Hmm… I thought it was literal, though I was having trouble figuring out what sport (crew? swimming? something else and just had an oar handy?).
Never in my wildest dreams did I read that as anything but a metaphor.
Wow - we really do all read something different when we read.
Really? OP even said it was “figuratively” when she posted it. It seemed pretty obvious that it was a metaphor. Or were you joking?
Ah… I would have missed that question on the SAT CR section. 
How many reading along seriously thought we had a parent poster hitting her kid with an oar?
Please raise your hands?
edit: I changed gender neutral “their” to “her” because the poster is a mom.
Though I am not entirely sure I’m satisfied with that decision.
I think we can all agree the OP is a mom.
I wish the OP all the best in resolving this situation. But I was struck by the thread title addressing “parents of college boys,” as if gender is really a consideration here. And it struck me that boys get cut a lot of slack, for some reason, that girls don’t get. It’s as if we expect boys to be immature, be selfish, be confrontational etc. but if girls do it, God forbid. I have often noticed that parents have much higher expectations, and lower mess-up tolerance, of their girls than they do of their boys and this thread just reinforces my perception.
@NJsue it’s actually a very real cultural phenomenon that we give guys more slack in just about everything. They’re allowed to be aggressive, “promiscuous,” rude, etc in ways that females are not. (Women, on the other hand, are given leeway in things like expressing emotions and crossing the gender line in things like dress.)
This thread is but a reflection of that phenomenon but it is indeed very striking.
Hmmm. I don’t see it that way at all, but I don’t feel like arguing.
Well, OP mentioned that her older child, a girl, was very different. So she is probably attributing some of this kid’s behavior to the fact that he’s a boy. Accurately or not.
So what if a girl D1 athlete had blown the credit card budget, and blocked mom’s calls? I don’t think I would have given different advice up front.
Do parents of boys really think that gender is a cause of less than optimal behaviors, for which the child in question can’t really be held responsible? I wouldn’t know. I don’t have sons or brothers.
Dying here at the idea that the sport is football and the mom is in a KAYAK prodding the player with an oar. Or that the sport is any field sport surrounded by a moat.
Boys brains mature more slowly than girls. This is a fact and is the main reason boys seem to be more likely to do more “dumb” things as teenagers , than girls, until they finally catch up and mature around age 27 or so.
The fact that the OP came here seeking advice shows she has certain expectations that he is not meeting. I don’t see her excusing the behavior at all. And as another poster said, my advice would be no different if she were asking about her daughter. My comments are relative to this particular situation; I am not making a statement regarding how we as a society view and treat boys. Perhaps if her daughter were the surly one, OP would have a different title.
I don’t think it’s football because OP references “tournaments” several times. I was thinking golf, and if so the likelihood of a concussion is low.
And to the question of boys vs. girls. Isn’t it scientific fact that male brains are nto as mature as female brains at this age? Obviously at some point they catch up, but at 18 I thought male brains were still not as mature as female brains.
Could be wrestling.
I made the mistake on another thread of objecting to the idea college age sons call home less frequently than college age daughters, because my sons called home a lot. Then I was directed to research showing college boys do communicate less frequently than girls.
It seems to me we always see our own circumstances as the norm. My norm is that sons call their mamas at least several times a week, if not daily, while at college. That is why the original post alarmed me so.
Homeschooling may be an option. Or internet charter High Schools are a possibilty.
^ Huh?