My dear friend T was threatened at her job.

A student announced his intentions to bring his father's gun to school and blow her face off. He has been increasingly violent of late and sexually aggressive with his classmates. She and her teaching aids have all taken to walking on eggshells around him to minimize his outbursts.

He is 5 years old.

He is 5 years old and she is afraid of him and it hurts her heart.

I would be afraid. I would be afraid of him and what he could do and what his parents might do. They do not wash him or send good food for his lunches. They were angry about having to collect him from school after the threat. Retaliation is a very real danger here.

Yet, I am more afraid because her supervisor dismissed the threat and enjoined her to try to be a bright spot in the child's life. The social worker excused his behavior because he comes from a bad home.

A five-year-old who is sexually aggressive to children and adults is a 5-year-old who is being sexually abused himself. The filth and famine are abusive as well. The violence has been noted in his chart. Yet, the whole attitude is "what can we do?"

I ache for T because of her anguish. I worry for her safety. I am angry for the child because he is need of help in so very many ways, but what he receives are absent parents and empty platitudes. I worry for his safety.

Yet, even more, I fear for our society, a society who could look on something so wrong and simply shake its head. Children should be valued if for nothing else save for the fact that they are our future. They are the ones who will be running our country when we are no longer capable of doing so.

Yes, children are resilient. If that were not so, this poor little boy would not have survived his life thus far. However, such neglect only sets him up for failure, but also limits him to a life of violence and neglect. How can he thrive in such soil?

He is but one small step away from doing something that cannot be excused away. He is already terrorizing his female classmates and his teachers. At 5. What will he be doing at 10? 15? 25?