My son lives with his mother, and every weekend I take the two-hour-roundtrip train ride to pick him up and drop him off. I don’t own a car since I live around public transit, so the commuter rail it is.

The ride is a good time to catch up with E when I first pick him up, or to just quietly hang out (well, as quietly as a 10-year old can hang out). It’s the only way I know to get him to take a nap in the middle of the day.

On my way home from dropping E off this afternoon, my RSS feed-reading (thanks to the MBCR’s free wifi) was interrupted by a young voice shouting “I’ll break your hip again!” Up the ramp came a boy, I guessed about 7-years old, followed by his older sister and grandparents. The grandparents just shook their head and tried to corral the boy into a seat.

The boy’s attitude was shocking. He was rude, he knew it, and he was proud of it. He was a badass in the worst possible way.

I had a flash of “Punk kids these days” before I realized I’m bunching my son into that group. Then I thought of what I’d do if E ever said something like that, and it hit me that he simply wouldn’t; ten years of reinforcement of ways to behave by both his mother and me have yielded a respectful little kid – especially to his grandparents!

Then I realized this kid wasn’t that special. There were the badass kids when I was in elementary school, and there were badass kids when my parents were young. This is the kid that other kids avoid. This is the kid that other kids’ dads teach the three tries rule: give him three chances to leave you alone before you lay him out.

Then I got to thinking about how connected we are. Especially in urban areas, we spend more time in public spaces. Compared to when I was a kid, less and less family time is spent inside the house. People count the mall as a place to spend time as a family – complete with amusement parks. Being around other families more and more, we’re exposed to the good and the bad of other people’s parenting.

Then I thought about what I’d say if E was with me to witness this. Would I have to say anything? We have an almost unspoken communication around things like this, where he’ll just look at me with an expression like, “Can you believe he gets away with that?”, and I’ll respond with a look that quite simply says “No, no I can’t, and you’d better not try.”

What about you? Have you ever been in a situation with your child where you’ve observed bad behavior from other kids? How did you turn an awkward moment into a teachable moment?

Gradon Tripp helps nonprofits raise money online, but in and out of the office, has two blogs, and is the father of an awesome son.