by Greg Bach
Bad behavior by coaches, parents, and spectators should never be allowed to infringe on a child’s soccer experience. The same goes for disruptive players on your own squad who impact their teammates’ enjoyment level. Hopefully, you’ll have few, if any, times when you need to discipline a youngster on your team or — even worse — deal with inappropriate comments by an opposing coach, parent, or spectator. In the event that you’re forced into addressing an uncomfortable issue with another adult — or a challenging matter with one of your players — this chapter is here to lend a hand in helping you negotiate your way through the unpleasantness.
Dealing with Difficult Parents
A lot of the childish behavior at youth soccer games around the country doesn’t take place among the kids on the field, but among the adult spectators in the stands and the coaches pacing the sidelines. Sure, minor conflicts arise throughout the course of a soccer season. You’re bringing together a group of parents with different backgrounds, motivations, and sports experiences — and they’re all looking for something different out of their children’s sports experiences. Occasional problems will pop up.
Take the time to conduct a preseason parents meeting (which we cover in Chapter 4) to lay some of the key groundwork in preventing parental problems from escalating into something no longer manageable. During the meeting, detail your expectations of parent behavior during games, and clearly explain what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate behavior from the parents and their children during the season.
Laying out your expectations for parental behavior before the first soccer ball is ever kicked is important, but it’s by no means a guarantee that every parent is going to be a model of good behavior all season long. So be prepared to step forward at the first indication of trouble. Any time you allow a problem to linger, it has the potential to blossom into something much worse.
The following sections take a look at some of the most common problems that you may deal with this season, and what approaches are best to implement to take care of them quickly and effectively before they negatively impact any child’s experience.
The win-at-all-cost attitude
Parents invest a lot of time, money, and energy in their children’s soccer experience, and they naturally want to see their kids excel in the sport and reap the benefits of participating. That means they may place unrealistic expectations on their child — and you — to perform at exceedingly high levels. Nothing less than a league championship is satisfactory in their eyes. This type of unhealthy behavior can place an enormous burden on you and your ability to work with all the youngsters. The additional pressure also infringes on some of the other kids’ enjoyment of the game, and — most important — it puts the youngster whose parents have the skyrocketing expectations in a really uncomfortable and pressure-filled position.
Reviewing the scenarios
Blinded by their visions of shiny first-place trophies and postseason accolades, win-at-all-cost parents do whatever it takes to ensure that their child’s team wins — and that their child looks good in the process. They shout disparaging remarks at referees. They even go so far as to try to intimidate referees into getting favorable calls, even when those referees are teenagers simply doing their best to call a fair game. These parents verbally criticize the opposing coach and the techniques his team is using, especially if the other team happens to be winning the game or doing a really good job of defending their child and not allowing him to show off any of his skills.
You’re also going to be on their radar screen as a big target for criticism and questions about your coaching style whenever the outcome of a game doesn’t turn out in your team’s favor. These parents, regardless of the age level of the youngsters, are likely to confront you about the importance of playing the more athletic kids more often and benching the less-skilled players, all to help ensure that the team wins more games and their child receives more playing time. They critique your game strategy following losses, question your line-up, analyze your substitution patterns, and offer their unsolicited advice regarding your offensive tactics and defensive philosophy.
These win-at-all-cost parents equate wins with winning the lottery and view losses as catastrophes of truly epic proportions. This unhealthy outlook and what they’re teaching the child at home about how important winning is go against everything you’re trying to teach the kids regarding doing their best and having fun.
Dealing with the problem
Although you don’t have a say in what the parents say to their child at home about the importance of winning, you do have a say in what’s said while you’re coaching a game. Look at the soccer field as a classroom where you’re teaching the kids not only soccer skills, but also teamwork, good sportsmanship, and doing the best they can at all times. You can’t allow outside influences to disrupt the messages that you’re trying to get across.
Chances are that during the course of the season, some parents may begin adopting a rather intense interest in the outcome of games. You may start noticing that their comments and reactions during the game, or what they say to their kids afterward, are becoming problematic and counterproductive to what you’re trying to teach the youngsters. Groaning when your goalie misplays a shot that results in a goal or stomping feet on the bleachers in disgust when one of your players fails to convert a golden scoring opportunity are clear signals that their behavior is taking on the tone of a professional or college game and not a youth game.
To help stem the competitive tide and prevent it from enveloping the other parents of your players, give a brief and friendly talk to the parents before your next game. Spending a couple of minutes talking to the entire group, reminding the parents that their children play in a recreational youth soccer league, and repeating that winning the game isn’t the most important factor may help put them in the proper frame of mind. If the league has staff members who monitor the behavior of fans, point out to your parents that their actions are being observed, and you’d hate to see their child embarrassed if her parents were asked to leave the facility because they couldn’t control themselves during the game.
If the group chat doesn’t help, and the win-at-all-cost attitude continues to prevail, arrange to speak with the parent privately, and share your concerns that his comments are a real detriment to not only his child’s development, but also that of the rest of the team. Be sure to reiterate that you’re trying to help all the kids learn skills and that although winning the game is one of the objectives that you’re striving to achieve, it’s not the sole objective.
Let the parent know that if he isn’t happy with your philosophy on coaching kids, perhaps he should consider coaching next season or look into signing his child up for a more competitive team. In the meantime, you need his cooperation. Share with him that you don’t want him to be absent from this exciting time in his child’s life, but if the improper behavior continues to detract from the values you’re teaching, the only other recourse you have is to speak to the league director. Don’t be confrontational in this discussion, but be firm in your stance, because you have the welfare of a group of kids to look out for. You may also want the recreation supervisor or league director present for the discussion to lend additional support.
Soccer = babysitting service
Most parents juggle chaotic schedules and try to maintain their sanity while gobbling up dinners at drive-through windows and herding their kids to all their assorted activities. A lot of times, parents view your practices — and even games — as a convenient babysitting service where they drop their youngster off and return an hour or so later.
Sure, today, when single parenting plays an ever-increasing role in family life, Mom or Dad simply may not have the luxury of being able to hang out at the soccer field. But ideally, you want parents to be — at least to some extent — a part of the practice regimen whenever possible and to be there on game day providing positive support and encouragement for not just their child, but also the entire t
eam.
After a couple of weeks of practices and games, you start to get a pretty good sense of which parents simply can’t be there all the time and which parents are taking advantage of you and using you as an unpaid babysitting service. During your interactions with the kids, begin gauging what type of family lives they have at home, and use your conversations with parents before practices and games to get a feel for what type of people they are.
One of the best ways to get parents to stick around for practice is to include them in some of your drills, as we discuss in Chapter 6. When those parents who typically don’t hang around after dropping their child off see all the fun that’s taking place and how involved the other parents are with their children, they’re going to start hanging around and wanting to be part of the action.
A lot of parents may be unfamiliar with their roles and responsibilities in a team sport like soccer, and perhaps what you outlined for them at your preseason parents meeting didn’t sink in. A quick, casual conversation with parents when they arrive to pick their children up may be all you need to make a difference. Let them know that you think their children can really benefit from having them take a more active interest in soccer and being a part of practices and games. A child who scores a goal or makes a nifty defensive play derives a lot more satisfaction from the play if she’s able to glance over to the sidelines and see a thumbs-up or a nod of approval and a smile from her mom or dad.
Share with parents that their presence, even during a routine practice during the middle of the week, can do so much for a child’s confidence while also maintaining their interest in the sport. You can even mention an drill you’ve done in practice that their child has really taken a liking to and suggest that they can work on it with their youngster at home. Not only does working on this drill help the child improve that particular area of his game, but it also gets the parents more involved in their child’s development, which is good news for everyone.
Playing-time complaints
A lot of parents track their child’s playing time more closely than their investment portfolio. In youth soccer, playing time is like gold, and parents can’t get enough of it. After all, many parents view their child’s status on the team as a true reflection of their parenting skills. The more skilled their child is — and the more playing time he receives because of those skills — the better parenting job they assume they must be doing. In their eyes, their child’s playing time becomes a status symbol among the rest of the team, as well as for the parents that whom sitting next to in the stands.
A lot of parents have ridiculously unrealistic expectations of their child’s soccer ability. Every time they see their child sitting on the bench, they think her athletic future is being compromised and her soccer scholarship is being put in jeopardy. Despite the league rule that’s most likely in place (especially at the beginning levels of youth soccer) regarding equal playing time for all kids — regardless of their ability — when the season gets under way, some parents aren’t in agreement with this policy, not when they see their child taking her turn sitting on the bench.
Dealing with parents who are disappointed by the amount of playing time their child receives is pretty common in soccer, and it’s fairly easy to handle. Here are some points to keep in mind:
Rely on league policy: If your league has a policy on equal playing time for all the kids, and you explained that policy at the start of the season to all the parents, you have a pretty convincing case for why you’re rotating the kids in and out of the line-up. Let the parents know that you enjoy coaching their children, and you want to provide more playing time, but you have to be fair to all your players. And after all, rules are rules.
Offer a reminder: Remind the parent of your stated preseason policy that every child receives an equal amount of playing time — based on regularly attending practices and not ability.
Chart playing time: If the parents question whether you’re distributing playing time equally among all the players, hopefully, you can refer to your line-up to show them that you (or an assistant coach) very carefully monitor the playing time of each child to ensure that all players get an equal amount. Written documentation of the great lengths you go to make the season fair for everyone is usually enough to make your point.
At the other end of the spectrum, some kids may refuse to return to the game when you call upon them. Perhaps a child was kicked in the shin, and the pain hasn’t subsided, or maybe she’s matched against a highly skilled player and is frustrated by her lack of success. Whatever the reason for her reluctance to get back on the field, never embarrass the youngster or force her back out there against her will. If the child isn’t comfortable explaining why she’s hesitant to return, be sure to speak with her privately after the game to learn what happened and what you can do to ease those fears before the next game.
Trouble in the stands
Overinvolved parents who regularly wander across the line of good behavior have become increasingly common in youth soccer programs. Too often, loud-mouthed insults, cursing, ranting, raving, and frightening violence have found their way into an increasing number of soccer programs and youth sports programs in general. Why some parents act irresponsibly and behave poorly while watching a youth soccer game is difficult to figure out and probably involves a bunch of factors that are completely out of your control. But what is in your control is your ability to keep that type of negative behavior from embarrassing the children and disrupting the game.
If a parent displays inappropriate behavior, address it as soon as possible. Ignoring the actions of these parents or being afraid to step forward and address the situation sends a terrible message that this type of behavior is acceptable and that everything that you talked about during your preseason parents meeting was just a bunch of hollow words. Parents need to know that inappropriate words and actions aren’t tolerated in any form whatsoever. Dealing with problems swiftly also lets the other team parents know that if they step or act out of line, you’ll deal with them accordingly. The entire team of parents will appreciate your commitment to ensuring that each child on the team has a safe and fun-filled experience.
How do you handle a parent who has just shouted an embarrassing comment? What do you do when parents yell across the field at the coach who appears to be running up the score on your team? What do you do when tensions seem to be rising among parents who are suddenly not very happy with how the game is unfolding? In the following sections, we provide you some strategies to deal with such situations. And because you’re only human, and such disruptions and confrontations are bound to get you steamed at times, we also advise you what not to do — don’t let your emotions get the better of you.
What do to
The following are some approaches you can use to help keep everyone’s temper in check and the game moving along without any unnecessary disruptions for the kids:
Provide a friendly reminder: A lot of times, parents may not even realize that they’re behaving inappropriately, and a firm — but friendly — reminder to keep their emotions in check and their comments about the game or the referee’s calls to themselves may be all that’s required.
Understand your league’s parent policy: As we discuss in Chapter 2, thoroughly knowing your league’s rules is extremely important. An increasing number of soccer leagues around the country are instituting parent sportsmanship programs — both voluntary and mandatory — to help give parents a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities. You may want to recommend to your league director adopting a program so all the parents work together to ensure meeting the best interests of all the kids.
Set a civil example: You can quickly defuse a tense situation between yourself and an upset parent by maintaining a calm and friendly demeanor at all times. Setting a civil tone right from the start is a critical building block for a productive discussion. Granted, this civility may be difficult at times, particularly when the parent is unleashing a verbal assault accusing y
ou of being an inept soccer coach with no sense of what’s right for the kids.
Be prepared to listen: If you’re not willing to listen to what the parents have to say, how can you realistically expect them to listen to you? Focus as much on listening as trying to get your point across, and the parent is more likely to work with you and not against you.
Use the right tone: Just as your tone and body language influence your interactions with the kids, they have the same impact on your dealings with parents. For example, if a parent poses a question to you about why her child only got to play in half the game, and before responding, you put your hands on your hips, she perceives you as being upset before you even respond to the question. Mixed body-language signals or a negative tone are quick routes to an unproductive and unhealthy conversation.
Remove abusive parents from the field only as a last resort: Having a parent removed from the playing area is an extreme step to take — but sometimes, it’s the only recourse available to ensure the safety and well being of the young participants on the field, as well as the other spectators in the stands. Being thrown out is certainly an embarrassment for the parent who’s being removed, as well as for the child whose fun game of soccer is being interrupted.
Parents want the best for their children, so if they request a meeting with you and are willing to take the time to speak with you on their child’s behalf, that shows that they’re caring and concerned parents. Let them know that you understand that they want the best for their child, as do you. Acknowledge their child’s attributes, and let them know how proud you are of how the child has developed so far this season, what a pleasure she is to coach, and what a valuable member of the team she is.