Rough housing...

I was in a conversation the other day with a couple of parents from other Tball teams and their kids also play soccer. Not all parents play sports, I get it, these kids are kindergartners, I get it, the kids are out there to have fun and not out for blood and I agree and I get it. However, I think these kids should be allowed to play rough, if it is allowed in the sport. Obviously, I'm not saying the kids should be fist fighting and conducting themselves in poor sportsmanship-like ways, but there is nothing wrong with being aggressive, we're playing a sport, not having tea. So the conversation went like this..."don't you think Mario was a little rough at soccer yesterday? He was like hip checking people!" I thought to myself and really didn't remember anyone in my mind playing particularly rough and responded "not really." "Yeah! I saw Mario hip checking other kids and I just thought that was not nice and it's kindergarten soccer he should not be that aggressive." At that moment her son came walking toward us crying. He had banged heads with Madison who continued playing...go figure. I yelled out "No crying in baseball, go play!" and we continue our conversation,"Well, it's soccer, are you suppose to ask for the ball?!" "No, but this kid is aggressive in the classroom too and I just feel like his parents are not responding to his aggressiveness." And as this conversation continued my kids started to argue and shove each other on the field...typical Madison and Tyler fashion. Doesn't even phase me at this point. Perhaps I'm wrong. I don't know. But these boys are playing sports and they rough house. Tyler sees his friends they automatically wrestle or tag or something physical and there's no crying involved. I mean these are BOYS, let's raise them to be men, NOT little girls! If you don't want your son to be picked on and made fun of when he gets older then do him a favor and toughen him up. And so I said something to this effect. I told her that kids these days are babied...to the extreme and when they get older and are put in situation with tougher kids they can't handle it and then they do get picked on and anti-bully rules or not it's gonna happen! I'm not saying raise your son to be a bully, but he should be able to hold his own...he definitely should not go crying to his mommy everytime something touches him. Survival of the fittest! LOL! This helps to build character. Let's toughen our kids up, teach them some independence, it's ok to rough house, it's ok to hip check, it's ok to steal the ball when playing basketball...it's in the rules!!!