Would you sign your child up for a sport and have him/her miss half the games?

[texasmama]

No, I would not do this. It hurts the rest of the team. My son played on a team with a boy whose dad was a nice fellow but could not seem to get him to any of the games on time. He was an hour late several times. That's half the game.

[Word Nerd]

Yes, if it is a rec league. Family comes first so if there is a conflict we skip the games. At that age most rec leagues don't even keep score. I get annoyed if my son has to miss a game and other parents blamed him for losing because he has the most experience and ends up scoring most of the goals. I love it when kids miss because everyone gets more playing time.

 

They'd also get more playing time if they showed up for more than half the games.

[PeacefulChaos]

No.

It seems to be increasingly common, though. We have our last game tomorrow and last week only like half of each team had showed up for practice. It was NUTS.

IMO, if you sign your kid up for something, you should stick it out. We had one time that we kept Link out of a baseball game because in our circumstances it was unavoidable. That or being sick is the only good reason, IMO. I don't think that it teaches the kids anything good, to not take something that has been committed to seriously. Just like I tell them they have to finish out the season even if they decide they don't like the sport, I'm not going to start skipping out on stuff just because it might be inconvenient for me. (The day of Pink's dance recital, I had a babysitter meet us at the field and take the boys home so DH and I could go to the recital - they would have hated it anyway. And 3-4 times, we've had a soccer game and a baseball game at the same time, so we've had to split between the two. Tomorrow, I have to get my ILs to go to one game so I can go to the other because DH is working.... anyway, all that to say that sometimes things are inconvenient. I just don't think it's right to just decide to not show up out of inconvenience.)

And a vacation? If they knew they were taking it, they should have skipped the season. I mean, a little weekend or something isn't a huge deal, but if it took away from a lot of it, I just don't see the point in signing up in the first place.

[nukeswife]

I just finished my season of little league today. I don't have a problem with kids that have conflicts with other commitments or illness/injury, but PLEASE let me know. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to a coach who has rules to follow, like every player has to play every position and can't be in the same one more than 2 innings in a row, when people just don't show up with no warning. It's not as easy as you'd think to make adjustments on the fly and make sure everyone gets equal opportunity at each position.

 

I had one boy that only showed up to 2 games out of 16, and his mom emailed 2 weeks ago to find out what day I'd have his trophy. Um it's a participation trophy, he didn't participate!

 

We don't keep score in our division, in our league, I had no problem getting my kid motivated to run or things because of that. This division is about learning the positions and the rules of the game.

 

I think 8 kids is a pretty light roster. I have to have 10 on the team at minimum. How do you play with only 4 on the field? If we didn't have enough from one team show up you borrow players from the other team, as long at between the two teams 12 kids show up you're good to go. I had 14 kids on my team.

 

If your league finds it's having a lot of no shows or absences, they might need to increase the number of players on the team. When I helped coach tee ball we had 14 kids on the team, and every one was always on the field, nobody say. That's means you double up for many positions.

[JumpyTheFrog]

I think 8 kids is a pretty light roster. I have to have 10 on the team at minimum. How do you play with only 4 on the field?

 

With soccer, it's very common to use smaller fields with fewer players. In the U8 league, 4 players per team were out and no goalies were used. As you get older, your age division uses a bigger field with more players until you get to a full size field with 11 players per team. At the beginning of the season, I thought players wouldn't get enough playing time, but I wasn't counted on the high number of absences.

 

We started out with 9 players but one dropped out after two practices. He was out "sick" (who knows what the truth is) for the next three weeks and then a week after that, his mom finally let me know he had quit.

 

We coaches had no control over the roster, team size, or practice schedule.

[Stayseeliz]

My kids swim so it's not an team sport but I don't miss practice unless it's absolutely necessary. We did football last fall and it was rare for the entire team to be there at once which was frustrating for the coaches.

[Ali in OR]

My dd plays both club soccer and rec soccer. It worked well for everyone this year, though we didn't know in advance how the schedules would mesh. She could do only 1 of two rec practices per week, but she made every game except one (club games ended up on Sundays, rec on Saturdays). Both of her rec coaches shared that they loved having her on the team--the other girls wanted to emulate her work ethic and they all learned to play well together. I think they were better than her club team at passing the ball and helping everyone contribute and be successful. It was great for dd to be on this team--she was guaranteed 3 quarters of play (out of 4) and got to play all positions. Her club team had a roster of 18 playing 8 v. 8--not a lot of playing time. Dd usually just played forward, but less than half of a game. If she had done only club soccer, she would have played a lot less than doing only rec soccer--that's not a great way to improve and grow as a player.

 

It took us a long time to make a decision on whether or not to do both club and rec again this coming year. I'm fairly sure there will be some schedule conflicts. But she really enjoys both. We did sign her up for rec but are making sure everyone knows she plays club too and may miss some games and/or practices. Based on what we saw this year, we will feel a little guilt when she has to miss, but we believe her rec team will be happy to have her and they'll improve playing with her and she'll improve playing with them.

[Hoot]

DS is having this exact problem this year but it isn't a town rec. league. It is a competitive seniors level league (though not HIGHLY competitive). Part of the problem is kids who are also on travel teams. Games often overlap and the kids choose the travel games over the seniors games. In more than one game this has left us with too few kids to play. In my opinion, this is incredibly rude and disrespectful to the team. If you know that you're going to miss a good majority of the games, you simply shouldn't sign up. Often, when signing up you don't have access to the schedules BUT kids who are on travel teams have often encountered this before and should know better. Pick one league/team and stick with it. We've also had 1 kid this year who showed up for the first practice and never came back with no explanation whatsoever, another who just shows up whenever without letting the manager know when/if he'll be there, and a third who got a job 1/3 of the way into the season and said he wouldn't be back.

 

When we sign up every year we view it as a commitment and attend every game and practice unless there is a legitimate conflict or illness. If a practice is missed, we go to the batting cages on our own time to make up for it. I just don't understand parents who allow anything less. Baseball really only takes over for about a month out of the year, the other month of regular season play is less intense.

[alisonf3]

This isn't the same situation at all, but is the reason I voted other. My DS has played soccer for six years with the same coach and we have always been at every practice and game. But, this season we had 7 of the 8 games rained out and then many of the rescheduled games were rained out again. We never knew when a game would be played and sometimes had very short notice of a reschedule. We missed 2 games because of conflicts and 1 because of an injury that required resting for a week. The last game was rescheduled 3 times before it was played (2 weeks after the season was supposed to end) and we missed that one. The coach was very frustrated with us and commented that we had become unreliable. We can't keep every day open for 8-10 weeks just in case a soccer game pops up!

 

On top of that, he also scheduled Tuesday evening practices at the beginning of the season and then changed them randomly to Wednesday or Thursday depending on his own schedule. We made all but one of those.

 

In normal circumstances, when the original schedule comes out we block the practice and game times off and do not schedule anything that would interfere with that.

[TravelingChris]

I think some poster here mentioned a rec summer league soccer team where absences were expected. In that case, that would be fine. I think many if not most of us are talking about regular season (what ever that season may be) sports teams like baseball in spring and football in fall (though I well know that some teams have more season play than that or play at another season). During those times, in most areas of the country, schools are in session and except for regular school breaks, people aren't expected to go on vacation. I am not saying that if there is a team sport that lasts 12-15 weeks, you never get to miss. But there is a big difference between missing one or two games in a long season and what is being described here- weeks and weeks. Also, if there is going to be a conflict, announcing ahead is the only way to do it, Even that morning is better than nothing. I can only think of one kind of incident where there would be no notification before the game- accident or injury on the way to the game. Otherwise, you should have cell phone numbers of some people on the team and call or text them.

[KrissiK]

No. We generally miss a game each season due to family vacation plans, but we let the coach know in advance. Illness is the only reasonable excuse for missing a game, IMO.

[Splash]

My son plays high school soccer and club travel team soccer. That means informal practice for high school (5a school team) starts tomorrow June 10th and last club game was Sunday June 2nd. So soccer practices and games really are year round with basically only November and December off. But oh wait let's do indoor soccer for fun during that time.. So yes we take spring break and go to Florida to visit family every year and he misses a game or two (I think it is stupid to schedule games over spring break). We will also take week in July to go on vacation but careful not to schedule over the teams DU soccer camp week. Sports can consume your life if you let it so we work to find balance. We miss once in awhile. That is life. We're trying to balance that with ds son's desire to play competitive soccer and hopefully get to play college soccer in future. He's good, played varsity as a freshman, loves the playing with a team aspect and works hard. He also knows that because soccer can be all consuming of time, weekends, etc that we won't always get to see every game, the other kids have things they want to do as well.

 

With 7 yr old who plays soccer as well, his soccer has to work around older brothers schedule. So he misses games scheduled over spring break as well. Fall soccer he doesn't usually miss any games since we don't travel then. Just part of being a larger family who is active. We thought about making him wait to play until older brother could drive himself but found coaches who were okay with our crazy schedule and so he gets to play which has been great for him.

 

I do always email coaches our schedule way ahead of time so they know if boys won't be there. Not too much to expect in my opinion.

[abacus2]

I voted yes, but that is because I think problems occur not based on the number of games missed, but on failure to communicate. I would always communicate clearly any known conflicts immediately and would be willing to withdraw if those conflicts posed an undue burden to the league, team, or coaches.

[Loowit]

I don't think it is nice to sign up for a sport, or most activities really, if you are expecting to miss half of the games. It isn't fair to the team. There are a few seasons of soccer we skipped because I knew that we would be busy for too many game days. This fall, though, I will be signing the boys up for soccer knowing that they will miss a couple of games for other events. It is only one or two games and they will be on teams that we know the coaches and know that it will work out just fine. This year, sadly, my older son missed more than expected of his games. Partly due to an unexpected meeting he had to go with me to because babysitting fell through. He also missed his last two games because of an unexpected surgery that he needed. His coaches were great about it.

[Julie Smith]

:iagree: And our rec league's policy is if there is not enough kids on one team to play, the other team will "share" it's players. It works very well, although it

rarely happens.

 

 

When I was a kid this is how it was done. They would also ask siblings to play if other players were needed. Older siblings were told to go easy.

[Davysmom]

Well I wouldn't purposely sign up knowing we would miss them. But around here you don't get the schedules for practice or games until after you have signed up and are placed on a team.

Sign up happens 2 to 3 months before practice starts. So when we sign up, we hope that the schedule will work. If you have more than one child playing a sport and taking music lessons it gets rather difficult to juggle it all.

Some years it doesn't work out, and we have to decide what gets missed. There is nothing that can be done short of not planning anything for the entire season.

 

Sometimes being late is unavoidable too because other kids have commitments, practice and games. If you have 2 kids who have practice at the same time in 2 different places, someone is going to be late - here there is never anyone there early, so we can't drop off one early. This was such a struggle for us. I was always arranging rides and rushing from one place to another someone always either being late or leaving early. It would help so much to have schedules earlier!

[Tap]

Other...

 

I have signed my kids up for activities where we would miss a significant portion of practice/games. I always talked to the coach ahead of time about our summer schedules or situation before signing up. We have never been turned away. My son even rowed crew for a team but never went to one single regatta the entire time he was on the team. We respected the fact that the coach just used him to fill spots in boats for absence key rowers or put him a skiff with others like himself. Ds just wanted to row and enjoy the sport with no pressure. He had NO desire to compete ( he was just coming off of several years on a highly competitive swim team and was burnt out on competition).

 

My daughter also participated on a track team with the same arrangement. Practiced, but never raced.

 

I think that as long as the coach knows before the kid signs up it can be okay. I would NEVER do for a team that had a limit to the number of players. I would't want my kids to take a spot from someone else who was willing to commit. These were for teams with open/unlimited rosters.

[8circles]

Other, I guess. We don't do soccer but this hasn't been an issue for us. My Dh has been a head coach of one team and and ass't coach of 1 or 2 other baseball teams each spring for the past 5 years. In general, people have been good about communicating absences but nobody has missed 1/2 the games. We are probably on the high-side of number of games missed but I have no guilt about it. There's an informal policy of bringing-up players from the lower-level team. For substitutions in case of too many absences - since everyone seems to communicate well this has worked great.

 

Our season is about 6 weeks long, 2 games per week. Practices start a couple weeks before the first game but most teams don't have extra practices once the games start. We always miss the 2nd game of the season because of our regular vacation. Some years we'll miss a game due to having TKD belt graduation the same day/time. This year they'lleach also miss a game because they'll be at their grandparents house - they always go during VBS at gparents church and we never know when that will be until after bball starts. (Dh will still coach since he's still around but it hasn't been hard to get another parent to step-in when he can't make it.)

 

I just don't see this being an issue here but it sounds like it's a real problem elsewhere.

[Audrey]

No. It doesn't matter what it is. If you can't keep a commitment, don't make a commitment.

[MFA323]

I voted yes, but I wouldn't do it for a team sport. My kids are missing half of their swim meets this summer. In this case it doesn't really matter to anyone else if my kids are there. My kids are young and just learned to swim this summer, so they're not contributing points or participating in relays.

[Soror]

No. It doesn't matter what it is. If you can't keep a commitment, don't make a commitment.

Well, with some things here it would be impossible to fully commit as schedules aren't always complete when you sign up or they change them.

[Χά�ων]

No. It doesn't matter what it is. If you can't keep a commitment, don't make a commitment.

Well, with some things here it would be impossible to fully commit as schedules aren't always complete when you sign up or they change them.

This.

 

DS is trying baseball this summer. Due to all the rain soccer season was running late (the league makes it a point to not have sports overlapping) and when I signed DS up I did not even know what week they would start, what days he would play and when or how often practices will be. I knew there would be 8 games and that they were trying to have a couple of weeks that had more than one game in case of rainout and to catch up to be ready for flag football later this summer. I took a risk that the practices and games would clash with our schedule and DS would not be able to attend as much as he wanted to.

 

It turns out there is only one game that DS is going to miss due to a scheduling conflict that I knew about in advance, an out of town speed skating camp (his primary sport) DS will be able to attend every practice (2x/week for an hour and he stays for the extra practice which lasts another hour). That one game is not a deal breaker for me, DS, the league or his coaches. When you have 3-4 days a week that has games or practices it is hard to attend everything when you have no clue when or where they take place before you sign up.

[MrsBanjoClown]

I voted no, but ds8 has missed one or two games a season before, and more often than that, has had to miss practice. We also don't know when we sign up what the schedule is. He also does cub scouts, which is only one day a week. If it turns out that scouts is on the same day as soccer practice, but they practice twice a week for soccer, he will miss one practice a week. I tell the coach about this ahead of time if it happens. He also has the issue that the last 2 fall seasons, they have played the first game on the Saturday we normally have his birthday party. The party is planned well in advance, and we usually don't get game schedules until the week before the game (sometimes only a couple of days before the first game). Once it worked out that his game was earlier in the morning than his party, so he did both. Last season they were at the same time. He has also missed for cub scout campouts (once per season). This is one we know will interfere and tell the coach about ahead of time. They only have two campouts/year, and we feel they are very important (one-on-one bonding time with a parent). We have actually had the opposite issue - the coach was not reliable. We rarely got phone calls if practices were cancelled (which meant 1-2 hours of our time wasted by getting ready, driving out to the field, and waiting around to see if anyone showed up). Once we got a phone call at 4pm that he wanted to have practice at 5:30 to make up a cancelled practice. We went, but I wasn't happy about the short notice. We had a coach this past season that scheduled practice at 6:00pm but routinely showed up between 6:15-6:30.

[KungFuPanda]

No, to answer the original question, if I knew the season was two months long and I would be vacationing for one of those months, I would NOT sign up my child. That would be selfish. I wouldn't want my kid to have a cursory 'experience' at the expense of the kids who are committed to the team.

[vonfirmath]

I probably should have asked about the ages before I answered. My girls are 6, so I went based on that general age range. ... Here's where I am on this. If it's a rec league and I'm "that parent," I would talk to the coach in advance and say, "my kids will be unable to have 100% attendance because abc. Would you prefer they not sign up at all, or sign up with the understanding that they will miss sometimes?" I'm a working mom, my kids are in many activities and therapies, and sometimes "stuff" happens. This is one reason why I don't sign my kids up for stuff where every minute of the season is make or break. I just signed my kids up for a Sunday class that will sometimes conflict with another commitment. I told the coach this. It is understood and OK. If the coach said that this would create a big problem, I would not have signed my kids up. ... But reading the OP, I wondered if it were possible that some of the parents didn't have the full schedule information, given that so many missed the end-of-season stuff without explanation. ... Another thing that I wondered about was whether people had gotten angry about something. Is there any way to find out?

 

 

I kind of suspect, by the end of the season, the "Normally communicative parents who stopped communicating"? may be because they gave up. If everyone else (seemingly) was taking their kids out for so many reasons, why should they make an effort to be there?

[sassenach]

For an 8 game season, no. I would consider that a waste of our money. For a 16 game season? Yes. Ds plays baseball and swims. We missed 4 games this year due to swim conflicts and a wedding. He made all of the practices and we let the coach know those dates in advanced. We did have 1 kid miss the first 8 games, I have no clue why.

[KarenNC]

It would have been easier to just say, "Oh, it doesn't matter if she misses games from a free town league"...

 

This may be the crux of the matter. Is participation on your team free? If so, I wouldn't be at all surprised at the large number of people who don't take the commitment seriously, because that seems to the be the (unfortunate) trend in thinking----the activity is "worth" what you pay for it. I have found this to be true many times even among families who would not be able to afford to participate if there were any fee at all. Free = lowest activity on the list, so if one is late, something comes up, a better/more fun activity comes along, then no biggie to miss, since, "It's not like I'm paying for it." You are also more likely to have parents who will sign their kids up "for the experience" or "to keep them busy" and don't actually consider this to be a true commitment, just something to fill some time. This is also common in homeschool field trips, free classes at the library, etc. :thumbdown:

[JumpyTheFrog]

Is participation on your team free? If so, I wouldn't be at all surprised at the large number of people who don't take the commitment seriously

 

 

Our town league is $40 per season. Most other town leagues are at least $60. Indoor soccer and non-town outdoor leagues are more like $80-100 per season.

 

Someone asked if maybe some parents got angry. If they did, I don't know what it would be about. Everybody always seemed very friendly and nice to me, although I didn't actually talk to the parents much. As soon as practice was over, everyone zoomed away quickly. At games, parents and teams/coaches sat on opposite sides of the field from each other. By the time I had all the gear put away, they were usually gone.