The forgotten Youth Soccer pupils: The parents

US Youth Soccer and the state associations worry so much about providing soccer licensing courses for paid coaches and parent coaches that they have totally forgotten about courses for the forgotten pupils on Saturdays and Sundays, the parents. Soccer parents are always receiving lame articles from their coaches and teams managers virtually telling them “what to do” and placing emphasis on not coaching their children from the sidelines, not getting into public confrontation with other parents, officials or coaches, getting their children to practice and games on time, praising their children when they do right and not focusing on their wrongdoings, and remembering that soccer is just a game. But, the parents wouldn't have to focus on the negatives of the five points previously stated if only they knew what the heck they were looking at. It is safe to say that 85% of U.S. youth soccer parents do not know much about soccer and during games there is no one to teach them, unless of course a parent on the sidelines who claims to have been a top youth player in England, a Fulham FC schoolboy, or have played for the Cameroonian National Football team, but, yet still don't know the basic soccer rules. Anyhow, I digress.

State Soccer Associations owe it to the parents to find a way to educate them. Soccer has become extremely competitive among youth and we have seen vast improvements among clubs. Yet, it is not the Technical Director or Director of Coaching’s job to teach the parents what to look for in a game of soccer and how they can be a better parent as their child develops a greater knowledge for the game. If the state associations offered classes for parents to help them to improve their understanding of soccer, this would lead to progress about the forgotten pupils in the club. Yet, the question remains who in the state’s associations are knowledgeable to teach the parents? Is the state willing to only charge $35 for a course and take the registrants out to soccer games that their kids aren’t participating in to teach them what to look for in a game? Do the parents even care, or would most prefer to complain about a coach or organization when their child isn’t getting much playing time, not developing as a player fast enough (because he doesn’t spend time with the ball on off-days), or when the team is losing?  

These questions remain unanswered but must be addressed. The soccer sidelines are getting a lot worse and it seems that parents are at their worse, screaming instructions, and making negative comments to their children between the ages of U-9 –U-15. Parents yelling from the sidelines has hurt player development and if the state’s really want to focus on player development then they must STOP, all of the negatives that affect player development. But yet they leave it up to the clubs to not only operate financially, develop the players, develop each individual team,  but also the clubs, and still turn around and teach their parents what to look for in soccer games and practices to encourage their children more positively. A club’s focus on player development and operating financially are the duties of the club, but, we can’t also provide parent education by pleasing, in a club of 250 players, nearly 500 parents. Its unmanageable and too tough. The associations want the clubs to leave it up to the parent manager to restore order to the sidelines, but, restoring order isn’t enough, education is what’s important. But, the associations must invest, but as long as most of them continue to operate as high profit earning small businesses, well, the parent will continue to be the forgotten pupil weekend in and weekend out.