How do kids respond to Zinedine Zidane’s World Cup final head-butt against Marco Materazzi? One 14 year told the Associated Press the act was “stupid,” saying “It doesn’t matter if somebody says something to you, you should walk away, show them by scoring a goal and doing your best. … tell the referee if something was wrong.” We should all hope that America’s aspiring soccer players feel the same way. The outburst, of course, was Zidane’s last act as a professional soccer player; now coaches plan to use the incident to demonstrate to young players how bad actions lead to undesired consequences. John Burrill of the Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association called Zidane’s retaliation “an absolute total disgrace.” “Whether you win or lose, you are expected to act responsibly. In Zidane’s case he was thrown out of the match. This certainly tarnishes whatever image he had.” However, Zidane’s act could adversely effect kids, too, points out Brian Shulman of Learning Through Sports, which develops software for teaching K-12 students about sportsmanship. He says research shows that children learn through observing and imitating, which means Zidane’s head-butt could encourage them to try it during their next game. “Unfortunately,” Shulman says, “ESPN is going to show this scene over and over again. Even if they talk about how bad it is, all that boy or girl sees is that constant behavior. Kids don’t really listen as much as they observe.” Instead, he says parents need to use this incident to explain that what Zidane did potentially cost his team the match, and embarrassed himself, his family and his team.