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The original was posted on /r/amitheasshole by /u/PossiblePlane9023 on 2024-01-23 02:29:12+00:00.
I (38m) have a son (9m) who loves to play basketball. He's the type who carries a ball with him everywhere, and basically his entire life consists of playing basketball. His birthdays have in some way or the other revolved around basketball. All of his friends also play basketball, and supposedly that's all they play at school.
Now there's a kid at school that recently started playing with them who is more sensitive to comments and doesn't like to play as aggressive as others. Apparently he is neighbors with one of my son's other friend. Most of the time, because they're young kids, if someone messes up they will call each other stupid, dumb, whatever terms kids playing sports use. However, this kid doesn't like all that. He will get very upset and go tell the teacher if someone calls him any name. So far, no teacher has reported any behavior issues with my son, so I didn't care to pay attention to the situation. I saw it as boys being boys and I assumed eventually the kid will just adapt.
So the other day I was watching my son while he was playing after school. They were playing basketball and the kid was there. It just so happened to be that at this very moment, my son said something to him, to which the other kid got very upset at. Now his mother was also watching the game happening, and at this very moment she came up to me and said I need to teach my kid how to play properly.
This got me upset not only because they all seemed to be throwing minor insults at each other, but now I understood why this kid is so sensitive. Most likely his mother pampers him and instead of teaching him to grow up, coddles his behavior. I told her "First off, it's not only my son who talks and plays like this. All of them play aggressively the way boys normally do, and they all talk trash to each other. Second of all, your kid needs to toughen up because he's too sensitive."
This got her livid and she started rambling. She claimed that she's going to tell someone to keep a watch on my kid and the other boys when they play during school.
Now later on when I was taking my kid home, I was talking to the other parent, and they told me while I'm not wrong about the kid being sensitive, they said it's mostly to do with the parent and not his fault. Supposedly the kid heard me refer to him as sensitive, and they said I should've blamed the parent directly instead of involving him.