<p>Ok fair enough GFG. (Sorry, no post number) </p>
<p>"in the child is learned from the parent, as these are the parents who think they are right in not caring about something silly like high school sports or an English paper. "</p>
<p>Thereâs a world of difference in their importance, though. And while trying oneâs best and honoring commitments are important concepts, itâs more important to me that my kid âgives it his allâ to English than sports. I just canât put then on the same plane at all. </p>
<p>"I donât think itâs unreasonable for my child or me to be unhappy that an apathetic kid like that is running one of the legs of the same relay as my kid. "</p>
<p>I donât think itâs unreasonable for the kid to be unhappy at the apathetic / blow-off teammate. </p>
<p>Pizza - there may or may not be a world of difference between an English paper and a high school sports game. Itâs all in how you look at it. Iâm pretty much with you on whatâs important, but so long as the kid knows English is important itâs OK by me if they think sport is more important. Academics, sports, art, music are all positive passions and Iâm not sure one is necessarily more important to care about than another.</p>
<p>Reasonable sport parent:
Cheers positively and without malice for the home team.
Claps politely for the opposition.
Keeps her negative thoughts to herself during the game, and bites her lip until she is in her car.
After the game, if she canât find a specific positive comment to make to a player, then she keeps her mouth shut.
If her own kid had a less than terrific game, he already knows it. He doesnât need a post game critique.
Is a team parent, and makes sure her child is a team player⊠Her kid is on time, and ready to participate at games and practices.</p>
<p>Crazy sport parent:
Makes it clear that her player is the best player⊠At meetings, at games, at banquets, in casual conversations⊠and deserves to be treated differently.
Criticizes other players. Ever. (OK, Iâd give a pass if done in your own home, to your spouse.)
Criticizes her own childâs performance in public. (While you may not think so, this is the definition of the humble brag.)
Criticizes the team, the coach, or her own childâs playing time to anyone other than the coach, in a private meeting.
Coaches from the sidelines or from the stands. The coach hates this. The other parents hate this. Her own child hates this. (Yes, you claim to be yelling encouragement, but if your encouragement includes directions, it is on the crazy parent continuum.)
Schedules college visits (specifically to meet with a coach) during the high school sports season, on a day when her child will miss a game. This is never, ever necessary. (The college coach you are meeting with does not want your child to do this. )
Doesnât really believe her child when he declares that he has no interest in playing âat the next levelâ, whatever that level might be.</p>
<p>Every parent in the stands knows exactly who the crazy parents are. It doesnât matter if your child is headed for D1 or never playing that sport after high school, crazy is crazy.</p>
<p>The US is the only country that has varsity sports at the collegiate level and pays students to play sports in the form of athletic scholarships. There are some very narrow exceptions such as Oxford-Cambridge rowing, but the first sentence is broadly true.</p>
<p>College students in other countries who are athletes pursue their sports individually or on club teams that are separate from the school. We can discuss whether the US or non-US model is preferable, but that should probably be its own thread. </p>
<p>Anyway, the US system is what we have here. Competitive sports can help families pay for college and/or help a student gain admittance to a college that academics and other attributes alone would not have allowed him/her to attend.</p>
<p>I am not going to criticize a student or family that takes youth sports seriously in an effort help with finances or to help get into a reach or stretch school.</p>
<p>Cards on the table: Our family has benefited financially from this situation, and both the kid and parents are happy that we took a very competitive approach to youth sports. We may have benefited also from the kidâs admission to a school that otherwise might have been a reach or stretch. Of course, we will never know about that latter point for sure.</p>
<p>So Iâve got no problem with the families who emphasize sports or the English paper (of course they donât have to be mutually exclusive). To understand a familyâs actions I think it is necessary to understand their reasons.</p>
<p>We know kids playing D1 sports, whose parents are, and were, lovely. And kids playing D1, whose parents are, and were, crazy. </p>
<p>What if your DH said to the person waiting at the finish line, âI expected my W to finish in 25 minutes and itâs been 30, I wonder if sheâs just slow today or if there is a problem?â Would you feel insulted by that? Heâs basically telling someone you are slow. Iâd just think thatâs casual conversation.</p>
<p>I sit with the people who want to watch the game. As someone said, some parents sit off by themselves because they either want to yell or because they donât really want to discuss the game. Thatâs part of the fun for me and my daughter doesnât want false praise, so weâre good with it. It would be horrible for me to have to sit in the stands clapping politely, only saying âgood jobâ and not getting to consider the entire game, good and bad.</p>
<p>It takes all sorts of people to make the world go around; athletes included, as well as awesome English paper writers. The world would be a bit more boring without both. But no reason it could not be the same person either. </p>
<p>âIt would be horrible for me to have to sit in the stands clapping politely, only saying âgood jobâ and not getting to consider the entire game, good and bad.â</p>
<p>I guess Iâm so bored by most sports it would be horrible for me to have to pay attention! Lol. I get it. I just donât get sports! </p>
<p>âWhat if your DH said to the person waiting at the finish line, âI expected my W to finish in 25 minutes and itâs been 30, I wonder if sheâs just slow today or if there is a problem?â Would you feel insulted by that? Heâs basically telling someone you are slow. Iâd just think thatâs casual conversation.â</p>
<p>I get the âI hope sheâs okâ (which in my case, for all you know, I was passed out at the side of the road after 1 mile)! As to commenting on my âperformanceâ - I donât really know why my H would think some bystander at an event would be interested in my performance, but I suppose it would fall under casual meaningless chitchat. </p>
<p>Pizzagirl, Iâve gotta say, you really donât get sports. When your kid (and you) have invested umpteen zillion hours in the sport, itâs not casual or meaningless at all. You realize, intellectually, that itâs not really âimportantâ in the big picture, but it seems important at the time. The parents in the stands talk about the game (in addition to other chitchat)âand the more intense the level of the sport is, the more they talk about the game. When somebody misses a shot, everybody groans.</p>
<p>I was going to say before that I think there is a continuum between what eastcoastcrazy describes as reasonable and crazy sports parents. I think parents can be pretty intense about the sport without being obnoxious. There are, of course, plenty of truly horrible sports parents, but there are some who are ultra-supportive and involved without seeming crazy. I think the key is following your kidâs lead in terms of interest.</p>
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<p>The analogy you set up was incorrect.</p>
<p>The original comment was about a parent commenting about a performance in a TEAM competition.
And, although not stated, since the athlete is a high performing athlete, it is possible that these team competitions had some meaning (e.g. working to get to a State or Regional Championship).
As a result people in the stands were in it together and likely have known each other from years of being in the stands together, driving to kids to practices, watching their kids grow from year to year, etc.</p>
<p>Your example was about an individual performance in which any comments made by your DH would have likely been to a total stranger who didnât care about your performance, especially since it was unrelated to anything they cared about (how their participant was doing).</p>
<p>Also, one reason you might say âI canât believe [my kid] missed that shot!â is that you know everybody is itching to say it, but theyâre too polite to say it out loudâso you say it. In turn, you donât say it about some other personâs kid (although you still groan).</p>
<p>@fluffy2017 Is was about 100 students. But im not just talking about that one room, im talking about college students in general, alot of these kids are soft. Soft suburb kids who grew up in a bubble their entire lives.</p>
<p>Ok, druce, you want to make a point about soft kids, soft parents. We just donât know how much can be learned from one example. What struck me more was that you said it was at a transfer fair. You donât know much more than what you saw. </p>
<p>People naturally consider their own way of being as the standard for ânormal,â and thus tend to view behavior that deviates significantly in either direction as being extreme, whether it is actually extreme in any other personâs view of reality or not. Obviously, context matters.</p>
<p>That said, I agree with apprenticeprof and whoever else stated that a parent can care an awful lot about the things that concern a child without being overly-invested in the way we all agree is negative. You can care a lot without being loud, pushy, obnoxious or a braggart; without being domineering or controlling over the child and his choices; and without trying to live vicariously through the child for your personal gratification. I resent the implication that the fact that parents like me are well-informed about the sport, our own kidâs level, and the level of our kidâs competitors means we are âcrazyâ or âscary.â Coaches, especially the high school teachers who happen to coach, arenât always as knowledgeable or skilled as they should be. Also, they have lots of people to worry about in addition to my kid. So we donât depend on them for everything or expect much from them, and that is partly the reason for my kidsâ success relative to their ability. </p>
<p>For example, this weekend was a holiday weekend for our family, so I was tired and busy. Thus I did not prepare my D for her race with a discussion of possible strategy as I often do. (Yes, the coach should do that, but he doesnât. D is an excitable freshman and still needs some calming guidance.) On Saturday, it would have helped her if I had thought to warn her that in her race was a relay team with one of the fastest high school times in the country this season. D then would have been more conservative in her start, and probably would have let that girl go rather than try to chase her. That mistake needlessly cost her a few seconds, in theory at least. Sure, one day D can prepare her own self if she has the time and knowledge, but even pros need coaches. And this week she was too busy working on a huge English project to take any time to research the meet. Also, sometimes you canât find out pertinent information online in advance, so while her mind is on her warm-up and getting to the start-line, I can quickly scope out whoâs also coming to the start and give her some last minute input if itâs important. Itâs not big deal if I donât, but mental preparedness can help a good bit to maximize performance. I think itâs unfair to suggest that because I knew what I did about another team that there is something wrong with me. Parents of average athletes or non-athletes might say itâs âscaryâ or âcrazy,â but parents of other top athletes would likely be doing the same as I am. </p>
<p>In my experience, it is rare to find a highly successful young athlete whose parents arenât pretty invested in the kidâs sport. Itâs a chicken and egg situation in which it is unclear which comes first. Are involved and interested parents more likely to produce an elite athlete, or are the parents of a very good athlete more likely to attend events and learn about the sport because itâs a little more fun to participate when your kid is good than when he isnât? </p>
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<p>Or involved and interested parents may be enthusiastic about the sport because they themselves were good athletes. And because they have good genes in the athletic realm, their kids may inherit those genes and also be good athletes.</p>
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<p>Based on my experienceâŠthe latter. I used to know a lot about high school football. Not just the game, but the policies and politics of recruiting. I hung out on EgdyTim (an Illinois prep football site) and even followed Sâs teammatesâ college careers. That was ten years ago. Now I go to Dâs high school football games to watch the band (only when D is marching, though)âŠand I leave at halftime. I fully admit that when it comes to high school activities, Iâm interested in my kidsâ activities (and, to a much lesser extent, those of my friendsâ kids and my kidsâ friends). But I would not necessarily find high school football games or variety shows that compelling if my kids werenât involved. </p>
<p>And it is fun to watch your child become competent and eventually excel at something. I donât think it really matters if itâs basketball or ballet. Iâm amazed and humbled as I watch my kids grow into their own. (As H has been known to lean over and whisper in my ear after watching one of our kids do something that weâre proud of: âHey, can you believe we made that person!?!â) </p>
<p>No athletic genes here! Ha ha. Iâm sure thatâs a big part of it. thanks to all!</p>