When girls age up to U12 in competitive soccer – the game changes and becomes more physical. This isn’t a bad thing, but it can also be a bit jarring to see girls who only a few years ago had ribbons in their hair and were playing swarm ball on a tiny field now drenched in sweat going in hard for a ball and coming up with grass in their teeth…
Entries Tagged ‘Parents’
Thinking Rationally About Acceptable Risk
The media has a tendency to overhype dangers to children that in reality are extremely unlikely to occur. Unfortunately, many parents tend to lose perspective as to what is an acceptable risk and forget how much danger they put their kids in just by driving them to and allowing them to participate in youth soccer.
Speaking of Perspective
Dad Gone Mad has a great post up about watching his son play baseball recently, and it should be required reading for all sports parents:
I spent the rest of the gaming watching my son, and I felt myself getting emotional as I did so. It wasn’t because I was living vicariously through him as he [...]
What Would You Do If Parents Swarmed The Pitch?
Let’s start this off with a hypothetical scenario. Your child’s team is playing a team from a nearby town in a closely contested match. The score is 1-0 in favor of your team. Late in the 2nd half, one of your team’s players, let’s call them Player A, goes in hard for the ball and [...]
Just A Thought…
As SoccerDad does some roster assignments… If your child has dropped out of soccer three seasons in a row, maybe, JUST maybe, it’s time to pick a different sport.
Top Ten Things Soccer Parents Should Do
As the spring season approaches, I figured this would be a timely article. As both a soccer parent and coach, it has always been interesting watching the interactions (or lack thereof) of parents and coaches. Usually the interaction is good, but at times it can be strained, to the detriment of the team. We all [...]
Do Fences Make Good Parents?
A couple of years ago, due to abusive behavior by parents at youth (American) football games, a local recreation department erected chain link fences to keep the parents away from the players, coaches, and officials. Clearly the move was meant to get the parents attention to how bad things were getting, and I hope it [...]
Let’s Go To The Video Tape!
Canada is all abuzz over a recent bench clearing brawl at a hockey tournament between eight year old players which was caught on video. This is very unfortunate and is not limited to hockey by any means. Joyce Bassett from the Youth Sports Blog, had this to say after it was announced no charges would [...]
How To Avoid Becoming A Soccer Mom
From the Christian Science Monitor (H/T ncguy3), we find five ways to avoid becoming a Soccer Mom. My favorites:
Rule 3: Don’t do sports. After dumping your van, this is the most important rule. Don’t, under any circumstances, let your child join a sports team – especially a travel team. No matter how talented your child [...]
Model Soccer Parents
Old Soccer Guy has a post up about his U18 parents being model soccer parents. If you’re curious what a soccer coach looks for from parents, especially at the select/travel soccer level, he tells you. But even for those of you with kids in Recreational soccer, many of these things are important. So to his [...]
A Soccer Mom Who ‘Gets It’
Someone recently posted a comment on one of the older NCYSA Academy Proposal posts and it was excellent. I wanted to make sure everyone saw it because I think it’s a post in it’s own right on where youth soccer is today from a parent’s perspective. So I give you ‘Soccer Mom on Soccer’:
Wow, this [...]
Dad Gone Mad
Note to self: Never blog about your vasectomy, with pictures, and expect your player’s parents to not find it.
Those of you who have read this blog for a while know I’m, well, opinionated. I’m sure some of my parents have read my stuff, but that doesn’t keep me from spouting off about this or that. [...]
Parents Behind The Goals???
Lisa at LDSM posted this story up of some shameful behavior by parents during a penalty shoot out (or ‘kicks from the mark’ for you purists ) This blows me away. I know parents get out of hand – but using cell phone flashes to distract the kickers? That’s bad enough – but [...]
Ever Notice The Kids Know Better Than Some Parents?
Remember the story about the football team that had a chance to play for the championship taken away from them when their coaches were fired? Simply because the commissioner’s son was actually played at offense during a game? If not, read the original post. It’s amazing how selfish this guy was, no matter how much [...]
How Can Anyone Be So Selfish and Arrogant?
What was this father THINKING? I don’t care HOW good you think your kid might be, how could you ruin the season of a group of dedicated kids like this just to enact revenge on a coach for not submitting to your dictatorial edicts?
The South County Raptors, a scrappy football team made up of [...]
