Taking a teammate to a tournament

[Anonymous]

My kid is happy to have the friend it’s like an extended sleepover doing the sport they love.

[Anonymous]

I've done this before. Some things to consider:

1) Does the child regularly spend time away from their parents? I took a girl once with my daughters and she cried about being homesick/missing her mom. She was 10.

2) Is the child high-maintenance? My kids have some friends that exhaust me when they come to my house. I can't imagine taking them anywhere overnight.

3) Is the child responsible? We took a kid who wore glasses and lost them on the trip. It was a nightmare. Apparently she loses them all the time (thanks to the mom for not sending a backup pair if this was the case!). The kid should be able to be responsible for their own stuff and make smart food and beverage choices, otherwise say no.

4) Does the child eat and sleep like yours? We've had kids for sleepovers who regularly stay up past midnight and then sleep in until 10. My kids have always been somewhat earlier to sleep (like by 10:30) and earlier to rise (by 8:30). It's not a lot of fun for your kids to not get sleep and to have to wake up another kid. Same with food - if the child is a picky eater or their eating schedule is really different from yours it can be stressful.

5) Are the parents covering the cost? I used to travel with friends when I was a kid and we'd bring my friends on trips with us and it was never an issue. I was shocked when one of my kids' friend's parents didn't offer to cover any of the cost of the hotel (we needed a second room because of this kid) or food. Obviously it's my fault for not having asked before, I just don't know anyone like this and I was caught off guard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does the family usually offer to reimburse? I think it's awkward with team meals and such.

I’m the first 9:29 and it’s all of this. It’s not just the travel to the tournament but it’s all of the team meals and making sure they have what they need for the long tournament days. Volleyball tournaments are very long and it’s a lot. I’m not going to do this next year.

How do you say no if it's a friend of your kid? The kid is important to the team. I think the parents think if they just pay for the room it's NBD, but being in charge of another teenager for an entire weekend is a big deal IMO, and a huge inconvenience.

It is a big deal and can be a big inconvenience, and I wouldn't do it for parents who don't feel the same way. If they act like it's NBD then no thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've done this and have no problem with it. Our team does a lot of Venmo reimbursements, so I have no problem tracking expenses and saying "Please send $125 for the weekend" or whatever it was. When I've done it, the other family booked their child's flights so that expense was covered. Other family also had a hotel room booked, so the kids stayed in there together and I kept the room I'd booked. (They're old enough that it wasn't an issue.) Other parents have done it on our team for other kids as well.

I find this odd because did the child then not have to be booked to fly as an unaccompanied minor? When we've flown with other kids we've always booked their flights with ours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does the family usually offer to reimburse? I think it's awkward with team meals and such.

I would never ask this.

If you can not afford this then don't take the other kid.

I can afford it but why would I front a $750 bill for another kid?

Exactly. And any parent who would expect you to do that would likely be a pain to deal with overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It truly depends on the kid and my kids relationship with the kid. My daughter has a best friend who is well behaved and would make this easy. I would happily take her.

This - I know the bestie's parents very well, if I spent over what we estimated beforehand, I wouldn't think twice about being like "ok you owe me $50 more than we thought" - her kid and mine are bonded at the hip, and it'd be fine.

A kid/family I don't know as well? Hard pass.

Someone has to take the kid. Should the same family always have to take them?

Not my problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have done this a few times. We just get a suite. Usually it is only DH or myself attending (never both). Usually a chain place like Embassy Suites or Springhill Suites etc is not much more expensive (and one person can take the sofa bed in the “living room”). Might be different if we stayed at a team mandated hotel that was more expensive. Also usually it is for just one night.

We refuse any reimbursement for the room, but kid is always sent with $ for meals and we let them pay for theirs.

I usually don’t find it terribly awkward because there isn’t usually a whole lot of down time between games and team meals. The room is mostly just for sleep.
We have not asked anyone to take our own kid to a tournament, but the parents return the favor in other ways (rides etc).

Do you all share one bathroom? This would be a no go for me as a mom.

I'm a mom with daughters but sometimes we have shared a suite with a friend and we all use the same bathroom. Are you asking about moms and sons with male friends?

[Anonymous]

I could not ask this of another parent unless it was a true personal hardship like I was hospitalized or undergoing chemo, had a death of a close family member, etc. I say this because I would not want this responsibility. DS plays soccer and I never had anybody make this request when younger. Once he hit HS, the coach took primary responsibility for unaccompanied players. Parents pay for the room. The team always has 1-2 rooms depending on the number who are without parents. The coach will get them to/from everything. The kids basically fend for themselves but obviously some parents are willing to pitch in for little things or if things do go sideways.

My answer would be different if we knew the family really well and had a relationship prior to playing on the same team and felt the child was respectful. I would also expect the parent to pay for the child’s room as we usually have just the one and we’re budget conscious due to frequent soccer expenses adding up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've done this and have no problem with it. Our team does a lot of Venmo reimbursements, so I have no problem tracking expenses and saying "Please send $125 for the weekend" or whatever it was. When I've done it, the other family booked their child's flights so that expense was covered. Other family also had a hotel room booked, so the kids stayed in there together and I kept the room I'd booked. (They're old enough that it wasn't an issue.) Other parents have done it on our team for other kids as well.

I find this odd because did the child then not have to be booked to fly as an unaccompanied minor? When we've flown with other kids we've always booked their flights with ours.

No it doesn’t work that way. I have ended up booking kids separately from adults but on the same flight for all sorts of reasons, and this is never an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It truly depends on the kid and my kids relationship with the kid. My daughter has a best friend who is well behaved and would make this easy. I would happily take her.

This - I know the bestie's parents very well, if I spent over what we estimated beforehand, I wouldn't think twice about being like "ok you owe me $50 more than we thought" - her kid and mine are bonded at the hip, and it'd be fine.

A kid/family I don't know as well? Hard pass.

Someone has to take the kid. Should the same family always have to take them?

Yes. Their own parents. Don’t sign your kids up for travel sports if you aren’t willing to make the entire commitment.

So when the coach asks the other parents do you just say no? The kid is an integral part of the team.

How many times is this happening? In all my years of travel sports I've had to ask another family ONCE when my uncle died and I had to drive my mom to the funeral and husband was somewhere else with younger kid.

[Anonymous]

For me, it depends on a lot of the other factors mentioned - nice polite kid, gets along with my kid, family in need, etc. But it also depends on the sport and the schedule.

Soccer tournaments have so much downtime between games and the evening, so if my kid and the other kid do not get along well, it requires more work from me. From 8am-8pm, they are only spending 4 hours at the soccer field. That is a lot of downtime.

For swim meets, we are at the pool for at least 8 hours a day, so the hotel room is for sleep and naps only, and I don’t have to supervise as much, if any, free time.

[Anonymous]

I was on both sides of this last hockey season. We have 3 kids and no local family. One weekend, we had all 3 kids playing in different drivable tournament locations. The oldest (14) went with a teammate while my husband and I took the younger two. We prepaid the mom taking him for a couple of team events and sent him with his bank card to pay for all meals, snacks, etc. He also took a visa gift card he got for Christmas and car snacks to share. When they got back, I gave her a thank you card, a Starbucks card and a 4x6 picture of her and her son with the trophy. She’d texted me pics and I had one printed during their drive home. I was very appreciative that she’d take him and it seemed to go well.

Another weekend, a family on my youngest’s team was in a similar situation. We offered to take their son and had similar arrangements planned. But, he got sick right before the tournament and we didn’t take him. In both cases, we knew the families so it wasn’t like we were taking an unknown kid. It also is very common on both of their teams to have kids going with other families.

[Anonymous]

I’m trying to understand if the question is would you take someone ad hoc to a tournament or would you ever take anyone other than your kid to a tournament.

On my kid’s team as soon as a tournament schedule is released we all break into groups and figure out which parent will cover which tournament so each of us is only attending one. All are driving and we started doing this at 13 (never had overnights prior to 13).

If someone asked ad hoc and the kid was normal…it’s a business transaction if a parent agrees to take them. They figure out the per kid cost and tell the parent they can do it, it will cost X and Venmo the $$$s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've done this before. Some things to consider:

1) Does the child regularly spend time away from their parents? I took a girl once with my daughters and she cried about being homesick/missing her mom. She was 10.

2) Is the child high-maintenance? My kids have some friends that exhaust me when they come to my house. I can't imagine taking them anywhere overnight.

3) Is the child responsible? We took a kid who wore glasses and lost them on the trip. It was a nightmare. Apparently she loses them all the time (thanks to the mom for not sending a backup pair if this was the case!). The kid should be able to be responsible for their own stuff and make smart food and beverage choices, otherwise say no.

4) Does the child eat and sleep like yours? We've had kids for sleepovers who regularly stay up past midnight and then sleep in until 10. My kids have always been somewhat earlier to sleep (like by 10:30) and earlier to rise (by 8:30). It's not a lot of fun for your kids to not get sleep and to have to wake up another kid. Same with food - if the child is a picky eater or their eating schedule is really different from yours it can be stressful.

5) Are the parents covering the cost? I used to travel with friends when I was a kid and we'd bring my friends on trips with us and it was never an issue. I was shocked when one of my kids' friend's parents didn't offer to cover any of the cost of the hotel (we needed a second room because of this kid) or food. Obviously it's my fault for not having asked before, I just don't know anyone like this and I was caught off guard.

On your number 5, I absolutely agree parents should be covering the cost of someone else takes their kid to a travel tournament but if we are talking vacation, if I invite an extra kid, they are a guest and we are paying for everything. I appreciate (but don’t expect) if they offer to cover ice cream one night or something, but not covering all of their expenses.