The toddler boy was approximately 2 years old, and was obviously excited to be at the petting zoo. He repeatedly slapped the animals near him, and finally his mother picked him up. He then hit her in the face and on the arms and yelled at her until she set him back down on the ground where he returned to terrorizing a goat.
We were at Cabella's. The little girl was around 5, and she looked directly at her mother, who was watching her, and purposefully dropped her jacket on the floor, and then stomped away. The mother went behind the child, picked up the jacket and tied it to the strap of her own purse, while saying something to the child. Child then ran over to mom, and slapped her on the arm, hard, folded her arms across her chest and stomped off. Both parents watched this happen, and did nothing.
Both of these children appeared to be normal kids at appropriate developmental stages for their approximate ages. Neither of them appeared to have any visible neurological problem that would cause this sort of behavior and they seemed to interact with their siblings appropriately at other times during the time we observed them. Both of these children had both mother and father with them at the time these incidents occurred. Both of these children are preschool age.
Both of these children have won in their households.
A while back someone asked me why I didn't have my kids in any sort of mother's day out type program. My "official" answer was that I didn't believe that they needed it as yet: they have each other to play with, we read, play, sing, paint/draw/color/sculpt every day, and we're saving money for the days when they will attend a quality preschool program. For the Critter that will be next September, for Little Bit, the year after. My private answer? Because I don't want my kids to be around mean children who have not been taught what appropriate behavior is.
Notice I wrote 'not been taught' as opposed to 'haven't learned'. There is a difference, and it is a big one.
I worked in public schools for 15 years, working with age levels spanning pre-k to college, and occupying various positions. Every year when I worked in elementary schools, a new crop of Kindergarteners would enroll, and you could tell right away which kids had not been taught appropriate behavior. When I worked in secondary schools you could point them out with ease still, and in college there were some people on the cusp of adulthood who obviously hadn't been taught the rules of the sandbox. We here in the blogging world see it in full-grown adults who leave nasty anonymous comments.
They don't just wake up one morning as pre-schoolers/pre-teens/young adults gone wrong, and it's not about socio-ecomonics or stay-at-home versus daycare. They all started out as innocent babies, and it's the adults who screw them up.
Children really aren't that complicated, but they do learn what we teach them. And all too often, what we teach them is entirely by accident, omission, or inaction. I would hope that no one would ever purposefully teach a child that hitting is appropriate, but by not acting when it happens, we have done just that.
(And why is it that they learn the negative things after seeing/hearing/experiencing it just once, and I'm still reminding the Critter 'no elbows on the table' after two years of 3 daily meals? ... but I digress...)
Yes, it's easier to not deal with it, and hope the behavior will go away.
Will it? No.
Yes, it takes time and patience to correct children.
It is easy? No.
Yes, there are are some children that are more 'challenging' or 'spirited' than others.
Does that mean we can NOT do our best to teach them? Absolutely not.
Do I always do it right? God, no.
Do I pray every single day that I have more positive moments than negative? Absolutely.
No one said that it would be easy when we signed on for this parenting gig, and by bringing these children into this world we have placed the responsibility of being their first teacher squarely on our own shoulders.
So suck it up, quit your whining, get off your lazy tush and do the right thing.
If we teach them that whining is the way to get what they want, they will whine from that day forward.
If we teach them that hitting is appropriate problem-solving, they will employ that solution from now on.
If we teach them that people who look different from them are bad or wrong, they will go into adulthood with those attitudes.
Conversely:
If we teach them that it's friendly to use good manners, they will use them.
If we teach them how to be patient and talk out their problems with others they will do it.
If we teach them to be tolerant of others' differences and that everyone is God's creation, they will live that attitude.
Those kids? Those are the kids I want my babies to hang out with.
Maybe I'll invite them to visit us on our private desert island once in a while.
The impatiens in the hayracks on my front porch
Here she is in the summer of 1970, when I was just 4 or so months old. Why couldn't I have gotten the skinny gene? 
November, 1973. My 4th birthday. I think the look on my face sums it up nicely.
