What do we do when parents are so overbearing from the stands that the players are starting to get frustrated?

Ask your coach, or team captains to speak to the parents. Tell the parents it's a game and win or lose it will be ok after the game. Ask them to cheer or encourage your team only and say nothing else. Tell them you are playing for fun and they are not making the experience fun.

Offsides:
You must have been at Furman last night(RHS vs EHS).

no, I observed a few annoyances at Manchester this weekend.

spray them with mace. i was watching a documentary the other night about soccer hooligans, and that's what the police used on them.

Just a few at Manchester! It was pretty bad in some cases.

I have a couple of things that we do proactively to address this before it becomes a problem.

First, we have a mantra on our team that we try to hold ourselves to “Style and Grace.” If the girls start getting a bit too rowdy, after a hard fought and or are leaving a bench with out picking up, or when we stop to get a bite to eat, those simple words are all that need to be said. This also gets transmitted to the parents via the girls. Amazing how kids can often be roll models for their parents.

Second, whenever the timing is right, and in a slightly humorous tone I will tell my parents that one of the things I like most about HS soccer as opposed to club soccer is the track and fence around the field which keeps the parents off the pitch a bit. I tell this to BOTH my club and HS parents and it works wonders on imparting to them the level of conduct that I want out of my parents.

Third, and completely unplanned, there is a parent that helps me out in the stands. He is always quick with shouts of encouragement to the girls but can get a little over excited himself when the situation is right and when he ever feels like his enthusiasm might be starting to get the better of him, he will be quick to open up a Blow Pop- or maybe its Tootsie Pops? Not sure! Anyway- On occasion he has told me that a particular game was a TWO Blow Pop match and therefore he comes well stocked with Blow Pops, buys the boxes at Sams or other such place. Then if another parent starts to get a bit loose he will turn to them and simply say: “Want a Blow pop?” It slap works wonders.

Another nice side benefit of the Blow Pop dad is that on one or two occasions when I was a bit hot under the collar myself from what I might have thought was a bad call or two, I have hear a single voice or a whole chorus of people rising up behind me in the stands to say: “Hey Coach! Want a Blow Pop?” and it immediately puts it all back in perspective for me down on the sidelines too. It is a standing joke now for many of the parents and players on the team and I am thinking about buying stock in Blow Pops or asking them to be a corporate sponsor.

tk

That wouldn't work for me..... with my luck the ref wouldn't hear it all and think I hollered to him - "you blow pop" and I would soon be escorted out!

great points...I feel so bad for the girls with their parents embarrassing them. It is like a compensation issue or something. Encouragement is one thing, but to demean their own daughters and even other people's daughters is uncalled for. I think it would hurt recruitment if a recruiter puts the parent with a daughter. Who would want to deal with that as a college coach.

I think the worst is adult fathers that heckle teenage girls on the opposing team. Summerville and Waccamaw parents did that to the Wando girls in the past week. It only takes a few parents to make a school look bad.
Besides, it doesn't work!

But the dads think it makes them look great and knowledgable, but they hurt the school. Do they really care about that though?

We have learned to respect the unbelievable knowledge and experience of parents who have watched many games and almost to a tee played none. Without parents, there would be no girls to play. With them, it sometimes becomes a challenge.

We have instructed our players and parents, and they know beforehand, that if they heckle or become overbearing in destructive or demeaning manner, that their player will be sent in uniform to sit with them in the stands. On only one occasion have I had to speak to an uncle who immediately quieted down.

In our game this week, with our head coach in the hospital with his daughter, several parents who did not know the strategy or tactics he had put in place, screamed at their daughters and demanded that they play in positions that they had been instructed not to play in. That confusion may have lost the first game of the year for the team.

Some parents are perfect, and have enough inner confidence to allow coaches and teachers to instruct their children. 90% of the parents I have come into contact are this way. However, there is, every year, a parent or a couple who cannot give up the "power" and control of their child and must be the loudest, most demanding, etc. even from 50 yards away and to refs and administrators. One on one is the only way to handle this. In front of others never works. Explain to them the rules, and make them follow them.

100% of our parents complained, screamed, and yelled about a call or two that were obviously ridiculous. Can't, and wouldn't want to, stop that. It is the only way to keep a kid from getting kicked in the face.

Quote:

---

We have instructed our players and parents, and they know beforehand, that if they heckle or become overbearing in destructive or demeaning manner, that their player will be sent in uniform to sit with them in the stands.

---

I like it!