playgroundTeenagers get a bad rap, especially when they're in big groups acting rowdy. But here's a lesson for moms who give their teens grief for hanging out with their pals and doing nothing. When a would-be child abductor tried to grab toddlers in a Florida park on Saturday, it was the group of loud teens who came to their rescue.

The story goes that Sharaya Smith had taken her 3-year-old daughter and 4-year-old nephew to the park to play, and she'd told the noisy teens to knock it off. Fortunately the kids didn't hold it against her when a man came out of the woods and made for the toddlers.

Smith wasn't able to grab the little kids and get away, so when she shouted for help, the teenagers formed a circle around her and the kids until she could get them safely into her car. She then called the cops who arrested a man named Bienvenido Cintron and charged him with attempted kidnapping.

How lucky was she that those teens were there? And that they did the right thing?

Smith is calling the teenagers her heroes, and she's more than a little embarrassed that she'd yelled at them earlier.

Let's face it: the attitude she had at the beginning of the ordeal is exactly why letting your teen hang out with a group of other kids can be scary for moms. People are scared of teens just hanging out, and they judge the heck out of them.

But as this little rescue mission so clearly reminds us, most teenagers are generally good kids. And when you get a bunch of good kids together, you never know what they'll do ... maybe save a mom and two kids from a kidnapper?

Do you judge groups of teenagers? What goes through your mind?

 

Image via BFS Man/Flickr