Wisdom Beyond His Years

I found out today that, shortly after the Embassy spent $20,000 refurbishing the tennis court at the nearby housing compound, a group of children--ages unknown--spent an evening slamming large rocks onto the surface, causing $7000 in damage.

Will anything be done to apprehend and punish the perpetrators? I don't know.

However, I decided to make this a teaching moment for Joseph, age 9. We walked over to the tennis court, but couldn't see into it through the screened fence. (Now they lock it.) I told him what had happened, and asked him what he would or should have done had he been in this group of children. He gave all the right answers: NOT participate, leave, tell an adult.

I told him that if I had heard that he was in the group and then talked to him about it and he'd told me that he didn't participate, I'd want to believe him. But his very presence would make him as guilty as the others. He seemed to understand that idea, and knows that, while he should do his best to keep his friends from doing dumb things, if they did them anyway, he needs to leave. Immediately.

Anyway, the conversation moved on to other things; we talked about how everybody does dumb things, everyone finds themselves in a group of people doing dumb things, and we need to be careful not to stay. I told him that not everyone has the wisest of parents. Some parents even buy alcohol for their children to drink at home, arguing that, since teenagers drink, they'd rather have them drinking at home where they can control it.

Joseph's response: "That'll just encourage them to drink somewhere else, too."