A 7 year old heckler...

My son Conner (7 Yrs Old) had a baseball game tonight. Baseball is my favorite sport and I loved playing it, but It's hard for me to watch him play. I get so nervouse everytime he steps to the plate or a balls hit his way. When he strikes out or misses a ball it breaks my heart. Why though?

Partly because I desparetly want him to succeed, to be the best, to look good in the eyes of other people. Partly because of pride, I want to look good as his father. In some sick way his success validates my athletic prowess and wonderful parenting/coaching skills.

He played great tongiht (was 2-4), but something happened outside of the game that made even prouder.

A teammate (A 7 Yr Old Heckler) sat next to conner on the bench and was being very mean to Conner for some reason. It was the usual first grade stuff, calling him names like, "Retart" and "stupid". He even resorted to the "You suck". Standing only two feet behind this brat I wanted to ring his neck at that point. (After all he was insulting my son, my athletic prowess, my genes, and my parenting/coaching skills), but I was able to take a deep breath and let me son handle it.

While his confidence was undoubtley shaken, Conner smiled, joked, and laughed it off ignoring the little pest as best he could. The little twerp would not give up though and persistently baited my son, so when I could take no more I gently stepped in and told the delinquent he was being rude and not very encouraging to his teammate, and to knock it off.

Afterward, Conner and I had a good talk on the way home about it. I asked Conner why he thought the boy acted that way and he said the usual, "I don't know". "He probably just needs some love", I said, trying to reach for one of those teachable moments that rarely come. I then went on to explain how people act out how they're treated. When people are mean, it's probably because someone has been mean to them. When people are kind and show love it's because someone has shown them love. Conner and I both got a great lesson on the golden rule tonight. We both decided we want to live in a world where people love each other, to do so we must show love to other people, even bratty little twerps that get on our nerves and call us names.


Rich