Football argy-bargy, AIBU or P3B?

[ExpectoPatronum]

P3B being 'Precious Third Born', btw!

The DC go to a relatively small school, so children of all ages have playtimes together. The school encourage the year groups to mix, which usually works really well, with older children looking out for the little ones, and so on.

DS2 (my P3B) is a summer born reception child, so he's still 4. He really loves playing football and he and a few of the other boys from his class were having a kick-about on the school field at playtime today. According to my older children who saw all of this, they weren't in the way of anyone else's game.

A Year 4 boy went up to him and said 'get out of the goal'. When DS2 didn't move, the boy got down to his level and yelled in his face 'Get. Out. Of. The. Goal', and shoved him hard.

While I do realise there will always be a bit of macho argy-bargy on the football pitch, I am really unhappy about a Y4 boy of 8 or 9 yelling in the face of a 4 year old and shoving him.

Do you agree?

And if you do, what (if anything) would you do about it?

How did your ds2 take it? Did he tell you? Was he upset? Or was it only his older siblings saying something, that made you aware of it?

If it was the latter, I would leave it as your ds2 was not upset - and some battles have to be done without parents.

How does ds2 respond if his older siblings tell him to do something he doesn't want to do? Does he stand his ground, and get away with it? I.e. do you say to siblings 'leave him he's not in your way', or do they just leave him to it? If he is allowed to stand his ground, this is not a bad thing at all, but he will find that other children aren't as accommodating, so again useful skills to learn.

It was DS2 who told me, and I think he was more indignant than upset.

He's a stubborn little so-and-so, and in that respect I agree that he has to learn (both within the family and without) that other people won't always give in to him.

However, I think there's two things here:

1. it's not as though he was doing anything wrong, by all accounts, and in that case why should he move just because someone else wants him to?

and

1. we don't give in to him, he's on a prolonged learning curve of understanding that when I / DH says 'no', it means 'no'. But we aren't in the habit of yelling in his face and pushing him, and I don't think anyone should have to accept that.

I don't think I would have been so bothered by this if it had been another child in his own class, or even Y1 (I wouldn't have liked it, you understand, but it wouldn't have bothered me as much), but I think the size, age and developmental difference between a 9 year old and a 4 year old is pretty significant.

I speak as a mother of a football mad yr 2 ds - who has older sibling and a father who never makes allowances for age.

You are free to disagree with me, and others probably will, but in my experience, football field is a different territory to anything else out there. (I say this with my first child being a daughter!).

My ds learnt the law of the football pitch, the hard way, he's had broken glasses from being told to move whilst in the way and the ball being pelted at him by older kids. He then moved. He's had balls tackled off him being told that he's too young to play. This was all in reception year. He was indignant would come home to tell me in a 'you wouldn't believe what happened' kind of way, I found it very hard not to go to school, my dh was the one who said 'let him learn, he's not upset, if he is then you can go down.'

By yr 1 he was the best footballer in the infants (rec-Yr 2), and knew the way of the land.

Now in yr 2 he's playing against the juniors, and is one of the best tacklers in the school. I really do believe this was him learning that you learnt where to stand in the school, and if you don't want an older kid to take your ball, you learn the footwork to a) accept you on the team and b) to keep hold of the ball.

He's not turned into a thug, he's the most docile unaggressive boy you'll ever meet. He does not do any sort of confrontation, but has learnt the lay of the football field!

My advice is sit on this one - no it isn't right, and I don't condone the behaviour, but I can only say that my dh was right on the advice to leave football spats unless he's upset.

I have got a yr 4 DS and would be furious if I saw him behaving as you describe towards a 4 year old. There is nothing special about football which means its ok to behave like that imo.