Man, you SUCK!

Those were the warm and encouraging words, I heard shouted by a father to his eight year old son while playing frisbee. I was chasing my own frisbee that got away and looked up to see who exactly it was that sucked. It was a sweet young man that I knew quite well from school. This kid is kind, well spoken, generous and extremely polite and I couldn't believe his father would say such a thing.

Apparently, Jimmy was having trouble flipping his wrist when releasing the frisbee causing it to fly wildly. After it was thrown his father shouts, "Man, you SUCK!" I mean really, he told him at least twice how to do it and showed him once....surely he should have it by now. Again, I was tearing across the field after my frisbee that was flying out of control and heard Jimmy say, "I DO suck!" I was SO upset that I shouted back, "Jimmy, you don't suck you just need a little practice....we all have to practice at thing we want to get better at!" I was staring right at is father as I told him to, "stay at it, you'll get there."

What I really wanted to do was walk straight up to him and tell him that HE was the only one that SUCKED!

Why do some fathers take such pleasure in beating their sons into the ground?

"A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success."

-Author Unknown