DS being excluded from football at break because he's not on the football team

[camperlass]

This is the first time I have posted on here so first of all, greetings! DS is eight and has just started getting into football. It's late, I know, as most of the kids in his class have been playing in teams for years and are much better than him. They are allowed to take sponge balls in to play with at lunch time, but his friends are telling him he cannot play with them because he's not on the team, although presumably what they mean is that he's not good enough. I kind of get that, although I hate that football has become so competitive that even children of that age are being encouraged to exclude those not perceived as good enough.
So I bought him his own ball to take in to play with, with anyone who will play with him - but now one of these 'friends' has told him he can't play with his own ball at break time! My DS is quite a quiet kid, and wouldn't want to have an argument about it, so he just went along with it, but was quite upset. He said he doesn't want me to speak to the kid's parent, but I feel like I ought to say something - he shouldn't be allowed to boss other kids around like that! I don't want to get anyone's back up, but I know as a parent if my child was behaving like that I would want to know. Should I say something or not?

You talk to the school

Say something to the teacher, not the parent. That way the teacher can tell the kids they are all alowed to play ball at break time and no one is allowed to exclude anyone or boss them around. That way it won;t be apparent you or your DS have complained - it will just be an observation and instruction fomr the teacher.

Some kids think they are king of the playground - and need reminding they don't get to make the rules.

Talk to the teacher definitely not the parents.
The teacher will know how to handle it and explain how it's not nice to leave others out.

This fucking well fucks me right off. This has happened to way, want too many DS’s in my friend group and it’s time it fucking stopped. The little alpha boys that do this are usually always lauded for their team spirit too.

OP this is time to get down the school and insist that if the kids can have balls they can learn to play inclusively. Or not.

Talk to the teacher, not the parent. It’s not worth speaking to the parent, normally they will always defend their child. My second child will finish school this year, I’ve seen this many times.

The teacher is best placed to deal with the situation anyway.

Surely your first port of call is to explain to your son that the other kids don’t make the school rules and unless a member of staff tells him otherwise he can play with his ball?
Why are people so keen to rush into the school rather than equip their children with the skills to solve very minor issues themselves?

Bumsex (great name!), yes I have explained to him that it's unacceptable for other kids to make the rules, and that of course he can play with his own ball. But my worry is that he has now been put off taking his ball into school at all. My instinct is to give it a week or so and if it carries on then to speak to the teacher as other posters have said.

Oh I know this scenario well. My ds also would like to play football in the playground but the A team sporty kids exclude anyone who they deem “not good enough”. Unfortunately ds won’t now play football, but he has found a group of boys who play other games with him. I do wish some parents (and teachers) would drill it into kids to be more inclusive and not so bloody bossy!

I think if he is changing his behaviour based on a comment from another child (which may well have been incorrect but the other child might have thought it was true) I would be trying to build a bit of confidence resilience. The ball is a side issue imo. Yes the teacher could make some kind of announcement that balls from home are allowed and your ds might feel happy to take his ball back in but what about when someone else says he can’t do something that he knows he can? You say he wanted to avoid an argument but not arguing doesn’t mean you have to do everything other children tell you. I’d maybe roleplay some scenarios and give him the vocab to respectfully disagree.

Thank you for all your responses! DS is not the most confident of kids and that is something we do work on, but it is against his nature to get into arguments so I try to focus on negotiation rather than confrontation, but I guess in some situations its unavoidable! He doesn't want to 'break friends' with the child in question either. I will monitor the situation over the next week, which will give him a chance to deal with the situation himself, but if it continues I don't think I should stand by and ignore it for too long.

I would go in Monday .
You already have tried to solve it.
We ar parents have to advocate for children at times . He is only 8 . A week is a long time to struggle with it

Talk to teacher. No way would our school have that. They are allowed to play footie at breaktimes but TA usually helps them organise teams to keep it fair. They have had football privileges removed for a week for doing this kind of thing.

Where do you draw the line between inclusion and forcing kids to play with others they don’t want to play with though - perhaps with good reason?

I'm very sorry to hear this camperlass. I don't have much constructive to add to the advice of the previous posters but just wanted to express solidarity with you. My DS has also been a victim of this sort of exclusionary behaviour on the part of the dominant sporty boys and was not 'allowed' to join in with playground football matches.

It went on for years even although I alerted the school to the situation and they agreed it was unfair. There's a particular mentality around football that seems to encourage this form of bullying.

I wish schools would take this perennial problem much more seriously.

Definitely flag with School. I'm a lunchtime supervisor and I'd remove football privileges for bullying behaviour like that.

We had similar, ds also a late-comer to football. Football causes huge problems at lots of primary schools. The Head at ds' school regularly bans it at break time because of the nastiness that occurs.

Ds tried joining an out-of-school football club in order to improve so that the 'football boys' at school would let him play. Unfortunately the attitude at the club was much the same. The football boys' dads who ran the club sessions turned a blind eye to ds being excluded and picked on.

Complain every time it happens. If you know parents of other boys who have the same issue, get them to complain too. I hate that bullying gets tolerated because 'that's football'. All the football-mad boys at ds' school have left now - nobody plays it at playtime, so no further problems!

I hate how devisive football is allowed to be in primary school. When I rule the world football in the playground will be banned. And “Games lessons” will be replaced the fitness. Learning to work as a team, my arse.

Just tell his teacher - don’t get annoyed about what an 8 year old boy has told your son can and can’t happen - he’s not in charge.

Thank you all for your messages of solidarity! Seems like this is an issue affecting a lot of kids. Whatever happened to just being able to kick a ball around, without worrying about being Premier League material! As far as my DS is concerned, that's all he wants to do, kick a ball around with his friends. They don't even do that much football in PE, so if you're not in a football team you've got no chance of even improving that much.

Why don't you take him along to a club? I know it's a big commitment and hard work but it sounds like he'd like to learn.

This attitude can take over if not curbed; once, when I was on playground duty, the "football boys" asked me, in all seriousness, to tell the other children to "get out of the way of their game" ie banish all the girls (good footballers included) and less sporty boys to the edges of the available space. They got short shrift, (after I recovered from my gobsmackedness!) and I wasn't the only teacher to raise the issue at Staff meeting.
The solutions we tried were: restricting the sessions where football was permitted, adding markings to the playground which suggested other games, having other equipment to loan for playtimes, and TA's given suggestions for instigating other games.
But it needed constant reinforcement, and you may have to remind the teachers more than once about it.

I’d try a different tack, I’d sign him up for rugby and or basketball, and encourage him to make friends with one of the boys there. He could then take a rugby or basketball to school.

I don’t think this is just about football, but more about a couple of little gits bullying your son by exclusion.

Just to wind me up, the side banner advert that keeps popping up for me on this page right now is for Premier League: "Football is everyone's game".... or not.

Thinking about it perhaps the boys would listen to their sports coach, speak to him or her about this.