Talking to Children about Talking

A couple weeks ago, I was with my 12-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son at a public park pool in our community. It's generally a great place to connect with friends from school. But not all children are friendly -- or at least they say some pretty unfriendly things. One group of 14ish-year-olds made my son particularly upset when he tried to interact with them. Seeing his anguish, a couple of them initiated personal apologies to him on their own.