Parents Managing Their Kids Team

sgthighway

Have any clubs got any rules regarding parents managing teams that they have children on?

I realise it is quiet common for a parent to get involved in a club to help support the club to benifit their child. Sometimes this parent might end up as a Selector or manager over their child team. Probably no major harm in it but what happens if the Manager and 4 Selectors all have children on the team?
I have seen it now for a while and I reckon its a disaster. When it comes to picking a team its like those 4 children all start every game and are never taken off when in some cases they are not good enough to start and should be taken off but they don't.

Any opinions or experience?

kerry4sam

sgthighway wrote: »

Have any clubs got any rules regarding parents managing teams that they have children on?

I realise it is quiet common for a parent to get involved in a club to help support the club to benifit their child. Sometimes this parent might end up as a Selector or manager over their child team. Probably no major harm in it but what happens if the Manager and 4 Selectors all have children on the team?
I have seen it now for a while and I reckon its a disaster. When it comes to picking a team its like those 4 children all start every game and are never taken off when in some cases they are not good enough to start and should be taken off but they don't.

Any opinions or experience?

well when involved in GAA at local community level the above-mentioned is inevitable ie. a parent managing a team at some stage...it could have and has had side-effects all-round in terms of the child maybe underperforming and the parent becoming quite angry over it or the child playing out-of-their skin (so to speak) and being taken off so the parent won't be accused of being biased and favouring their own child over another.

It will continue to happen i would suspect esp at community level and when everything is weighed up, once the parent is the right person to have managing the side then i don't see any problem/situation that can't be solved in the long-term

Imposter

If possible clubs should probably try to avoid it but in most rural clubs at least it cannot be avoided.

My Dad managed teams for years. He first got involved when we started playing but at one stage he seemed to be involved in every underage team. Looking back on it what he was doing was providing a free childsitting service for a lot of lazy/absentee parents who's only input was to complain when their child wasn't played or if they got injured etc. Of course he enjoyed what he was doing and not all parents were as above but you wouldn't believe some of the carry on from parents.

Are there any regulations from Croke Park on this? I would think it would be something they may have thought about as coaching and all seems to have moved on quite a bit in the last few years.

Agus

This can arise on underage teams at county level too; for instance John Kennedy last year managed a Kerry minor team including his son Eoin.

thirdmantackle

many parents are only involved cause their own kids are playing.

most of them will be fine, some are obsessive however.

it would be better for a club to have a non-parent over the team with a number of parents helping out.

avoids any conflicts and gives all kids a chance to shine, other parents might feel they can help out and its not just an exclusive little management team

Groe

Well I am playing at club level and I have four mentors and each have a son on the team. Thankfully two of them aren't unfare and give their sons starting positions in every match. But then the other two ALWAYS have their sons starting. Both are farely good at it but at times shouldn't be in the starting team but as their parents are mentors they get their position on the starting 15. But the most unfair thing about it all is that one mentor is a selector for the Dublin Developement Squad and The Dublin Colleges Team and guess who is on both teams?..... Yes, his son. Now it also isn't any better that he gets his position on the panels even though he doesn't come to trainings and when he comes to matches usually spends his game shouting at people when they make mistakes after not passing to him. So he can make the club team due to the facxt that his parent is a selector and then can make the county team also because his parent selects the team.

Sorry for the long comment,
Hope it doesn't come out as jiberish.

rebel girl 15

Fair dues to the parents getting involved - though the teams that I am involved in, the parents seem to come down way too hard on their kids. A lot of the time, the only input from the parents comes when you, the coach don't start their child, or take them off during the match.

the training and matches seem to be a babysitting service, especially at underage level like under 12 and 10's. Any parent involved in a club should have some sort of training, such as doing a foundation level course, and should have to sign up to the code of ethics in the club. This thing of parents children playing has happened for years, a coach under pressure to play a certain player because the parent is high up in the GAA, and other reasons.

Groe, there is situation like that in my club, where the parent involved does not come to the training sessions, arrives at the match, picks the team with the other selectors, is abusive on the sideline to both his son, other players and the referee. His son and the father are also part of the Cork under 16 team, and divisional team, with the son only getting his place because of his father.

Sorry for going on, but another thing that I very much resent, is the way that selectors for say an under 16 team, aren't recognised for their contributions to a team during the year when the team is in a final - guaranteed you will have all the guys in the senior teams coming down on the day of the final and telling the manager who to select, and telling them what to do during the match, then taking the credit when the team win.

geld

I am a manager that has a son playing on the team as has the other manager. I would say that our sons probably have suffered because they get taken off more often in our attempt to be seen to be "fair". This came up in conversation recently after a parent complained that his little Johnny was only on for the second half. You can't win! (If he had been at the previous two matches he would have seen him on the field all the time).

Lex Luthor

I have just started to become involved and just completed the mentor coaching course for under age. My eldest kids team has 8 mentors, all of their kids in the team. 2 mentors in charge, the other 6 there to help out.

Myself & another mate now have just become 9th & 10th mentor.

Agreed it is probably a lot of mentors for one under age team but there are nearly 40 kids so it gives the kids a lot of coaching time when all 10 are there.

The kids are split into 2 teams and both play in different leagues. Most matches we get about 13-14 kids tunrning up, so we have adopted a policy that we try and get them 3/4's each to play.

At this age, all kids need to be involved and if it turned out my kid was being left on the sidelines, I would have no problem saying so.

rebel girl 15

At under 12 and 10 level, its all about giving the players chances to play, despite the score. At under 14 level, there is more competition there, so giving a run to all the players only happens in two circumstances

a) when they have the game won
b) when they are being hammered with no way back

I was at a juvenile game recently, where two clubs had an under 9 team and 2 under 8 teams playing. In the under 8 game I was watching, the mentors made sure that they included everyone. One team had four subs, none on the other, so at half time, the team with four subs got two jerseys off the other team, and played two of their players with the opposition, so that all the players were playing. They also kept switching the players that played with the other team, giving each player a fair chance.

Lex Luther, that is brilliant to say within a club, having 10 mentors - some clubs are lucky to get three per team. it is brilliant and way more beneficial for the players ye are training - keep up the good work

Lex Luthor

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

Lex Luther, that is brilliant to say within a club, having 10 mentors - some clubs are lucky to get three per team. it is brilliant and way more beneficial for the players ye are training - keep up the good work

Thanks rebel girl.

It sort of fell into my lap really. I'd been down standing watching my 8yr old for 2yrs on the sidelines but the mentors coaching his group never asked if I wanted to become involved. They were also being very favouritism to the best players and only playing to win and this was when the kids were 7.
Last year a mate of mine got involved and the structure changed. After 6 months he was voted head mentor and the structure changed.
Now all the kids are being played in matches and the benfits are there to be seen. A lot of the kids that were labelled not as good have started to come on. It was only when they started to train indoors this year in the evening time I started to help out as I finish work early enough. I help out a bit on the sunday morning but now my 5yr old has just started so I want to give him as much time watching him as I did my eldest.

I have seen it that some of these mentors are trying to further their own coaching career than worrying about the kids which is sad.