Mini-rant -- Inconsiderate parents in sports!!!

[Sharon A.]

This frustrates me to no end!!

I hate it when parents don't call when they don't send their kids to practice/games. I put a lot of thought into who's going to be there, what they need to work on, what they need mentally, which players to match up and what postions to try them at. And when they don't show up it throws my whole plan out the window.

Why don't they just call? Then I can change my plan easily. But if I'm expecting them, I can't until make changes until after it's already started and that's much harder to do. Aargh!!!

Thanks for letting me rant and please call your kid's coach if you're going to miss. Please.

 

[Serena]

 

[Wendy]

I hear you Sharon!!! We had 4 kids out of a team of 10 show up for this evening's practice! One is out of town, but the other parents seem to think that just because school hasn't started yet, that the kids don't have to go to practice unless they want to. It's VERY frustrating! DH is sending out an email to all the parents tomorrow about this very thing. We even have a tournament coming up August 17 & 18. Grrr..... You can bet, when the team doesn't do well, it will all be the coaches' faults.

 

[Eeyore2U]

Sharon,

It the major reason I gave up coaching after a year of doing U9s. As a volunteer you put n a lot of time and all you want it respect.

 

[Lars624]

My son plays ice hockey and at most of his practices there is a good turn out but at those 6am's it's often just us and a few other boys.

 

[Mskanga]

Sharon I had the opposite with my dd's cheerleading coach a couple of years ago, I would call her ands say she's going to be gone this week ( vacation ) and she would get mad at me, yell and tell me we couldn't do that , blah blah blah, so guess what?? she hasn't done cheerleading again, she doesn't want to and I don't push it.

 

[Sharon A.]

Kanga, maybe we should start another thread about bad coaches -- especially in cheerleading! I'm a parent so I've been on the other side too. Coaches that expect 7 year old kids to devote all their time to one sport are just asking for their kids to burn out and leave the sport.

I don't ask that the kids make every practice, just that they call if they can't make it. I don't mind if they miss practice for vacations, illness, emergencies, even birthday parties are fine.

 

[LvsTnk]

My DD plays everything and we certainly respect all the time the coaches put in!! You betcha it's rude not to call! We have only had one bad experience and that was when a coach wanted her to play on broken ankle in an AAU basketball game she is anly 13 for goodness sake....now refs that should definately be a different thread!!

 

[luvtogo12]

Please dont start a thread on bad cheerleading coaches!!

I do understand what you mean Sharon. I have had this problem every year for the last 5 years no matter how much I stress the importance of a simple courtesy call.

On Friday night (after practice) I got a voice mail from one of the girls telling me she was going away for 9 days, leaving the following morning. I am certain she and her parents knew this well in advance but nothing was mentioned until that night.

I understand 100% the importance of family vacations. I myself have to take our vacation in the middle of the season because my DH can only take vacation time in the fall/winter. I do not and can not understand why people dont have the respect to notify us as soon as they have dates they wont be there. Emergencies happen, illnesses happen....just please call for goodness sake!!!!

 

[Lars624]

My DD has been a cheerleader for a few years now and we know that the rules here are very strict so I try to schedule our trips around her schedule. If they miss 3 practices or games without a good reason they can't go to competition and if they miss 4 they are off the squad. They do accept illness as a good excuse but not a vacation. She begins practice on Monday and until school starts she'll be practicing 5 days a week, once school starts she'll have 2 practices & 1 game a week. It's a big commitment and if she didn't love it I wouldn't do it.

 

[klombar]

I'm with you Sharon! We just held our team meeting to kick the year off and 5 parents and kids were not there. I got a call from one. I have even set up a simple web site to check practice times and game info and it still doesnt get thru to some people. It is the only thing I hate about coaching!

 

[nativetxn]

Was I unusual? When my son played a sport and there were scheduled practices, I had him <b>there</b>. You mean I didn't have to do that? Silly me

 

[Disney Doll]

The world is full of inconsiderate people.

 

[Bump]

I help coach under 7's football or soccer as you call it
and it amzes me how the parents behave at the games. They are all standing right on the sideline yelling swear words and shouting at the oppostion players, who are 7 years old for crying out loud!
We once replaced a player at half time so we could give another boy a chance to play, I mean little league is meant to be fun isnt it? Anyway the mum of this lad came straight over to us and DEMANDED to know why her boy was taken off!
And they wonder why people are stopping coaching little teams anymore

 

[Rock'n Robin]

I think some parents are just inconsiderate about everything. I worry like crazy that DD#1 will get a soccer coach that wants her to practice on her dance night, since I had to sign her up for soccer before the dance teacher figured out her schedule. I even have the address of the league sec'y so that when I find out her dance night (today, I hope!) I can write and make sure she doesn't get a practice that night.
On the other hand, these parents who don't show up (and even when DH coached "munchkin" 4 year olds we had one girl who missed half the season, mostly for birthday parties, including her own!) are probably the same parents who never RSVP when your child invites them to a party, or send the permission slip to school until the very day of the field trip, or tell the teachers the night before that they will be gone a week--or wait until they come back and say "did they miss anything?"
Robin M.

 

[Mskanga]

It is not about good or bad coaches , in our case the cheerleaders were 6-8 years old, who were not in any competition and were only cheering for 6 weeks but the schedules were not given out to us until a month before the games, yet we signed up 3 months previous to that. My point was that we did call the coach to let her know about the trip well ahead of time and still she gave us a hard time for missing two practices, not even a game!

 

[shortbun]

I have noticed that children have way too many
things they are obligated to attend. I don't know
who's to blame-leagues for making a baseball or
hockey season too long-parents for scheduling too
many activities or coaches for having too high
an expectation of young children and their ability
to commit. I don't over commit my child but at age
4-5-6-7-8, I think people should consider all sports
excersize and socialization training. Ds has never
missed a game or lesson unless he was sick BUT
I refuse to enroll him in a league that takes up 2/3 of
the summer or the entire school year-it's way too
much for him and for his parents. Kids should be
experiencing variety at this age. Next year ds is
missing a soccer game for a chess tournament-his
coach is already aware of it and it's in March. So-I'm
polite and I plan ahead-I just think most others are way
overcommitted.

 

[BrerMom]

I always make a point of telling the various coaches if my kids will be absent. With e-mail and answering machines, it's really easy to let them know. DD's coach told me I was the only parent who let him know. He had a rough season.

Part of the problem in the larger picture is miscommunication. We had to sign up for both soccer and baseball/softball in January. We were told that soccer practices would begin in April, baseball/softball practices the end of May. OK, not a big problem, the sports would over-lap by two weeks and if we were lucky, the practices would be on different nights.

For DS, that is exactly what happened. The practices were on different nights, but the two games that over-lapped were at exactly the same time!!! WHY do they force them to choose?

For DD, though, soccer practice started the first week of April and softball the second week. May was really, really rough with two practices and two games a week. And that wasn't what we thought we were signing up for. If we left one game 20 minutes early, we'd get to the other game only 20 minutes late. That's not really fair to the coaches or the kids, but I couldn't find a better alternative.

Soccer practice started here the last three years the week of spring break. I was lucky that we were available and that my kids had coaches that understood that some families take vacations. Some of my friends weren't so lucky.

A story I've told here before: A mom at a soccer game was acting like a complete jerk. She was yelling at the ref, her daughter, the other team, the coaches, etc. It was really bad. A little into the third quarter, our coach went over to her and said very quietly, "You're embarrassing yourself and you're embarrassing your daughter. You need to leave now and I'll bring your daughter home." She left and he and his wife gave the girl a ride home. Good idea? Maybe/maybe not, but it sure sent a message; she was an appropriately behaved spectator for the rest of the season.

My DH is a ref. The stuff he sees that coaches have to put up with is unbelievable and people aren't always nice to him, either.

 

[Claudia1]

Our DS was in our local, amateur circus this year. Now, this is not you average, dinky little thing. It involves hundreds of kids that do flying trapeze, juggle flaming clubs, and do a 7-person pyramid on the high tightwire. Check out the website at www.perucircus.com .

This is our first year in it and I was a pleasantly surprised to find strict rules about attendance. Very simply, if you don't show, you don't get center ring or the coveted spots. If you miss too much, you are out. Simply out.

DH helped supervise the boy's dressing room and they had some troublemakers. In the blink of an eye, 2 performers were pulled from the following performance. Nobody was irreplacable. Understudies stepped into their spots and the show went on. Don't get me wrong, this was not boot camp. The kids had a tremendous experience, some are 3-generation amateur performers. They learned more than trapeze art; they learned to put forth the proper effort to get where they wanted to be. All positions were earned.

Much, much different from our Little League experience where absences were not dealt with if you were a star player or parents expected their kids to play, even if they missed practices for petty reasons.

I, for one, appreciated that the rules were enforced from the top, in a fair & equitable fashion. The outstanding performances showed this committment to excellence and safety.

BTW, DS did a low trapeze act (about 8-10 feet off the ground) and a tumbling act. He almost made the final cut for juggling. He wants it so bad next year that he is praticing juggling clubs about 1 hour each day. He juggles anything he can get his hands on. He has learned that effort is rewarded!

 

[debster812]

I have a cousin who is going to school to get his MBA after working for several years after greaduation. He was fortunate enough to work for Bain Capital, and did quite well for himself, so while he is in school for his graduate degree, he coaches little league baseball.

He was coaching 9 year olds, and they were playing a team whose players were verbally abusive to each other and his team, and the parents of this opposing team were just BRUTAL. Yelling at the kids, the umps, the coaches, everyone.

My cousin walked to the ump in the 3rd inning, said "We forfeit, I am NOT subjecting my kids to this" and walked them all off the diamond. He then took them all out to Papa Gino's for pizza, and Brigham's for ice cream. I was so proud.

Even better, the league commissioner awarded my cousin's team the win, and forfeited the other team beacause of their behaviour. SO there are some good ones out there.

I only hope I can be a parent who is fortunate enough to get a coach like E.J. (my cuz) and support them.