Where the **** were his parents?!?!!? Punish THEIR *SS, too, for their kid's bad behavior. RECORD the entire thing and show it next week and tell everyone: "This is NOT what you do." F#$(*^ing parents deserve to sit in timeout, too. Man, ask the parents and the kids to cool their #)($^*&%^ jets and behave properly... or they will get kicked out. Simple and direct. THEN have the board of directors or league owner or Y peeps come out and see this piece of work.
Kick the kid out. Tell them no refunds. The kid gets publicly embarrassed and disciplined, and the mother learns that having a ****ty kid will negatively affect her monetarily.
Sounds like you are handling it well. You might speak with the mom privately as the kid may have some known behaviorial issues. Practice may require early meds. Let her know that continued disrespecful behavior may require the child to leave the field.
I had a high school baseball coach who after a seriously embarrassing loss took a chair sat it down, sat himself down in it and then said we were gonna run triangles till he got tired
I've kind of approached it the same way I do with my kids at school. When they are on the field, when they are in my class, I have authority to what is best for the class and team. So I try to put the parents that are on the sidelines out of my mind and focus in the kids. So you are not singleing him out, sit the whole team down and set clear expectations with consequences. One method I'm using this year is the 1-2-3 counting method. Basically if they are not following instructions or being respectful, all I say is "that's 1," "that's 2," "that's 3 take 5." They have to sit for five minutes. No arguing back and forth, no explanations, just a simple count. It's pretty effective. Then make sure to offer positive feedback when he's actually on task and being a team player. It'd probably also be good to communicate those same expectations and consequences to the parents too so you are on the same page. Sounds like you did the right though with sitting him in timeout. Just set clear boundaries if you haven't already and be consistent.
Pretty simple, but maybe I was a bit indelicate. Depending upon the circumstance, and if the kid is taking meds to manage behavior, having the kid take the meds before rather than after practice may mitigate the behavior. It worked for a kid in my son's cub scout troop with behavior issues.
Coached for well over a decade. The mark of a good youth league coach is making something out of the kids with little talent. Anyone can coach the kids with talent. Helping kids like this learn how to become a functional team member is what is going to seperate you from the rest of the pack. When you do drills with younger kids, separate them by ability levels. I don't know anything about soccer so I will give baseball examples. You have 12 kids. Break them up in groups of 3 with the least talented kids grouped together, the next in line and so forth to your top 3 players. You can change this around during the season as they progress but never have the worst guy get his ass handed to him by the best guy. Have work stations like running.... Time them and whomever wins in that group of 3 gets a trading card from that sport. Same for bunting, catching pop flies, grounders etc.... The kids will bust their asses if they know they have a shot at winning against their peers. Just use soccer drills. Make sure that the kids understand that fundamentals count. In practice, if a kid who struggles does something simple like being in the right place reward him with praise or a card. Make it progressively harder for the kids to get rewarded without being a hard ass. Hitting the cutoff man for a 5 year old in practice would result in me clapping my hand loudly and praising the kid. If they feel you got their back kids will bust their ass for you. Remember that kids are just like the adults that you work with. Some need you to stay on them to be motivated and some you leave alone and they excel. With this kid, find something positive about him and build on that. Everyone is aware of the negative so don't make that become the focus of the team what ridiculous thing the kid is doing this practice. Had a kid I coached in basketball who was the worst kid on the team almost every year when he was really young. I liked coaching him and his Dad was the best assistant coach I ever had. Bill got better and better every year and wound up playing at East Texas Baptist. Bill learned the fundamentals like defense and setting picks cause thats what he was good at when he was little. A he got bigger and stronger the offensive skills developed. But if he was having a bad night offensively he had fundamentals to hang his hat on. Had some kids who flat out dominated when they were young and put it in cruise control later on and quit playing Try to find what makes this kid tick and build on it. If it works out, you will feel very rewarded.
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Thanks buddy. That was some of the best advice I could have gotten. I remind myself every kid is not like mine who has two parents at home who make sure they eat right, behave, gets lots of sleep, has clear boundaries, respect their elders and their peers, etc.
I coach Middle School, High School and AAU ball and I follow the same plan. You earn your playing time though your work and respect in practice and during games. If you aren't giving it your all or being a supportive teammate, you sit for as long as it takes. If it's the whole season, so be it.
^Sounds like a good plan for older kids, but these are five-year-olds the OP is coaching. Is the approach the same? Does the age difference here warrant the same methodology?
I know how you feel there too. Had a kid I coached in Football. I dropped him off at his parents apartment. His mom was in front of the apartment and I noticed she had a swollen black eye. The very next day when I dropped the boy off, his brothers and sisters run up to the car saying Mommy and Daddy moved away and left us. Never saw the kid again as he went to live with Grandma. Another kid that I coached in Baseball, David, who was a terrific athlete had parents who drank all the time in the front yard. I remember seeing his older brother one day spray painting a bicycle in the front yard. My wife and I used to take David with us when we took our son places. We even to took him to Six Flags in Atlanta when we drove there for vacation. As hard as we tried to provide positive support to him he eventually succumbed to the negative influences around him which landed him in jail in his late teens. Got several other examples but those two stick out.
In my opinion, no it doesn't. With a 5 year old kid, if he can make it through a game without ****ting his pants that's a plus. Actually had a Mom of a tee ball player get pissed that I had her son sit down for his scheduled at bat in the last inning. The kid **** his pants in the dugout and it was pretty noticeable. I didn't want him to be embarrassed going up to the plate with all eyes on him. It was like.... Ump... we're gonna take an out on the next batter. Luckily when Mom sprinted over to vent to me, it saved me from having to send my assistant to let her know what happened. Had her wait until the game was over an out later and she quietly got him out of the dugout.
