The "bad" kid

We’ve all heard someone say it, they’re just a bad kid. They don’t do anything but cause problems. You’ll be dealing with them when they turn 18, referring to me as a Deputy Sheriff. The list goes on and I hate hearing it. It’s no different than if I, as Law Enforcement, looked down at everyone I’ve ever had dealings with or took to jail and told them you’re nothing but a doper, a drunk, a piece of crap, a waste of space, oxygen thief, a blight on society. Yes, these are all things I’ve heard other cops, including myself many years ago, say to people we’ve interacted with. However, this mindset and treatment of others does absolutely nothing but compound that person’s problems, and by extension societies problems.

One of the many things I’ve learn over the last 16 years as a Law Enforcement Officer, is you don’t know that person, you don’t know what their life’s been like. You don’t know the hardships, the torment and trauma they’ve dealt with that’s led them to be where they’re at in life. After spending years talking to suspects, their family, their friends, hearing about what that person’s had to endure growing up, sometimes continuing into adulthood, I can truly understand why they are on the path they’re on. With many of them, even though they’re on a troubled path, I’m surprised they were able to find the strength to stay among us in this world. How many of us would have the strength to carry on if we were regularly beaten, sexually assaulted, and tormented by those who were suppose to love and protect us when we were children? I can’t be sure I could, and unless you’ve been in that person’s shoes you can’t either.

Not a single person in this world is born to hate or born a “bad” kids. No one is born thinking I’m just going to be a pain in the butt for everyone. Barring un/ill treated mental health problems, when kids are acting out, or being a “bad” kid, something going in that child’s life that we probably have no clue about and its effect on that child is coming to the surface.

More often than not, an adult’s immediate reaction to undesirable behavior is assert their “power”, to lay down the law, and more often than not this simply makes the situation worse. In no way, in any shape form or fashion, am I saying that there shouldn’t be a consequence for poor behavior, in general, there should always be consequences for one’s actions.

As adults though our main concern shouldn’t just be disciplining the behavior, but trying to find out what’s going on in the child’s life to cause the behavior. If their home life consists of their parents yelling and screaming constantly, at each other or at them, or physical abuse between parents or towards them, and they can’t escape from it, it WILL manifest itself behaviorally in one form or another.

It may look like the shy quiet outcast that keeps to themselves, or it they may be the one who is always getting into fights. It could present itself as such a minute issue as sleeping in class. I have literally had situations of nothing more than a student sleeping in class, and through the work of great counselors, uncovered incidents of sexual abuse in the home.

The next time you see or hear about that kid acting out, being a bully, fighting or making poor decisions, before you write them off as just a “bad kid” stop and think to yourself what could be going on in their life that’s making them act out like that. If, we as a society, had more empathy for others and took the time to think about what that child or adult is or has been through in their lives, we could make a massive difference in getting those people the help they truly need.

If we truly knew what a lot of these individuals are going through and struggling with it would shock most to their core. Be nice to everyone you meet; you never know what battles they’re fighting to just survive.