Children and Chaos at STA

We had our last ERP kids event of the year last night. It was movie night watching Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium at STA. There were about 12 kids and 7 ISU students which is crazy in itself, but good enough when they're watching a movie. But only 1 child actually watched the movie (they complained that they didn't like the movie, so we switched it to Enchanted and still, only one watched the movie).

It was fine because most of them played in the Angels room, but a few of the older boys just went around picking fights. It made me sad to see that their way of interaction was mainly to get into fights or yell at each other and call each other names. I mean, I know they're kids, but at ten and eleven years old, it was more than just the typical kids being kids. Then the oldest one, Bear, grabbed one of the bulletins and realized that we were in a Catholic church and freaked out. I can't be in no Catholic Church, I'm a Christian. Catholics are demons, they're devils. Then he saw a picture of Pope Benedict XVI in the student lounge. You shouldn't be wearing that cross. You're no Christian. Bear in mind that there were a number of young adults gathering in the lounge at the time witnessing all of this. Catholics think they're Christians, but they're not. They're devil-worshippers.

I was offended and saddened. Offended because we make time to plan events for the kids - and enjoy doing it - and organize it through our Catholic Church. Then he goes around yelling that we are terrible people (not my interpretation, he actually did) when we're doing these things for them. We could have been studying, probably should have been, but since they asked us to do a movie night we added one last event. It was frustrating and made me not want to make the effort in the future. Granted it was only one child, but by the end of the night he had one other girl come up to me and tell me Catholics are bad (though she clearly only did it because she felt forced to) and many other students heard his rants.

I'm not sure how much of the things he was saying he actually believed versus how much he said just to get a rise out of us. It made me sad to think of how young he is and how intolerant he is already. And if it was only to get attention, the fact that he felt like he needed to try to hurt someone in order to get attention. Or maybe he was just bored and figured that was something to do for a while. Whatever the case, he thought it was acceptable to go around yelling insults in the church. It made me sad. And grateful for the home I was raised in where hitting was a timeout and screaming meant getting sent to my room and fighting with a neighbor probably meant not playing outside the next day.

There are two new children that just moved in to ERP family housing that are still sweet and not violent. I hope they have the chance to play outside with the other kids, but that the other kids aren't a bad influence on them. It's just a tough situation all the way around. And we don't spend enough time with them to make much of a tangible difference other than maybe 5 or 6 hours a month. I hope in the fall, or even this summer, they can get a tutoring program going for the kids to help with reading or schoolwork on a regular basis.