Over a recent weekend, my six year old boy Abe went psycho at two different kids in two different playgrounds. It began when the kids did fairly innocent things - yanking him while he was on the roundabout; pretending Abe was an alien intruder - and Abe took huge offence to these supposed insults and angrily demanded apologies from each kid. He chased both kids around the playground and had a go at me when I intervened.
When we got home and we told mummy Sarah our versions of the story, debating whether or not Abe should get a time out, Sarah blamed me. Why? Because I bring violence into the household, apparently. Don't complain to the Press Council just yet: I bring violence in the name of love and bonding.
• My favourite sport (heavyweight boxing) is one in which hundred-kilo brutes bash each other's faces until one of the brutes is so injured he cannot continue. My kids are allowed to watch this with me and I have been known to teach my boy how to throw a perfect boxing jab during the ad breaks. It's a legitimate sport, it's manly bonding AND it's self-defence (for when Abe needs protection from fights he himself started)
• I sometimes put on my second favourite sport (professional wrestling) and me and the kids get inspired and form a mini wrestling ring on daddy's king sized bed and they beat their dad into submission while quoting 90s wrestlers like The Rock and Hulk Hogan
• We sometimes watch the six o'clock news, so my kids can learn about (violent) current events. Unfortunately, often the main story is somebody being obliterated by a volcano, runaway train, or runaway train with a cargo of lava. It's violently educational.