Young lads are special and just watching them playing, one can see that they are innocent souls. And these young lads are easily influenced by what they and they cant make decision at their own. They are looking for someone who they can trust, a family member, a friend and a mentor like a parent. I have being hanging in the informal settlements for long and it is similar to the farm lifestyle where I was born and what I see is most young lads copy their parents' lifestyle and other people 's behaviour in the same environment. And that is what makes sense to them. That 's what they look forward to be. Most parents or individuals at the squatter camps or farms don't see the value of education, sport, health. Basically is lack of knowledge, inspiration and hope. As I was coaching these young lads, one mother came (and she looked every abusive and angry) and called one boy shouting not even asking if he can be excused from football. She was shouting at him as they were walking to the settlement. And the same boy when I was doing self-introduction session and ice breaking session, few kids laughed at him because he said he was doing grade one and he looked older. And I obvious stepped in and rebuked the others not to laugh at him. And I asked each one how do they feel when they laugh at him and how do they except him to feel and I also asked him.  Obvious I had a good chat with him and motivated in front of everyone. Only for the mother to come and take him from his new family. I presumed the mother also might be stopping him to go to school because his age is older to be in grade one. And the same boy he only found his new family in football where he can temporarily laugh, share jokes, loved,  talk freely before he hit home where there is no happiness. And for this mother taking this kid away from his other family, he will grow not loving himself and insecure so is the mother. So this behaviour will spread from generation to generation. After instead of my normal training I had a little Life skills session where I asked these lads what does football means to them( I was doing this session after I saw the mother taking the boy away from the other kids and I was disheartened, and I have seen this million times especially with my own biological mother doing this to my siblings and me, and we still love our mother and we correct her and communicate easily, and I must say she is doing great and she respect us because doing what is right irrespective of her behaviour). I myself went through that where now if I feel I was not being loved or appreciated, it was difficult to hang out with the group or that individual and can force one to do things to be loved. Or one can unaware abuse or bully the others. And it took painful experience for myself to come out of this. But I had good support, extra influence and starting appreciating and loving myself. What is sad is that these parents don't see that and they think they are right ( But they need help and correction and to be loved not to be blamed or hated). But to cut the story short, most of these lads their answers were : football is a skill to them, football is defending to them, football is dribbling, football is attacking. You cant blame these innocent young lads because that's how the message is portrayed from the elite football heroes as I played football with these top lads and they are still my buddies. I started explaining and interacting with them saying : Football is not about kicking the ball. Footballers are human beings and we all needs friends, family, sharing... We can make friends and family in football. Through football we can practice intelligence in terms of our emotions, mentally and we can assist each other. They were all excited about it and I asked what about our friend who was taken by his mother. It gave them second thought . Anyway I had to rush for another training somewhere but I will definitely get back to that boy and speak to the mother with him before he become rebellious or joined the wrong group or easily become a victim to wrong things. Aluta Continua