Twisted Parenting

Here is a  story of my experience at my DD's game last night. I'm posting this because it seems to me, purely anecdotal, that the sidelines are becoming more and more filled with angry parents who have twisted parenting skills.

So I'm sitting at my DD's game last night, one DD on the field and one injured on the bench with a knee sprain, this will be relevant information later in this post.  It's been a great game and toward the end player A and Player B are shoulder to shoulder fighting for the ball. Player A is grabbing jersey and player B is trying to push her off  with her arm/elbow, both playing hard to get the ball. Because of the jersey pull player B gets a little behind player A and her leg follow through trips player A. Foul called on player B as it should have been called.  Both players exchange words about stop jersey pulling and  keep your elbows down and continue to play on after the restart.  It was good hard soccer that resulted in a foul and should have been end of story and play on, girls sorted it out like we as parents would want them to right.  NOPE! Mom of player A yells from the sideline, " Don't take that from her, you need to get her back, don't need to take that." So the very next time player B touches the ball player A from behind and to the side sweeps the her legs,  it appeared she had zero intent to play the ball, player B falls to the ground, clutching her shoulder and in tears.  Referee calls foul and to his credit issues a yellow card. Mom of player A is proudly encouraging her daughters retaliation and good play.


Why this touched a nerve in me goes back to my injured daughter, first game of the season she was whacked down from behind with the ball at her feet in the box, no call and ref let play go on while my daughter rolled around in pain for a good 30-45 seconds before stopping play. I have zero ill will against the player and would never call out for retaliation, fouls are part of the game. I actually used it as a learn moment to explain the importance of setting a solid base when shielding and creating space and distance from defenders with her first touch.  

So here is my problem, not with the player, but with the mom and parents like this mom. What kind of parent encourages their daughter to retaliate against another player for normal soccer behavior? And then proudly gives her admiration for carrying out the ordered retaliation? A rhetorical question I know, but come on this is 12 year old girls soccer. Putting out hits on opposing players from the sidelines, maybe a CPS call should have been made?  In full disclosure, player B is not my DD and I shared with this mom my opinion of her behavior and parenting advice that she directed to her DD. To no avail, as mom thought what she said to her daughter was OK, as did some of the other parents on her sideline.

It would be nice if there was a structure that LHGCL had in place to report such behavior, because this parents behavior was not only ignorant and dangerous, but also borderline criminal.

Yeah, LH has a hard time keeping up with what happens on the field. As a parent, this would be a good time to work with my kid the right and wrong way to handle this situation. Ignorance is all around us. Teaching your child how to handle themselves when confronted with ignorance is all you can do.

Unfortunately, the fix to this issue has nothing to do with the parent, nor the player for that matter.

There will always be idiots on the sideline, so just learn to deal with it.

What would help situations like this is if referees would start applying the laws of the game as they are supposed.  If it really happened the way you describe it (I have no reason to not believe you) and the retaliation happened shortly after the initial incident - the player should have been sent off, no questions asked.

When and only when referees begin to apply to rules, to all age groups, we will begin to see instance like this decrease.

The world is full of Red Card parents

You can report this to LH. There is a formal channel for a COACH to file a complaint on how referees manage a game but in this instance there is no need to file one. The referee called the situation appropriately and appropriately issued a yellow card.

If the parent is encouraging dirty/unsportsmanship, it is the coach's responsibility to teach the player appropriately.. 1st order of business is to coach the player to quit listening to the parents on the sidelines. If player continues to do so, player gets benched. That's how it works with my 03. Coach also makes it really clear to parents that there is no coaching from sidelines.. cheering only. If parent gets out of hand, player gets benched.. Period. When the player suffers because of her parent's inability to control themselves, behavior changes pretty quick.

Also remember.. yellow cards accumulate in LH. The system catches up with dirty players and they eventually have to sit out games and/or have to appear before the A&D committee to explain how they are going to change their behavior.