Parents Guide - Part 4
BE OBSERVANT
I have kinda already talked about this a little, but I wanted to come back to it further. Let me first say… kids can be mean. We all know this. Heck, they make movies about this. I don’t know if it is a hormonal thing, but I can just about promise that everyone has said something mean at one point in our lives. And at the same time, we have probably all have had something mean said about us. How we dealt with this has determined what type of person we have or will become. (And probably for most of us, it was well before the birth of social media) I bring this up, because in today’s age of technology it can be extremely hard. We need to be more observant of our athletes’ mental health.
Just about every team has a group form of communication. Whether its band, groupme, group text, facebook group – there is sort of formal group usually with the coaches. Now with that said, there is also some sorta of secondary group, especially with the older kids. In my experience, it is usually a snapchat group or a group text. There is usually not an adult in this group. This is probably where most of the bullying takes place. When stunts fall or if someone doesn’t throw a skill, the finger pointing and the ganging up usually starts here, especially if there are cliques on the team. This animosity can bleed over to the practices as well. In a perfect world, I would hope that coaches would notice issues, but when it’s a “favorite” athlete involved, coaches may tend to look the other way or not notice the bullying. (Again, this goes back to being present at practices.)
Secondly, there is the added pressure of the anon bullying world. This can be worse than the private groups. Everyone feels like they can say anything, and it doesn’t matter who it hurts. This is especially more important if they are on a popular or well known team… and then just about everything said here, comes back to those private groups… and more bullying. I have racked my brain on how to try to stop this train, but I really think this comes back to the parents.
Finally, this comes back to being present as well… the inappropriate issues. Be observant to changes in behavior, changes into not wanting to go to practice, changes in looks, changes in sudden popularity or withdrawing, even changes in grades. These all can be signs of something going on. (This goes for school too). We need to pay attention. We need to be their advocate.