My kids are aggressive when playing sports- should I be worried?

26 May 2022

Relationship expert Jessica Leoni said: “First of all, I think you need to chill a little. Your kids are 5 and 7 - no age at all. You love them very much and understandably want the best for them, but I think you need to calm down. At those ages, I would be surprised if they were playing competitive sports with other children, so I imagine your concern comes from their games with each other at home. No one wants to see their kids playing aggressively together but kids are naturally competitive and it doesn’t surprise me that they both want to assert themselves and show who’s boss. Life IS competitive and I would be loath to try to neuter all that drive and will to win from them. It is the aggression that they need to lose.

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“I would tell them both that you love the fact they are playing sport together, you love their will to win but what they need to lose is the aggression. You could adopt similar measures to those used in professional sport. Bring in yellow and red cards for their garden play and adopt similar rules to a game such as professional football. A yellow card is essentially a warning - do that again and the game stops. This could be for more minor acts of aggression such as a gentle shove or kick or unpleasant verbal behaviour. If they carry on with yellow card offences, progress to a red card and call off the game. Limit the sport they can do for a few days to see if they have learnt their lesson. Serious breaches such as hard kick, a shove or a temper tantrum would warrant an immediate ban and a cessation of all sport until you feel that they have properly digested that their behaviour has got to change.

“If you would feel a bit silly brandishing yellow and red cards in your back garden, a simpler solution would be a sin bin. If your kids act aggressively, stop the game immediately and punish them by making them come into the house for 15 minutes to reflect and learn from their behaviour.

“Both approaches involve you in their games (a good thing) and open up channels of communication between you all to ensure this problem does not get out of hand in future.

“Your kids are still young but if they are being too aggressive at school sports, in playground games or with outside teams they play in, talk to their coach or teacher and stress how they have your full support to take whatever measures they see fit to stop the behaviour. If need be, temporarily withdraw them from the teams until they can play without aggression. But I am sure we are way off those actions at this stage and this problem can be nipped in the bud.”

Jessica is a sex and relationship expert for the dating site, IllicitEncounters.com