Baseball team saying nasty things..

[Anonymous]

My kid is 7 and plays baseball. All the kids on the team were sitting around after the last game of the season, waiting for their medals, and started saying things like "I hate Larla. Yeah, she sucked. We all hate Larla." Then a unanimous chorus of "We hate Larla! We hate Larla!" Larla was a girl who began the season on the team but quit, for whatever reason. That left all boys.

Then they started saying "your mother" jokes. Your mother is so stupid. Your mother is so fat. And so on.

No parents did anything even though 7-8 were standing right there. What would you have done? What should I have done?

(FWIW I told my son to stop saying "we hate Larla." I didn't speak to the other kids. My son didn't participate in the "your mother is so stupid" jokes, probably because he knew I was watching him. But should I have said something to the other kids?)

I did talk to my son in the car about why those things are wrong. Just wondering if I should have done more.

[Anonymous]

Nip that in the bud ASAP. We don't need any more dickish adult men.

[Anonymous]

Find another baseball team for your kid to play on. I'm always surprised when parents in this area let their kids be mean. When do they think these kids will "grow out of it" without being told to stop -- or do they just not care that they will grow up to be mean adults?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Find another baseball team for your kid to play on. I'm always surprised when parents in this area let their kids be mean. When do they think these kids will "grow out of it" without being told to stop -- or do they just not care that they will grow up to be mean adults?

Yes, it's just here. Nowhere else are there mean kids, nor do kids grow up to do horrible things elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find another baseball team for your kid to play on. I'm always surprised when parents in this area let their kids be mean. When do they think these kids will "grow out of it" without being told to stop -- or do they just not care that they will grow up to be mean adults?

Yes, it's just here. Nowhere else are there mean kids, nor do kids grow up to do horrible things elsewhere.

There are a lot of mean people here -- a lot more than in most other places. If you are not aware of that, then you haven't been here long.

[Anonymous]

I would not have stood by if my son did this. I think I would have said something to the other kids, too, if I knew them well enough.

[Anonymous]

I would have stood right in front of the kids, raised my voice and said: "Cut it out, boys! We're not mean on this team!" or words to that effect.
It's not the words, it's the tone that matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Find another baseball team for your kid to play on. I'm always surprised when parents in this area let their kids be mean. When do they think these kids will "grow out of it" without being told to stop -- or do they just not care that they will grow up to be mean adults?

Oh sure that will solve the problem. These eight year olds are the only ones who tell "your mother" jokes". How are you going to prevent it from going on at school? You know damned well it happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find another baseball team for your kid to play on. I'm always surprised when parents in this area let their kids be mean. When do they think these kids will "grow out of it" without being told to stop -- or do they just not care that they will grow up to be mean adults?

Oh sure that will solve the problem. These eight year olds are the only ones who tell "your mother" jokes". How are you going to prevent it from going on at school? You know damned well it happens.

I don't care about the Yo Mamma jokes. I was more concerned with them chanting "We hate Larla," a former teammate "who quit for whatever reason" (obviously a good choice on her part).

[Anonymous]

Changing teams won't work--kids do this on all teams. Tell him it's wrong and that he needs to ignore it.

Don't go shouting down a pack of mouthy kids unless you want your kid to become the target and the other parents to think you are a loon. Focus on yourself and your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Changing teams won't work--kids do this on all teams. Tell him it's wrong and that he needs to ignore it.

Don't go shouting down a pack of mouthy kids unless you want your kid to become the target and the other parents to think you are a loon. Focus on yourself and your kid.

Why can't the decent people be in the majority and the parents who approve of their kids chanting their hatred for a former teammate be the ones who look like loons?

[Anonymous]

Sorry, this doesn't seem so outside of what kids that age do.

She quit the team. Maybe because they were obnoxious, but maybe they are obnoxious because she quit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Changing teams won't work--kids do this on all teams. Tell him it's wrong and that he needs to ignore it.

Don't go shouting down a pack of mouthy kids unless you want your kid to become the target and the other parents to think you are a loon. Focus on yourself and your kid.

Why can't the decent people be in the majority and the parents who approve of their kids chanting their hatred for a former teammate be the ones who look like loons?

This. But the real world is often Bizzaro World.

[Anonymous]

Seriously - change teams. If this happened on my 8 year old's team - they would all be benched, batting last or running laps. A few kids were mocking a kid on the other team last week - not too bad but our coach dealt with immediately after being alerted by the other parents who also said something and stopped it. Unbelievable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nip that in the bud ASAP. We don't need any more dickish adult men.

+1. And there's something about all-male teams that feeds dickishness, apparently from a young age.