There's this kid who has speech therapy on one of the same days as Henry. In fact, he and Henry are often in a group session together. The kid is a total brat. I hate to say that about a 4 year old, but he is.
Every day that he's there at speech therapy, he comes running into the waiting room and immediately starts destroying things. He grabs toys out of other kids' hands, throws stuff across the room, dumps kids out of the chairs they're sitting in, tries to pick up babies, etc, etc, etc. All the while, his mother busies herself talking to the receptionist and attempting to not notice what her son is doing.
At first I didn't say anything to the kid because his mother is right there and I didn't want to cross any boundaries. But eventually it became apparent that his mother is not interested in disciplining him and so, as there is clearly no boundary to cross, I started to try to keep his behavior somewhat in check whenever he's around my kids. I mean, every once in a while his mom will turn and look at him and snap his name and threaten to "tell his daddy" or whatever, but for the most part she doesn't say anything and he certainly doesn't listen to her.
Recently, we arrived to speech therapy a few minutes late and this kid's mom was standing outside smoking a cigarette. I thought that they must have already taken the kids back to their therapy session and I was feeling disappointed that we were so late. But we walked into the waiting room and there was that bratty kid, literally trying to snatch a cell phone out of one of the other mother's hands while she tensely tried to explain that it is not his phone, it is her phone, and he cannot have it to play with. Bratty kid then ran over to a one year old baby and tried to dump her out of the chair she was sitting in.
I was super pissed. What kind of mother leaves her 4 year old unsupervised (or expecting the other parents in the vicinity to supervise her child for her) while she stands outside and smokes a cigarette? Especially if you know your kid has behavioral problems? She couldn't wait 5 minutes for the therapist to come and get her son for his therapy session? She had to smoke a cigarette RIGHT THEN? I was about to go talk to the receptionist and ask her to talk to the kid's mother and let her know that she needs to better supervise her son before his session begins, but right then all of the therapists came out and started to gather up the kids and there was a moment or two of chaos.
In all of the hubbub, the bratty kid (intentionally) pushed Clark over and Clark started crying. As I bent to pick Clark up, the mom came wandering in. She looked 100% high. She looked at her son with a droopy-eyed half smile and instinctively knew that he had done something to make Clark cry. "Did you hurt that baby?" And then she turns to me, "He's such a bully. A big ol' bully." And then she starts laughing. Her front teeth have always looked normal to me, but I could see some of her side teeth for the first time and they looked black and rotted. Meth mouth? That's my guess.
So now it all makes sense. And now I feel kind of sorry for the kid. Wasn't expecting that. Ugh.
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