All-Star Team Punishment?

[Just-a-Mom]

As our coaches say, " You knew what time practice was when you signed up, along with your personal responsibilities, and the traffic patterns."

I agree with this to some extent, except then those same coaches get all bent out of shape and act all affronted when people change gyms at the end of the season.

Its always possible to get to practice on time there is never an excuse (except in rare events but usually never). I hate when people make up excuses

I think you are probably not a parent with a full time job.

Exactly. There is the "I'm sorry, there's a massive accident and I'm going to be late" excuse. Then there's the "I'm sorry, I know my job doesn't let me off before 5 PM and I don't even look for a different ride for my child." I had quite a few parents on my team that thought "on time" was 15 minutes after practice started. I don't care that your boss keeps you late. You put your child in this activity, it's your job to find someone who can get them to practice on time.

ETA: What frustrates me even more is that I have had parents that go above and beyond to get their kids to practice. They've hired drivers, sent their kid with another parent, called their 80 year old grandma, etc. etc.

If I'm driving over 2 hours to get my kid to practice (which I did, 6 days a week, for 2 years), I'm gonna need her coaches to understand that that job pays for her to be there. Where on earth would I "look for a different ride" to somewhere that is 2 hours away?!?

I know this kills people... But sometimes my full time career that pays for us to live takes precedence over my 14 year old's cheerleading.

Was she late all the time? No. Did she ever miss practice? Nope - not in the whole 2 years. Did she occasionally get there late because of my job? Yes. And yes, I got super annoyed when they made her condition because of it. I don't mind conditioning - all the kids need it. But making her feel bad (and embarrassing her) for something she didn't have any control over is not cool.

*side note this is all like a cow's opinion at this point. She's aged out and moved on. Just my 2 cents, based on personal experience

 

[retiredl5cheer]

@Just-a-Mom I think most gyms make allowances for the kids that travel long distances. It's the ones that live 10 minutes away that get my goat. I had quite a few parents that would say, "sorry, I don't get off work until 5, so Susie can't be there until 6:30" Well, you signed your kid up for a sport that has practice at 6PM. If you yourself are unable to drive them the 10 minutes to the gym to arrive at 6PM, maybe you should consider other options. I understand that parents have to work, but if you know that you are NEVER going to be able to get your kid there on time, you may want to consider your options.

 

[PeanutsMom]

I wish I could Shimmy @Just-a-Mom again and again!

There are obvious - again reasonable - times when there should be consequences for an athletes actions.

In my case, when my daughter made the Senior 3 team two weeks after turning 10, I told the gym/coaches to keep her on the Junior 2 team specifically because it would be difficult to get her there by 5:00 and the Junior 2 team practice starts at 7:00. My CP was perfectly fine with staying on Junior 2 another year while we tried to figure out how we could make earlier practice times work for her to be on a Senior team. However, I was assured over and over again that they understood that jobs come first and that it would not be a problem. I even worked things out at work so I could leave a early on practice days to get her there by 5:15.

Well fast forward from June and CP has been there by 5:00 every practice except three and each time is called out in front of the team and told she is the reason they have to condition extra and if it's hard tell CP to get there on time!!! When they're tired they make comments like "Well talk to CP", etc. I have spoken with the coaches and reminded them that I told them to keep her on the other team with the later practice but THEY insisted it was no problem. The response is always along the lines of "Oh we're just kidding with her", "That's not what we said to her", etc.

I now see that they would have told me anything to guarantee they have a 10-year old, 65 pound flyer on their team and didn't really mean it! It is beyond frustrating and I have learned a hard lesson at CP's expense.