Reply to Why do we tolerate trash talking and elitism as "boys will be boys" behavior?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Now that my boys are getting older and we are carpooling frequently and spending weekends at various games, I am a bit disturbed by how bad the trash talking culture is with kids this young. 
When the dehumanization of another child is fueled by fierce competitiveness, why do we let it slide?The message our kids take in is that[b] “in order for me to succeed, I need to make that other kid smaller. That’s the only way I’ll get bigger. Better. Be the best.”[/b] If a child is competing against other teams, and even his own teammates, why must he diminish them in order to enlarge himself? The attitude I get from most parents of boys is they want their kid to engage so he's not a target or bullied himself and it's just a right of passage but I wonder why? Shouldn't we as parents be encouraging less toxic behaviors?  [/quote]

I am seeing this exact thing with some of the fifth grade boys at my son‘s school. I think it stems from those boys’ own insecurities, which is coming from their own parents being super competitive and making them feel like they aren’t good enough.

One of the kids who does this just recently got moved onto one of my son’s sports teams. It is making my son not enjoy practice or being on this team. It is actually one of the reasons he is moving to a different team next year. This kid is smaller and objectively not as good at the sport as my son. It seems that he wants to make my son feel bad so that he can feel better about himself.

I think this stuff is worse in the more affluent schools/areas. Parents are so hyper competitive and worry about their kids not stacking up. They pass this along to their children, whether they know it or not.[/quote]

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