him to do the wrong thing but also bully those in their little club to keep the pecking order. At eight years old, boys particularly, are not good at making sensible life choices. Have a good chat to him, find out why he does things that are wrong, I bet they are linked to the other kids. In which case you are going to need to encourage him to make better friend choices. This is the main issue for me here, what kind of man goes around yelling at a kid and his mum for "boys will be boys" type stuff? you are not the receiving end, so your probably have no idea? as for 'boys will be boys' thats just a way of saying you are too lazy and don't want to do the hard bit of doing proper parenting. Any sort of violence or threatening behavior will probably make it worse for the kids however agreed. Though in this case OP's kid is the offender (or the last straw that broke the camel's back), i would think nothing short of a sincere apology will diffuse the situation. I would try and get a face to face with this guy and make it clear you're taking it seriously and dealing with it, but don't take any abuse or whatever that's just not on. agreed. get your kid to apologise and maybe offer to pay for cleaning the jacket, but don't take any other shit (I would've seriously decked him