through traffic, which like age prevents a person from comprehending consequences. I do like learning from experiences like these. My standby question is what do I need to do different so this doesn't happen to me.
Honey, you did well with explaining that mess! The only additional comment I would add is the question it brought to mind for me: What is the degree of responsibility for we as bystanders to intervene? I am reminded of the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." However, if the village is full of laissez-faire parents then the question shifts to what is the impact of the society acting as non-intervening bystanders? As bystanders, I asked did we do enough? If we chose to do more, what would more have been? Hardest to contend with for me was answering if there was an apt tangible consequence for the parent(s)? My disapproval is probably not going to resinate with the parent(s) of this youngster. So,I would say not, but maybe it was best that there wasn't a tangible consequence this time?
Babe you're right. So insightful. It is hard to determine if we did enough and questioning if the parents would get the right amount of consequence. It was a somewhat difficult situation and I think we did what we could with it. I think the little boy learned something from it which may have been the most that could have come out of that situation.
Mom that is an interesting point to point out. The little boy seemed 7 and maybe could be as old as 9, just a small 9 you know. It still is interesting to me to see that even at that age he is darting through traffic. And is unattended still. The other point that maybe he has a mental issue is interesting because then maybe that could be answer for the darting throuh traffic. Once again though its scary that if he does have a mental issue all the more reason to wonder why he is alone. It was an interesting situation that could be learned from. That's a good question to: What can I do different so it doesn't happen to me?
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