Sticking Up for Your Kid

For once, it was someone else’s kid I called to the carpet today, rather than the boy.

Not that I’ve had to correct the boy in front of other kids often, but I’ve never been afraid to let him know when he was doing something wrong and he should knock it off, like now. Those moments tend to have a long tail when it comes to correcting behavior.

In this case, there’s a little bit of history between the boy and his antagonist. In fact, I suspect that the boy has been targeted as a measuring stick of sorts. He’s much larger than, well, everyone in his class basically. I went through something similar so it’s easy to recognize.

Fortunately, the boy is mild-mannered and conscious of “not getting in trouble” so he typically turns the other cheek or walks away from the situation. While I consider that to be the best response on his part, it has a negative consequence: it encourages the antagonist to keep pushing. Walking away is interpreted as weakness. Couple that with the fact that kids are crafty enough to know how to time their attacks for when no one else is looking, and, well, you get what we had this morning.

It started during warm-ups on the ice. I noticed the boy take a tumble, but his head whipped around immediately and he locked eyes with another kid and I knew immediately that the boy had been taken down deliberately. I was on alert now.

Luckily, the two of them were separated for most of the practice, purely by happenstance. But towards the end, all of the kids were brought together for the drills and, with the increased opportunities, the other kid started taking his shots. I saw a couple of pretty clear slashes and pushes, which the boy simply got up and skated away from. Finally, after a third time the boy went and told the head coach.

But things came to a head at the end of the drill. As the kids were skating to the bench, the antagonist skated up behind the boy and took a batter’s swing at the boy’s legs with his stick. Not just one, but a couple of swings. None of the coaches saw it.

Now I was hot and started walking over to the bench, which was on the other side of the ice. By the time I got there, I’d cooled off and decided I’d hold off saying anything. But then the Wife came up and said she saw the boy get “punched” in the head by the antagonist. She said the boy simply got up and went to the other side of the bench.

I immediately turned, walked onto the bench and in front of all the kids, and coaches, called the kid out. I told him that the coaches may not be seeing what he was doing, but I did and I better not see him slash the boy with a stick of punch him in the head again. I made sure the antagonist understood what I was telling him, then stalked off the bench.

The coaches separated the two of them after that. But the drama wasn’t over entirely. The antagonist’s Dad had seen me and wanted to know what was going on. I told him what had been happening and he asked if it was “going both ways” meaning he thought the boy was giving as good as he was getting. I told him “No” in no uncertain terms. Overall, he was upset I hadn’t said something to him before saying something to his son.

It was a fair point, but I wanted the shenanigans done. I’ve never had a problem with other parents correcting the boy, and I’ve generally not hesitated to correct other kids. This situation was different because of the public nature and the forcefulness with which I’d acted.

Did I handle things well? I think I’ll save that for a post later today.