I can certainly understand a parent wanting her child to play well with others, in a manner of speaking, but if that's her argument I'm not quite catching it -- the example she used where her son took issue with a couple of kids changing the rules in the middle of the game doesn't strike me as her son being a kid who "can't get along with anyone." It strikes me more as a kid who thought, "Hey, no fair!" and called his friends on it.

I'm much more curious as to whether Ms. Emily considered just sitting back and watching what happened. I'm not clear on how involved she was in this whole situation, but it seems like it might have been a great time for her to watch how the interaction went between the kids, and whether they would work it out in some way that she might not even have considered.

That is, they (the kids) might have argued, fought, whatever, and maybe worked something out. I dunno. But in any case there could have been a lot learned in there, from the kids *and* from the adult.

A major part of growing up -- and something few "grown ups" even do very well -- is figuring out when to speak up, when to shut up, and when to get up and walk away. I'm not convinced that it's necessarily in all our collective best interests to just let things slide when it just might be better if somebody opened their mouth and said, "Hey, this isn't right, this isn't fair, I'm not gonna put up with this!"

Could save us from screwing over the world, maybe.