|
Post by fantom on Jan 20, 2014 16:11:14 GMT -6
I was wondering how many of you guys have parents watch practice somewhat regularly. I'm curious because I hear a lot of parents with young kids talking about watching their kids' practices. I was wondering if this is a trend.
|
|
|
Post by newt21 on Jan 20, 2014 16:26:36 GMT -6
I currently coach middle school ball, and I tell them that I don't mind as long as they adhere to the area restrictions. I let them know at my parent meeting where is acceptable and where isn't, other than that it isn't a big deal to me because it gives me space to do my job.
|
|
|
Post by jrk5150 on Jan 20, 2014 16:48:45 GMT -6
I coach 9-10 year old kids, and I'd say more than half of the parents are there every practice.
And with the way our field is configured, our practice space puts them right on top of us, as in within 10 yards of us. They can hear pretty much everything we do unless we specifically don't want them to. Meaning we can pull them out into the middle of our area about 30 yards from the parents and quietly have a...discussion...with them if needed. We rarely do that. I know I typically "talk" loud enough for the parents to hear exactly what I'm doing, as I don't want there to be any misunderstandings...
|
|
|
Post by spos21ram on Jan 20, 2014 16:56:46 GMT -6
At the high school level we don't get any. But I've been down to our peewee complex and it's packed with parents watching. I'd say about 30% of the parents watch every day.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using proboards
|
|
|
Post by mahonz on Jan 21, 2014 11:26:14 GMT -6
Yes we have most all of them during pre season then about half the rest of the time. They dont bother us.
|
|
|
Post by fantom on Jan 21, 2014 13:02:51 GMT -6
Yes we have most all of them during pre season then about half the rest of the time. They dont bother us. The thread about how many practices got me thinking about this. It occurred to me that when I heard coworkers talking about taking multiple kids to multiple practices they were talking about staying and watching the whole practice. Well no wonder the parents are frazzled. How long has it been this way? When my son played Little League I and the other parents dropped the kids off, asked what time they'd be done, and went about our business.
|
|
|
Post by mahonz on Jan 21, 2014 13:12:04 GMT -6
Yes we have most all of them during pre season then about half the rest of the time. They dont bother us. The thread about how many practices got me thinking about this. It occurred to me that when I heard coworkers talking about taking multiple kids to multiple practices they were talking about staying and watching the whole practice. Well no wonder the parents are frazzled. How long has it been this way? When my son played Little League I and the other parents dropped the kids off, asked what time they'd be done, and went about our business. Its been this way as long as I can remember especially with the younger kids...the older kids not so much especially towards the end of season. Last Summer we had a couple of the single parents from the team get married....after hanging out at practice all the time the relationship grew from there. Some use us as a babysitting service. No biggie.
|
|
|
Post by shocktroop34 on Jan 21, 2014 13:29:07 GMT -6
In our area, youth teams have parents in lawn chairs each night.
H.S. about 8-10 people. Usually dads and a couple of moms. Mom's are funny..."that right coach, get in that azz!" lol.
|
|
|
Post by hsrose on Jan 21, 2014 13:29:54 GMT -6
The first year my son played, age 9, he was on a team that was the last stop for the coaches. Team was 8-12's, 35 players. They, as a group, had had issues, problems, whatever, and this was their last chance to coach in the league. None of us new parents knew this. I started by dropping my son off and leaving, he'd done other sports and this was the way that youth athletics was supposed to be.
I thought things were not good by week 2 when my son was making himself physically sick, to the point of throwing up, before practice. He wanted nothing to do with this team. He was an athlete, big and strong, and for him to be doing this, something was wrong. I started staying just to see what was happening, and even I thought it just wasn't right what these guys were doing. Gradually the number of parents at practice started growing as we started to see what was going on, parents were staying and watching to protect their players, not interfere with the 'coaching' that was going on.
By mid-October they had changed the offense for the 4th time. Not adjustments, new offense. They had the players running the Raindeers - run, blow the whistle, flop, get up and run, repeat - for 30 minutes because the players could not get off on the second Hut of their cadence in the previous game. It was 30 minutes by my watch but it went longer. Parents started taking kids off and leaving after 20 minutes of this. The entire time the coaches were on the field yelling at the players about how bad they were and didn't deserve their uniforms, players were throwing up, crying. My son and a couple of other players ran the full time, they hated the coaches and were not going to give up. He was so angry and pissed at them that he never smiled the rest of the season. I asked him about the coaches and he said hated them but wasn't going to give into them.
They used to line the players up in two lines facing each other about 2 yards apart. 35 players so the lines were decently long. Then take two players and have them start in the middle, run out of the ends of the tunnel, around the tunnel, back into the tunnel, and meet head on in the middle. For toughening the players.
That was their last season in the league.
When I had the team the next season I asked the parents to be there until they felt comfortable leaving Jr. with us. Some left in week 1, some left later. I never had a problem with parents staying, but they weren't involved in the coaching. I made that clear that unless they had a whistle in their hands and were approved by the league they were not coaches and we would not listen to what anyone outside the lines had to say. Had a couple of parents try but I handed them the coaching application and that usually ended things.
|
|
|
Post by spos21ram on Jan 21, 2014 15:13:36 GMT -6
I know when I played peewees 20 years ago. No parents stayed. Now it's a mad house.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using proboards
|
|
|
Post by fantom on Jan 21, 2014 15:56:35 GMT -6
I know when I played peewees 20 years ago. No parents stayed. Now it's a mad house. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using proboards This was the parental involvement when I played: Me: "Mom, we're going to practice" Mom: "OK"
|
|
|
Post by carookie on Jan 21, 2014 23:06:28 GMT -6
I was at a HS several years back that was upper middle class and had a bit of a 'helicopter' issue. There was about 100 kids on the frosh team, and I would say the avg practice had about 15-20 parents/guardians. The frosh practice field was seperated by a fence and I never saw any parents interrupt in any way and I dont ever recall any of the coaches saying a parent disrupted practice. I always thought it was weird though
|
|
|
Post by utchuckd on Jan 22, 2014 22:07:43 GMT -6
On our 11-12 year old teams we had at least 50-60% parents stay for practice. I have virtually none at our middle school practices now. Growing up my dad was at every practice, but he was the coach so I don't know if that counts...
|
|
|
Post by CatsCoach on Jan 31, 2014 9:10:55 GMT -6
I coached basically a Middle School team and the majority of the parents didn't say to watch practice. A dad or two would say or come back and watch the 2nd half of practice. Now the team my son played on 8-9 yr olds, most of the parents stayed and watched. My wife didn't say and watch our sons practice because this was his 2nd year playing and my practice was at the field.
|
|
|
Post by Chris Clement on Jan 31, 2014 13:04:32 GMT -6
Parents sticking around to watch youth practices was usually a function of whether they could conveniently go elsewhere or if we were out in the boonies and it wasn't worth it. I also had some parents stay to hang out with each other, they didn't really pay attention to the practice in the background.
|
|
|
Post by pirate1590 on Jan 31, 2014 14:46:28 GMT -6
Depends. During the preseason when we are going four nights a week most are there 90 percent of the time. We probably have 10 couples and kids chilling out cranking up the music on the cars and watching us practice. During the season, its usually about 5-6 different sets every night- lot of continuity. I always make sure to talk to them before and after practice- we stress having the adults do things outside of practice- we have plenty of parties during the season for parents only. I don't have a problem with them watching as long as they are WATCHING. Never have had a problem with it.
|
|