Delinquent Toddlers

I live in a very residential, one time working class, area of Dublin. Nowadays there is a good mix of people there, from young couples with no kids, to families with children coming out the windows. In my street there are quite a few elderly people, who have lived there all of their lives, from what I can gather. My next door neighbour Johnny is one of these people. He's a gentleman. He must be in his 80's, smokes like a trooper, never married and has very little family around. We look in on him from time to time and he seems to drink more of our milk than we do!

Last night I was procrastinating before studying, as you do, when I was drawn to the window by the sound of kids yelling. I love spying on them as they are generally just messing around and it amuses me when I have other things to do, so I took a peek!


Delinquent Toddler!

Outside was this little fecker, who we think is addressed as Kelvin! He must be about 3 and a half. I wouldn't normally refer to children as feckers but this one has earned his title believe me. I feel sorry for him most of them time as he appears to be dumped in his Granny's house early every day and is sometimes collected in the evening. He wasn't able to speak properly until relatively recently and is always on the street. But you can quarantee that if there is mischief to be made he will be in the middle of it. But last night he went too far.

At the time I intercepted him he was pegging stones at Johnny's house. When I ran outside to yell at him I found Johnny on his door step looking very distressed. It then transpired that the young fella had Johnny run ragged, knocking on his door, throwing stones at his windows and following him whenever he left the house. He also told me that the young fella has a fondness for exposing himself in the street and taking a piss up against the houses.

What do you do with that? He's only 3 or so now, what in the name of God is going to happen to him as he gets older? We heard only recently in relation to the riots in the north about kids as young as 5 being involved in the riots, what's next for them? Drive by shootings at 8?

I don't know what to do about this kid. The parents don't give a damn about him. I'm worried about Johnny and his health and would hate to think of him being upset by all of this, which I have no doubt is the case. I'm not around all the time to do the shouting and giving out and I know that won't have an affect for long. It's a bit of a quandry.