Why are parents so invested
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Anonymous
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It's youth soccer! Why do parents berate, taunt, and otherwise terrorize other teams, coaches and referees? I do not care if you are the top team in the country or a Recreation team just starting out, no parents have the right to treat other children (or adults) so poorly. Why does this happen? And more importantly, how does one stop it? I do not want my child playing in this environment, nor do I want to be exposed to it.
It is a GAME - lighten up! |
Anonymous
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Inadequacies in their own lives. Some living vicariously through their kid. Some never were good at sports and overly excited and not realistic about their children’s potential.
I find the calmest parents tend to have the better players on both my children's’ teams. The ones with overly invested parents that get too personally involved and ride their kids hard have kids less successful as they move along because the kids stop having fun. You will be hard pressed to find any kids’ sports team without craziness. You just don’t get sucked into it and insulate your kid as much as possible from it. Ultimately, the kid has to want it and it doesn’t matter much what the parents do. But they embarrass their kids with their antics and set a very poor example. |
Anonymous
STFU if you are in this forum asking this question. |
Anonymous
This is exactly the question this forum needs. |
Anonymous
I totally agree with you, OP. Every word. |
Anonymous
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I have not experienced this, but we’ve been in Rec
soccer for 4 years (and one month into a travel lite team). Some parents are obviously overly invested in soccer but don’t seem to bother to attack other kids on the field. |
Anonymous
| We have never seen this but I assume it’s b/c they are counting on soccer paying for college — that’s high stakes. |
Anonymous
And idiotic. They’d be better off and have more chances with an academic scholarship. |
Anonymous
| I was telling DH during a game this weekend that I’ll be thrilled when dd gives up soccer. I’m so sick of parents and coaches acting like players on the other team are enemies, and like there are lives at stake in elementary school age games. It’s crazy. The games should be fun to play and fun to watch, but so much stress and negativity are brought by parents. |
Anonymous
Seems like you are mixing a question: "why are parents so invested?" with a statement: "no child should be exposed to an adult behaving poorly". 1) to answer the title of the thread... parents feel invested because they are literally investing their time and money into their children's activities. its human nature to struggle with disappointment. 99.9% of parents deal with setbacks for their children just fine 99.9% of the time, but every once in a while they don't. There's no excuse for parental meltdowns, but the question of "why" is fairly easy to understand. 2) to answer the question i think you meant to ask... no, you can't prevent your child from being "exposed to it" in one form or another. poor behavior by adults is a fact of life. have you never been exposed to adults behaving badly at work, at the grocery store, in a traffic jam? If your child is literally being abused, then take appropriate measures. But if an adult is simply making a fool of themself then use it as a teaching moment for your child, and help them understand that age is just a number. Getting older isn't necessarily the same thing as maturing. PS- if its more a matter of you being annoyed at a loud obnoxious parent on an opposing team who won't shut up, feel free to provide them feedback in person rather than venting here. Every team has "that parent", and if you're annoyed its fairly safe to assume that everyone else is also... |
Anonymous
| From my experience, this problem peaks around U13 or U14. Kids have been in long enough to think they have some real talent, but not long enough to realize that 95% of them won’t make it past club or maybe if they’re lucky college. This is the same period where club switching peaks. By junior and senior year in high school everyone is much more relaxed, and the kids actually enjoy the game. However, no amount of time will enable a certain percentage of the parents to ever understand offsides. |
Anonymous
Offside. Singular. Unless there are simultaneous multiple infractions. |
Anonymous
LOL no
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-rare-are-full-ride-scholarships/ It’s hard to get in to and pay for college now days. There are just so many talented kids and so few slots even if you are paying. That said I think some people think sports are a ticket to college. It’s not. You see the same behavior and craziness at competitive pre-K, elementary, middle school and high schools. It’s just not sports. |
Anonymous
Offside(s) |
Anonymous
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Not to rub it in, but our parent group has a blast at games. No shouting unless it's a just ridiculously bad call, most of the time you'll hear the parents joke with kids while they are playing and this is a top end team. We learned as a group early on that pressuring the kids, yelling at refs, and even going after other kids on the field just tightens up the players.
Sit back and enjoy, they will play faster and harder because it ends up being entertainment rather than test for all to judge. |