6 year old little girl kicked off cheer squad

[Mermaid02]

Seems her parents thought a cheer was inappropriate and the child was voted off the squad (pending resolution apparently). Here's the link

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/15/year-old-girl-removed-cheerleading-team-complaint/

 

[dodukes]

hate to be the one that says if they see that as a problem then the kid definetly doesnt belong in cheer. not saying that kicking her out was correct tho.

 

[LuvLDM]

It's a stupid cheer for 6yr. olds.
I don't think kicking her off the team was necessary, if her parents found it that objectionable they should have pulled her from the team themselves.
I'm assuming none of the other parents had a problem w/ the cheer

 

[Buckalew11]

Well, it was a "stupid cheer". I feel sorry for the little girl--she'll be hurt with this outcome from what the parents are saying.
Maybe gymnastics will be a better fit--until she hits the floor routine, then they'll probably complain.

 

[design_mom]

I wouldn't want my 6 year old doing that cheer, either, honestly.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "competition cheer" teams did cheers that I thought were beyond-the-years of the little participants, and I would choose not to enroll my child in that. However, it doesn't sound like this is a competition team. It's a community flag football cheer team. I would expect that to be quite age-appropriate. (Kind of like I think there's a difference in what's expected from "competition" dance teams and recreational dance recitals. I would expect the recreational classes to stay middle-of-the-road.)

I personally think they should stick with cheers that don't talk about 6 year olds in "too tight" skirts and booty shaking. However, if they said "We're not changing the cheer, but we'll offer you a refund if you want to withdraw, or you can stay and do the cheer." then I guess I'd think that's fair. But kicking the girl off without any warning seems ridiculous.

 

[ElizK]

I find it perfectly reasonable for the parents to ask the cheer be removed. The decision to keep the cheer or remove it could then be made by the board. Then the parents could decide to remove their child if they chose to. There's nothing wrong with asking. Usually, the worse thing you'll hear is "no". It's a shame the board chose to handle it this way.

 

[sparklynails23]

Why didn't they just let the kid take a break during that cheer? I don't think 6 yr olds need to be cheering about/with their booties, but whatever.

 

[Hoodie]

Rather inappropriate cheer for 6 year olds. Personally, I think the parents that are OK with it and then kicked a little girl off the team should be removed from participating in sports.

 

[Pakey]

While I think it's horrible that this happened, the parents might find it a blessing in disguise not to deal with these parents if this is how they deem it appropriate to problem solve. I can't imagine that this will be the only issue this team will have with attitudes like this.

 

[ThePetLady7]

I wouldn't want my 6 year old doing that cheer, either, honestly.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "competition cheer" teams did cheers that I thought were beyond-the-years of the little participants, and I would choose not to enroll my child in that. However, it doesn't sound like this is a competition team. It's a community flag football cheer team. I would expect that to be quite age-appropriate. (Kind of like I think there's a difference in what's expected from "competition" dance teams and recreational dance recitals. I would expect the recreational classes to stay middle-of-the-road.)

I personally think they should stick with cheers that don't talk about 6 year olds in "too tight" skirts and booty shaking. However, if they said "We're not changing the cheer, but we'll offer you a refund if you want to withdraw, or you stay and do the cheer." then I guess I'd think that's fair. But kicking the girl off without any warning seems ridiculous.

Competitive cheer mom here. You would never hear a cheer like that from an all-star team...they don't do cutesy, silly cheers. There is generally a theme of being the best, that sort of thing.

Years ago, DD did recreational cheer and we had a similar issue. Someone objected to the words "sexy legs" in one of the cheers. This was resolved by changing "sexy" to "pretty." It was a cheer that had been around for ages, I thought the whole issue was a bit silly, but that seemed to solve the problem.

 

[Jennasis]

Honestly I think it's all a bunch of nonsense. Voting the kid off the team AND complaining about a stupid cheer. People need to get over themselves.

 

[Abbie]

I sat on the board of our local rec league for over 12 years. Not for a minute do I believe this happened the way it's been presented. I believe she was asked to step down, but I'm sure there was far more to the story than just "they didn't like that we complained so they kicked her off". There had to have been other issues surrounding either the girl or the parents that would have made the board even suggest they leave and the rest of the board back it up.

As far as that particular cheer, it's been around for well over 20 years so I guess they didn't choose to remove it or even offer that as an option.

 

[npmommie]

well I think the cheer is stupid, but pretty harmless really. I don't agree with kicking her off, and I personally wouldn't have complained about the cheer. although............
I find the skirts are too tight words more offensive than the bootie shake from left to right.

 

[NotUrsula]

I went through a similar experience in HS band. I went to a school that used the A&M style, and there was a move in one of our routines that I absolutely refused to do in public; it came awfully close to simulating a sex act, IMO. Everyone else disagreed with me and said I was a prude. I was told to do it or else, and that I would be dismissed if I didn't. I fought it as far as the school board, and I won. The move was taken out of the routine.

The parents are dead right. If they think that the performance is too sexual then the routine needs to be altered, because these are 6 yo children, and the choreographer has let that little factor slip her mind. Sure, it's a club and not a school, so there is a bit more leeway in what constitutes "too lewd", but when the participants are 6 years old, being sexy in any way is flatly inappropriate, and getting rid of the child rather than addressing her parents' concerns about it is pathetically irresponsible behavior on the part of adult sponsors.

 

[RadioNate]

Seems a little heavy handed but what made them go to immediately kicking the child out? You can't tell me it was only the objection to this one cheer. You don't go from "let's discuss if this cheer is to risque for our little girls" to being totally kicked off w/out something else going on.

 

[tiggger1]

when I was younger we did a cheer like this but the words were "Our backs aches, our belts too tight, our hips shake from left to right, our team is great, you know its true."

 

[indimom]

When our daughter cheered in first grade, the women who were running the squads picked out t-shirts for them to wear. They chose a design that had busty, cleavage bearing, large hipped, short skirted women standing in vulgar poses. I am not exagerating, reminded me of the "Big Johnson" t-shirt guys used to wear in the 90s.
DH and I objected to our then 7yo wearing the shirt. No WAY was my daughter going out in a t-shirt like that at the age of 7. Not going to happen.
We told her leader that although we had preorded and paid for the shirt, we were not allowing her to wear it. No one else seemed to mind (or complained anyway) and she was the only one who didn't wear the t-shirt for parades and such. (We provided a plain white t-shirt.)
I wouldn't have liked this cheer either, but I'm surprised they kicked her out for it. It's flag football for goodness sake.

 

[castleview]

Um…why do their backs ache?

 

[scrapquitler]

Just my opinion:

This cheer is NOT appropriate for a 6 or 7 year old cheerleader.


The other parents on the team should not get to "vote" if the child gets booted from the team. That was an inappropriate turn of events and the team manager or the cheer organization should NOT have let it get to that. The matter should have been addressed from the organizational side, not by having a popular vote.

 

[golfgal]

I sat on the board of our local rec league for over 12 years. Not for a minute do I believe this happened the way it's been presented. I believe she was asked to step down, but I'm sure there was far more to the story than just "they didn't like that we complained so they kicked her off". There had to have been other issues surrounding either the girl or the parents that would have made the board even suggest they leave and the rest of the board back it up.

As far as that particular cheer, it's been around for well over 20 years so I guess they didn't choose to remove it or even offer that as an option.

I would agree with you. I have a feeling that this wasn't the only thing they complained about

I kicked a kid off a basketball team because his MOM was such a nightmare. The league didn't like it so I pretty much told them do what you want but if the kid stays on the team, I am done coaching. I continued to coach. .

DD was in dance when she was 4. The dance they did was cute (How Much is that Doggie in the Window). We went to the spring recital (this was more dance line dancing) and OMG the songs, dances and costumes for the next level and all the rest . They had 6 year olds doing bump and grind dances to really vulgar songs. That was DD's last year. We didn't complain, didn't say anything, just didn't sign her up again.