Get off my back

No Parents allowed!

In Ontario Canada they have been asking Parents of players who participate in Saturday and Sunday sports to simply drop off their children and leave, the no-parent rule has been running for over 10 years and in a recent article a coordinator of the Youth soccer club, says the no parent rule is very popular with the kids, but not so with the parent.

In all kinds of different ways adults send message to their children about how and why they should play sports, how important are these games and these score, what they achieve on the pitch, in the gym or in the pool. We need to take a step back to tone down the attention and seriousness; parents can make great leaps towards releasing some of the pressures that take hold in the stands and on the sidelines. I think in Ireland we are lucky that junior soccer is not shown on Terrestrial television as this would only influence the competitiveness of the sport. Unlike in the US where they show junior hockey & basketball games, soccer youth championships etc

The reality is that many kids are paying a price every day, in many different ways. Emotional and Physical hurt all for the price of a win, repetitive-use injuries and total burnout. Since i started this site, I have heard so many stories of young boys and girls walking away from various sports all because of parent and coach pressure to win games. We might not notice it but children are being victimized physically or psychologically by this system of competitiveness at early ages by a coach or even the child’s own parent. This may sound extreme and have no relevance to your child or your team and you may be right, but you would also be wrong because the pressure kids are under within current soccer systems at times are what leads to what I’m talking about and have a lot to do with your child!

How often do we ask are children if playing sports continues to be fun for them?  I mean we never hit our kids if they play badly, but do you offer rewards for when they play well? Do you pay money for goals scored? Are you the type to analyze your kid’s performance all the way home from the game? Maybe the coach does this? I read recently that up to 60% of children who play some kind of sport in an organised system will drop out of that sport by the time they are 13.

How many kids now opt for gym over team sports, to many for my liking! And what it the main cause of this? Overheated competitive leagues, they way they operate and the way they demand so much are the main reasons for driving kids away and many reports done on this believe that if changes were made to the way these systems were run from the top down, kids leaving sport would be significantly lower. Basically, “we just push a lot of kids out” and it’s as simple as that.

The number 1 reason for boys and Girls who dropped out of sports was “I was no longer interested”.  Keep an eye out for reason kids walk away from sports.