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Post by epeanymous on Apr 23, 2024 16:09:02 GMT
I am looking for advice from veteran sports moms, and I bet we have a bunch. My twins have played premiere soccer for years. They love it. They have not gotten sucked into what I am about to describe, for the most part, because they are among the better players on the team (and they start and generally play the whole game), and also I think because they are both midfielders and people don’t generally blame midfielders for anything.
Here is the situation. Most of these kids have been on this team for years. It has always been a nice and supportive parent community. This year, the dynamics have changed — I think partly because we have some new kids, and partly because these kids will be in high school next year and I think people are starting to think about things like college recruiting and choosing how to focus in high school, and probably also the boys are changing because they are going through puberty. Anyhow, some of the parents have become very angry about playing time and blow up if their kids don’t get it; the coach sits some of these kids out for entire games, and has explicitly said he sits them out because if he puts them in they will lose the game., which isn’t helping. The parents yell at kids (not just their own) when they make mistakes. There is also a lot of public and private infighting among the parents — one, eg, texts the parents of players he considers important to make sure they are avaialble for important games and asks to move the games if not, and some of the other parents were understandably mad to find out they didn’t merit texts. The parents argue about the playing time, and also some are mad at the (entirely volunteer!) team parent/manager who negotiates scheduling with other clubs. Also a lot of arguing about who should be starting.
From talking to other sports parents, none of this seems atypical-I had just been lucky for years. I’ve been wearing airpods to games lately to avoid the drama, but I am wondering about tips from more experienced parents for navigating this unpleasantness (my older kids did dance and theater, which did have angry and competitive parents, but the culture was different and I also barely saw them.
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Post by myshelly on Apr 23, 2024 16:26:07 GMT
We experienced the beginning of this before my kids lost interest in competitive sports and decided to focus on music instead.
My first advice would be to see if there are any league rules regarding how parents treat volunteers and or what parents can say/yell during games.
My experience was that parents were more receptive/responsive to warnings and sanctions from the league than from the coach/volunteer/other parents.
An anonymous email to the league board resulted in board members observing games and issuing consequences to the parents from the league.
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Post by Darcy Collins on Apr 23, 2024 17:07:26 GMT
Whoa - there's a lot to unpack here. I will state bluntly that my son was an exceptional athlete that ended up being recruited to play in college, and probably would have been recruitable for a different sport if he hadn't decide to switch in middle school. I'm saying that to be clear, I'm not a rainbow and unicorn parent who doesn't understand competitive sports. A coach that states he's sitting players out as they would lose the game if he played them is not anything I've ever experienced. Kids not getting playing time when sports turn competitive is a reality, but that is feeding into this extremely unhealthy and inappropriate parent dynamic - which we absolutely HAVE seen. Typically the coaches shut down or at least don't feed into. I'm also confused by parent's having any input on scheduling - that was all done at a much higher level. I guess in short - is this really the only option for you kids? It sounds like a very weird hybrid between fun/recreational with lots of parent control and hyper competitive where you're in the system.
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Post by epeanymous on Apr 23, 2024 17:34:09 GMT
Whoa - there's a lot to unpack here. I will state bluntly that my son was an exceptional athlete that ended up being recruited to play in college, and probably would have been recruitable for a different sport if he hadn't decide to switch in middle school. I'm saying that to be clear, I'm not a rainbow and unicorn parent who doesn't understand competitive sports. A coach that states he's sitting players out as they would lose the game if he played them is not anything I've ever experienced. Kids not getting playing time when sports turn competitive is a reality, but that is feeding into this extremely unhealthy and inappropriate parent dynamic - which we absolutely HAVE seen. Typically the coaches shut down or at least don't feed into. I'm also confused by parent's having any input on scheduling - that was all done at a much higher level. I guess in short - is this really the only option for you kids? It sounds like a very weird hybrid between fun/recreational with lots of parent control and hyper competitive where you're in the system. It's not something I've experienced either until this year. The coaches rotate every two years, and we did have this one last year, but he was less . . . like this -- my understanding is that you get better and worse coaching assignments (eg older versus younger kids) based on your team's performance, and I wouldn't be surprised if the spottier record this year is part of why he is feeding into, rather than shutting down, the toxicity. One of the new kids has parents whose two older kids currently play D1 soccer, which is also, I am just going to say, I think part of the issue--I doubt most of these kids are going to be playing D1 soccer, and I think he's gotten parents unnecessarily worked up and overinvested. I don't know how things work elsewhere, but for the scheduling part, typically the regular season and tournament games are set centrally, but the state playoff games (which is what we're in now) are "game will be played X weekend at Y field" and it's up to the team managers to negotiate the weekend day and time (I didn't know anything about this until recently because there never had been conflict). My kids are considering trying out for another one of the regional clubs, but the other one that is in our city is less competitive and loses players -- part of the reason we got new kids this year is some of them came from the less competitive club. I don't know if the parents would be better or worse -- at games, I've seen a lot of really bad parent behavior from the other clubs as well! I'm hoping if they stay that with a different coach next year things will improve, and I think that the kids who currently aren't getting game time are likely to be moved to a lower team, which may help the parents hate each other less. At least for now, I'm going to just keep making sure those airpods are fully charged. |
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Post by epeanymous on Apr 23, 2024 17:37:08 GMT
We experienced the beginning of this before my kids lost interest in competitive sports and decided to focus on music instead. My first advice would be to see if there are any league rules regarding how parents treat volunteers and or what parents can say/yell during games. My experience was that parents were more receptive/responsive to warnings and sanctions from the league than from the coach/volunteer/other parents. An anonymous email to the league board resulted in board members observing games and issuing consequences to the parents from the league. I've thought about this. The one issue is that the head of the league's kid is on my kids' team and I'm worried about making things worse (he's not generally at the games FWIW because he's coaching high school teams). |
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pilcas
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,242 
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Post by pilcas on Apr 23, 2024 17:53:40 GMT
Both my kids started playing soccer at age 5 and eventually played competitively. The team was registered through a soccer club and they were the ones who obtained field permits for practice and games. The club also scheduled all their teams, not the parents nor the coach. The schedule was given out at the start of the season, it was always on a set day, always Sundays or always Saturdays. There were three parent volunteers who collected dues and paid the coach. Yes, I’m sure parents went and spoke to the coach when they were not happy with the amount of play time. I do know a couple who left to join other teams. Yes, parents on the side lines could get overly heated during games but It never got out of hands although once the parents of the opposing team were pretty obnoxious and shouted things about our players.
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Post by Bridget in MD on Apr 23, 2024 18:17:03 GMT
Both my kids started playing soccer at age 5 and eventually played competitively. The team was registered through a soccer club and they were the ones who obtained field permits for practice and games. The club also scheduled all their teams, not the parents nor the coach. The schedule was given out at the start of the season, it was always on a set day, always Sundays or always Saturdays. There were three parent volunteers who collected dues and paid the coach. Yes, I’m sure parents went and spoke to the coach when they were not happy with the amount of play time. I do know a couple who left to join other teams. Yes, parents on the side lines could get overly heated during games but It never got out of hands although once the parents of the opposing team were pretty obnoxious and shouted things about our players. My kids played soccer and lax competitively too, but my son played thru HS and now referees travel games. The parents and coaches do not make the schedule. The travel league does, bc they have to secure fields and refs. My son as the ref can throw parents and coaches out. He has seen the head ref shut down a game after 10 min of play time. I get not wanting to deal with parental BS, but I thought that was a little extreme. As for the yelling parents, we had a lollipop mom who would hand out suckers to those who couldn't keep their mouth shut. "An anonymous email to the league board resulted in board members observing games and issuing consequences to the parents from the league."  |
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Post by mom on Apr 23, 2024 18:46:46 GMT
Both of my sons were in competitive sports thru high school, with DS2 getting an offer to run on a college track team. I've seen many team dynamics over the years.
I think you are right -- there is probably a lot of things factoring into whats going on and some of it is natural (puberty, new kids joining the team, etc). But a bunch of that sounds like it's just parents who have free rein and a coach not willing to shut it down.
I get your hesitation on emailing the league officials, but I think if anything is going to change, an email is probably where it will start. There is absolutely no reason a parent should be arguing at the parental volunteer.
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Post by FuzzyMutt on Apr 23, 2024 18:59:04 GMT
I was a sports mom for a lot of years. My daughter was super into soccer/basketball, and even did a little t&f. That all was soooo easy. Mostly because we had great coaches over the years, she was a great goalie and fullback, and for t&f, she was just doing it to condition off season for soccer. Basketball was just fun, and I just didn't have that struggle with her.
My son, played basketball, soccer and football. We lived at in a serious place on the Tobacco Road. Sports are LIFE. He was ok at basketball, and didn't do more than a couple seasons. Tasted the playing time problem there, but didn't care. As far as football.. Pop Warner, a season of Rec (bad decision to participate there!), then middle and high school. We navigated coaching nightmares. For Pop Warner those grown men could have been part of a soap opera. One of the dads had three sons playing and you'd have thought he was coaching in the NFL. It was WILD. Also, his wife was the Commissioner. OHHHH THE DRAMA!! My son wanted nothing more than to be a running back or wide receiver and was like a golden retriever with any dude he could get to throw a ball on a route. He was pretty good! But no, he was a defensive line man. Ol coach and commissioner's sons were on the team. QB, wide receiver and running back. I bet you're surprised! We did that for YEARS. When he finally got to middle school, he played for the school, and was a starting receiver, and that carried on up to 9th grade on the JV team. In high school, guess which kids were also on his team and dad became an assistant coach. My son somehow ended up a safety (defense again.) We relocated in his 9th grade spring. At our new school, he started 10th, 11th and 12th grade as a running back or receiver depending on who the QB was.
Soccer was his first love, but at his school in middle school the boys played soccer in the fall, so he had to choose between football and soccer, and football won. We never had soccer drama with him or his teams/parents, because it was literally just fun and games for him and it sounds like it was like what your kids had- he was good, but not a stand out, and just really was there to have fun.
Good luck. I don't envy that whole situation. It sucks when adults just ruin the fun for the kids.
Point is- it should be about the kids, but it's not. It's about the parents and that's just too dang sad.
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Post by scrappinsportzmom on Apr 24, 2024 8:35:56 GMT
My girls are adults now so my perspective is how we as a family look back on the sports teams. The teams we have good memories of are the ones where everyone got along. TBH I don’t remember whether we were winning everything or not.
My older daughter was on a team one year that won every game. We were so good that we had to quit scoring goals we were so far ahead. It was her least favorite team because the games were not competitive. She didn’t have fun at those games. It was a weird situation but she just waned to play a good game. ( two of the girls on this team ended up in the Junior Olympic soccer program just a year or two later)
My younger daughter was on a select softball team (her sister was on the older girls team) and it was the worst experience - one weekend tournament the coaches recruited guest players and then played them instead of the girls that had been with the team from the beginning of the season. We finished the weekend tournament and didn’t say anything bad. I never let the girls quit in the middle of the season but I did with this team. I made her practice what she was going te the coach before we went to the next practice “this just isn’t the right team for me” and she told the coaches herself. They were genuinely surprised. <insert eye roll here>. My older daughter finished the season.
My younger daughter one time stated that she wanted to play D1 basketball for her favorite university. I told her I would support that but then discussed the commitment of practice and playing on select teams and she thought about it for a while and decided not to do that. She just wanted to play basketball for fun.
Sorry for rambling on….. hope my stories help give you insight. I would talk with your kids and let them know what their choices are. If they aren’t interested in playing on the rec team then they know in advance that the select team also has its problems too. You are just choosing which set of problems you prefer to deal with.
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Post by smasonnc on Apr 24, 2024 13:06:02 GMT
Anyhow, some of the parents have become very angry about playing time and blow up if their kids don’t get it; the coach sits some of these kids out for entire games, and has explicitly said he sits them out because if he puts them in they will lose the game., which isn’t helping. The parents yell at kids (not just their own) when they make mistakes. That's a hard no in my family. My kids played for teams that were run like they were raising our kids in line with our values and our focus on school. My son was invited to play for a baseball team that won four AAU state championships and a national title. We said no because the parents acted like buffoons and the kids were entitled little @$$holes. We kept him on a team where good behavior was expected of the players and their families and even the stars had to take a seat if they acted like idiots. Several players were not invited to join because of how their families behaved. His team had a lot of success and he got heavily recruited but chose not to play in college because of his academic load. My daughter was on a team like you describe and we yanked her in favor of another successful team that wasn't such a cesspool. She could have played in college but she also chose school over soccer. She was captain of the club team at Carolina where she and most of her teammates were ODP players and the level was quite high, but it was easier to keep a good GPA. Ten years on, we feel got what we wanted: work ethic, character, perseverance, fair play, confidence, humility. I used to tell my son that I didn't want a lazy jerk sitting on my couch eating Doritos and reminiscing about his glory days when he was 30. The piddly amount of scholarship money available in minor sports is not worth having your kid's character ruined. |
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Post by epeanymous on Apr 24, 2024 15:02:25 GMT
Anyhow, some of the parents have become very angry about playing time and blow up if their kids don’t get it; the coach sits some of these kids out for entire games, and has explicitly said he sits them out because if he puts them in they will lose the game., which isn’t helping. The parents yell at kids (not just their own) when they make mistakes. That's a hard no in my family. My kids played for teams that were run like they were raising our kids in line with our values and our focus on school. My son was invited to play for a baseball team that won four AAU state championships and a national title. We said no because the parents acted like buffoons and the kids were entitled little @$$holes. We kept him on a team where good behavior was expected of the players and their families and even the stars had to take a seat if they acted like idiots. Several players were not invited to join because of how their families behaved. His team had a lot of success and he got heavily recruited but chose not to play in college because of his academic load. My daughter was on a team like you describe and we yanked her in favor of another successful team that wasn't such a cesspool. She could have played in college but she also chose school over soccer. She was captain of the club team at Carolina where she and most of her teammates were ODP players and the level was quite high, but it was easier to keep a good GPA. Ten years on, we feel got what we wanted: work ethic, character, perseverance, fair play, confidence, humility. I used to tell my son that I didn't want a lazy jerk sitting on my couch eating Doritos and reminiscing about his glory days when he was 30. The piddly amount of scholarship money available in minor sports is not worth having your kid's character ruined. The part that I really and truly do not get is that if you want your kid to go to college on a scholarship there are so many more reliable ways to get your kid there than sports. Even if you’re talented so many things can break wrong, including injuries. Many of the kids on this team are in our district’s gifted program — I am not saying that parents should yell at their kids about schoolwork either, but I think “scholarship based on academics” is more likely for these kids! |
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Post by smasonnc on Apr 24, 2024 15:42:09 GMT
The part that I really and truly do not get is that if you want your kid to go to college on a scholarship there are so many more reliable ways to get your kid there than sports. Too right. For baseball and soccer they share +/- 10 scholarships per team and if their GPA is high enough, the athletes can get some added money, but you could be paying for an education that just amounts to 4 years of soccer camp. Then what? |
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Post by mikklynn on Apr 24, 2024 17:04:10 GMT
I have my grandson living with me to play hockey. I know what you are talking about re: parents demanding equal play time. They are way out of line. At a certain level of competition, the players must earn their play time. Players that goof off at warm ups or don't put out 100% during practice get benched. Also, players yelling at coaches will get themselves benched.
I feel for the coaches!
There are some parents paying obscene amounts for their athletes to have specialized training. Some of these kids are NOT getting D1 scholarships no matter how much the parents do. They'd be better of banking that money for school.
My grandson's parents and I are on the same page, thankfully. He is in charge of his own career. We let him decide how hard he wants to work and how much he wants to train.
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Post by fotos4u2 on Apr 24, 2024 18:37:26 GMT
We were a hard core sports family. Oldest kid is the least athletic and mostly played softball where she was one of the weaker players so we know all about getting frustrated feeling like your kid isn't valued. The other two played soccer and were very good.
Middle kid quit junior year of high school thanks to bullying on the high school team, but had a pretty good experience on his club/travel team. His experience sounded nothing like OPs. We had the same coach from when he switched from rec to club in 7th grade and we never heard any griping about playing time (our kid was a defender so he played the entire game). We also weren't involved with scheduling. We were told when the games would be and when we needed to show up.
Youngest kid was recruited to play on a D3 school in college (she could've easily played D2, maybe a weaker D1 but the D3 was her dream school soccer was just an extra benefit). She played until she was a junior and quit because of horrible college coaching and she just wanted more time for other interests. She started on a club/travel team in 5th grade and there was a lot of drama over the years. She was also a midfielder and started the majority of the time (the times she was a benchwarmer it seemed like the coach was trying to make a point that they were in charge because the team would usually be losing while she sat on the bench and then oddly start winning when she came off). We did have mostly the same coaches but did end up having to leave our town for a team at one point to find something in line with her level. We definitely heard complaints about playing time from others and some of the coaches did let the parents manipulate them. That said I don't think any parents were consulted about scheduling and I can't imagine being told that a kid was so bad they were only there to be a benchwarmer. Sounds like the team is a money grab because if a player isn't good enough to be on the field at all then they shouldn't be on the team.
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