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Ok, I seriously need your thoughts on this one. In my country, Norway, the papers write about a situation in a small local football-club, for young children. Here is translated info from paper: ------- "A six year old boy is banned from football training and matches in their local sports team. The parents of the boy, have been told that he must wait six months before he gets to play football again. The basis for this ban to be that 6-year-old was difficult to deal with in training. The parents were told after they had sent a written complaint at the team's training for sports and requested a meeting. The coach should have acted threatening towards his son on a training and straightened index finger at him while he lay on the ground. The week after the meeting, the outcome was clear: The six-year-old boy was banned from sports for the New Year. - We were first told that our son was difficult exercise, after we notified of an inappropriate behavior from a coach. Challenging or not, there will be room for everyone. He is an active 6 year old, as most children. He can be silly and sometimes uneasy as any other 6-year-olds, but we have not received any notice of this. And we have followed the training and matches and have not noticed anything that he has been hard, says father. The leader in sports club would not comment on the case, but say they have spent a lot of time on this and do not have the expertise to take care of this child. This will affect his upbringing. Sports are an important arena for children in the community. To be excluded from the opportunity to participate in such community, may have consequences for the child when he starts school, the father said, adding that his son did not come back to the club" -------- My observation is that many people think that banning this very young child from the team, for 6 months, is perfectly OK. I am troubled by this. This is a very young child... They are actually OK with what I will call a punishment of this kid, because of his behaviour, and for being "unruly". I mean, we don't know any facts on what the kid have been doing on the soccer field and why the coach can't handle him...but come'on ... it is a 6-year old. He is "difficult to deal with", is the argument for banning him. This might be very traumatic for this kid. Maybe he have troubles back home that we dont know of, or "different" in other ways, and maybe this football game could be his arena for change - if he got the chance. But now, banned for 6 months. Please let me know your thoughts on this. There are so many people in Norway, including friends of mine, that think this punishment is OK. "There are always 2 sides of a story", they say. My claim is that the 6-year old do not represent any side. He is a child, and a very young one. Can someone guide me into understanding if I am wrong or, is this punishment ok? Another argument some people put out, is that it is better to ban this kid and not ruin the development of all the other kids. I can see that argument, but still not comfortable with this ban.