The curious case of the football hooligan

Lucas and his seldom worn Liverpool FC football jersey

One day, my mum spoke to me about my son and his adventures in the field just below my mother's house. Usually after my son finishes with his student care, he goes to my mother's house. He started to 'play' football with the kids downstairs. In reality, he is really more of a cheerleader who happens to stand in the field. I am also glad the older boys tolerate the presence of the young ones (there is another younger boy whose 'position' is similar to his).

According to my mum, there was one incident when an older boy got angry with the younger boy. Apparently, he was running towards him, and looked like he was going to hit the younger boy. My son, who was nearby, apparently reacted to this by saying something to the older boy. That drew the ire of the older boy who went after my son instead. Fortunately my mum reacted quick enough with a shout and the older boy only shoved my son lightly. However, my son started to cry and hug his grandmother tightly. She brought him to the toilet to wash his face and a security guard who was nearby asked what happened. When my son came out of the toilet, the security guard told me son that she had already scolded the boy. Later, my mother found of that the boy was not popular with the rest of the kids because he lost his temper frequently.

Later, my mother told me she was not very sure if she had done the right thing in handling the case. Actually, I was thinking to myself, I was not sure what was correct. Though, knowing myself, I would have some choice words with that boy.

Now that the incident has died down, I actually went to do some research on what to do when dealing with aggressive kids in the playground. Interesting the expert advise was never to discipline the other kid. However, there were many comments that basically said that they did not agree with her. And to some extent I agree. In the past, children were raised in a more communal environment. Children could be and would be disciplined by the 'entire village', just like the African saying that 'it takes a village to raise a child'.  I am not saying that we should hit the child or anything like that. But I believe a firm word that this sort of behaviour is not acceptable. Though some parents will react badly to it, I think they cannot fault me as I did not say anything wrong or rude to their child. That is exactly why I think sometimes parenting has failed nowadays. It seems like nobody is qualified to correct their child, regardless of what their child did. Sometimes they even extend this to the child's teachers! 

Maybe he can be like Sammo Hung - Chubby yet dangerous

One thing I like about football incident was the fact that my son actually intervened in a potential conflict (he said something to the older boy so that the younger boy was not hit). I believe that we should not stand by and watch injustice happen.
The only thing that he needs training is that after he stands up for injustice, then he must be brave enough to confront the perpuatators of the injustice. I hope that he learns to stand up for the weak. But then he needs to stand up for himself first.

Or he can be like Po.