Friends

As parents you try and give your kids the best. 
We have tried to teach them all the things that are important to us, and what we think they will need to be successful adults.  (We are still working on teaching these things...)

But when your kids are sent out into the world at such a young age, there is a lot of pressure on them.  I hope they will remember what we have taught them.  I hope they can make good choices that won't hurt them or others.  However, I am having a hard time with just having to 'hope' they do that.  I want to protect them from the world.  Any negative influences I hear or see them come in contact with have me stressing out. 

Our current negative influence has actually been in our life for about a year and a half now.  He is a neighbor kid.  He rode the bus with my kids last year and would show up at our house almost every day after school.  He didn't seem too bad at first, and maybe I'm too harsh on him, but I grew tired of him fast. 

On one, uninvited, visit to our house he broke our screen door.  Another time he broke our batting tee (not a HUGE deal, but annoying).  He is a big kid for an 8 year old and he pushed Brylee to the ground because he was mad at her.  A year ago he threw Tate on a bean bag and hurt him. 

He tells my kids that I am a mean mom, because I have rules and don't let my 5-8 year olds run around the neighborhood unsupervised.  He tells my kids "your momma's so fat..."  jokes.  Which they believe are really about me.  He is a bully to littler kids on the bus, including Cody. 

All this has been going on for so long, and it didn't hit all at once so I never realized how many complaints I had about him...

This week Dallin told me that this kid has a tablet that he pulls out on the bus and he and Dallin listen to music.  So Dallin wanted me to find the songs on the computer so he could listen to them here.  Of course they are all rap songs.  I don't know if he has the clean versions, or the ones with explicit lyrics.  Dallin is now convinced that he likes rap music.  Great. 

So, now I'm torn between forbidding this friendship (even though I can't really control that because he is in Dallin's class) or just 'hoping' that my kids will remember what we have taught them.  Will they follow his lead and start using crude language? 

Dallin already got a half-day-in-school-suspension for hitting other kids.  I'd like to think there was some outside influence on that behavior...  I just think kids are so fragile and impressionable.  Of course they want to be cool and do what their friends do. 

I'm considering taking my kids off of the bus.  But there would still be interaction with him at school.  I'm very frustrated.  I can't wait to move simply to get away from this kid.  I know there will be kids like him wherever we go.  Too bad I really don't want to homeschool.  If things got bad enough I would. 

Anyway, sorry for the long rant.  Being a parent isn't easy.