Recreational Whinge: A friend was telling me last night that he went to the football (Australian Rules Football) over the weekend and during the between-period break, there’s a part of the stadium area where kids and others can pass and kick around a football.  All good sporting atmosphere fun, right?

Well, some jerk (a 20 something adult) comes up to two kids kicking the football around, tackles one of them, takes the ball and kicks it out of the stadium, then walks back to his mates laughing about it.  Meanwhile the kids have stunned looks on their faces wondering what just happened and why.

The father of the kids witnesses what happens and walks over to the guy to discuss what’s happened, possibly either asking him to help get the ball back for his kids or at the very least to ask for an apology.  My friend couldn’t tell what the father said but it appeared he was calm and being an adult.

My friend then observed the jerk being a jerk to the kids father and laughed at him.  The jerk’s mates also laughed but you could see they were also uncomfortable about what happened and tried to get their friend (the jerk) to walk away.

This could have turned out pretty badly.  The kids’ father surely recognised the danger of the situation and decided to simply walk back to his kids and not make a bigger issue with the jerk…because the jerk wasn’t going to play nicely.  It seems apparent the jerk doesn’t know how to play nicely with kids or adults…period!

I’m sure the father then spent time with his kids discussing what happened.  It’s quite likely he had to help calm his upset kids.  He probably also had to discuss with them how some people just don’t think about the consequences of the choices they make on other people, and likely he also discussed the importance of a sincere apology when you know you’ve done something inappropriate.

Unfortunately, he might also have had to discuss with his children about knowing when to walk away from a conversation because either the other person isn’t willing to participate or worse, because continuing the conversation might be putting one at risk of harm.

So this jerk’s actions quite likely lead to a whole bunch of lessons learned by these children.  He probably didn’t realise the impact he’s had in this regard any more than he’s aware of the impact he had by kicking their ball out of the park and walking away without an apology.

What did my friend do when he saw all this?

He certainly wanted to go over and give the jerk a piece of his mind, but fortunately my friend’s companions also talked him out of it because the risk of violence was far too high and that would have sent an even more disastrous message to the kids who were experiencing all of this.

The Positive Spin: The kids have learned some lessons.  The father has learned some.  My friend and his companions learned some.  And re-telling the story to me and others has had an impact too.  All of these people have talked about what they experienced or felt about the experience told to them.  This has opened up dialogue about human behaviour, and that’s a good thing.

I also believe that it’s possible the jerk’s companions possibly had a word to him on the side and might have had a positive impact on him.  Maybe he’s learned his lessons too.