Team dad critical of your kid

[Anonymous]

How do you handle the dad that makes a comment out loud anytime your kid touches the ball? The kid is not a bad player. In fact, one of the better ones but new to the team. Any time my kid touches the ball he’ll make some dumb@ssy comment or critique. It’s completely rude. I played the sport D1. This short dumpy dad did not play the sport.

I just ignore it so far, but I’m Irish-Italian and I know it’s getting so close to me saying something incredibly nasty to him.

My son played with all the other boys when he was young and I get along really well with the other parents.

[Anonymous]

More detail, whT does he say

[Anonymous]

Lol, yes! In K and 1st grade soccer there was a mom who constantly made comments about my daughter to her daughter whenever she was on the bench. It was always within earshot. We ignored it because we’re in a small community. Her kid was loud and lazy with a negative-attitude so it was no surprise.

Things that triggered her criticism include her daughter stealing the ball from my daughter when my daughter was running the ball to the goal. Her daughter then kicked it out of bounds. When her daughter skulked over at halftime, her mom consoled her by saying “some girls just don’t want to win as badly as you!”.

My DH has a sneaky sense of humor and hasn’t told any of my DD’s teammates friends that he played her current sport professionally. He likes to listen to them say ignorant things. He is not Irish-Italian and is such a cool customer that sometimes I wish he was the type to tell someone to shut the #%* up!

[Anonymous]

Only if you can keep your cool: look him in the eye and quietly say "I don't want to hear you talk to or about my child again," and then walk away.

[Anonymous]

I think I would probably tell him to shut his fing mouth, but that might cause a fight.

[Anonymous]

Can you call him out in front of everyone? Something like "Hey Bob, why are picking on my son Larlo again? It's rude and we're sick of it."

[Anonymous]

I would have said something the first time and it would not have been nice. I cannot keep my mouth shut in those instances nor would I want to.

[Anonymous]

To be honest, I would ask him what was up and why he was doing it. I don't like my ex generally, but he started doing this to a kid on my child's team after he learned that the kid was bullying my kid at practice (telling my child to shut up every time they spoke, that no one liked them, that they were ugly). It doesn't make it an acceptable response at all and my ex is immature generally, but I would still want to know the whole story.

[Anonymous]

Our team has our own short dumpy loudmouth. Everyone just ignores him and coach sends reminder notes to keep the vocal criticism down. I know I can't be a cool customer about it so I leave it to the coach. I would be happy if another parent backed up the coach but it requires a mature approach to keep the peace.

[Anonymous]

This sounds like the kind of person I would laugh at very loudly. I mean, you have got to admit this individual is ridiculous. It's great comedy and you might as well enjoy the show!

[Anonymous]

Oh so sorry.

I have similar experiences.


Neighborhood dad coaches yuck.

Son's bf's dad was a coach for t-ball and soccer. Awful awful. Never played DS. And was a jerk about it this was grade 1 &2. We finally removed DS from his teams. Fast forward 9th grade Varsity Lax, Divison 1 college recruit. His kid made the HS soccer team bench warmer.

[Anonymous]

Are these paid coaches? If so, why the hell aren’t they putting a stop to it? Unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

The next time he says something, I would say "Stop embarrassing yourself. I've played the sport before and you don't know what you're talking about."

[Anonymous]

Handout lollipops.

[Anonymous]

We had a dad like this on the sidelines and I said something to the coach and the coach emailed the whole team telling saying they heard people were criticizing players on the sidelines and people should stop embarrassing themselves by doing this and if they couldn't control themselves they shoudln't attend. I didn't ask the coach to do this. Everyone knew exactly who it was directed at and the dad never came back to another game. So that was a treat.

I don't know if your coach has any balls though.