101 Ways to Be a Terrific Sports Parent by Dr. Joel Fish & Susan Magee

Author:Dr. Joel Fish & Susan Magee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2008-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

51. Form a parents’ group

Though I truly believe that the majority of coaches are good and generous people, I have heard of some extreme cases in which a coach was inept, unfair, or even verbally and emotionally abusive to the players. I saw a coach at a Little League game who had to be removed from the field by the umpire because he was cursing and screaming at the other team’s coach. He didn’t yell at his players, but such behavior is unacceptable. The coach is a role model for your child.

If your child’s coach proves to be one of the extreme cases, you should make every effort to speak with the coach to let him or her know that, “It’s not okay to keep Jenny on the bench every game” or “I won’t allow you to yell at Scott for making mistakes.”

If talking with the coach in private fails to produce a change in behavior consider going to a higher authority. A public or private school will have an athletic director, while a community team or recreational league always has a director.

When approaching a higher athletic authority, you will have more clout if you go, not as a single concerned parent, but as a group of concerned parents. Let’s face it, unless there are already numerous complaints against the coach, you could look like an overzealous sports parent. Chances are, if the coach is bad enough for you to consider going over his or her head, other parents will have similar concerns. Take the initiative and organize the other moms and dads. Appoint one person to be the spokesperson for the parents. That way when you have a meeting there won’t be a dozen people talking at once. Draft a letter of complaint documenting the specific issues or situations and have all of the parents sign it. It will be much harder for a school principal or a league director to ignore eight sets of parents than it would be to ignore one set. The other advantage of a forming a parent group is that it will keep the coach from singling out one child and minimizing her playing time or otherwise retaliating against her. When parents are persistent and use their power as a group, positive results are more likely to result.

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