Who should the coach tell about practices first, the players or the parents?

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Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
At the younger ages, we typically told the players at practice when the next practice would be. We then sent a text to the parents after practice was over. That was pre-high school. Once DD started playing high school sports (basketball and softball), interaction with the parents was nearly nonexistent, unless they wanted our support with a fund raiser. All team communication was given to the players only. We continued communicating to the group through 16u. At 18u, we switched to player only. We did have a group email and an app (can't remember what it was called) that we used to communicate tournament information; game schedules, etc. At 23u again it was player only. In fact, several of the players were making their own hotel reservations for those events.
 
Feb 17, 2014
7,152
113
Orlando, FL
Riseball is right. Teach your kids to communicate with you effectively and timely.

I think once the girl hits middle school age (11-12), it’s okay to communicate directly with the girls as a group, and it should be the girls’ responsibility to communicate to their parents.

I understand that they can’t drive themselves, so my daughters have been told and understand that due to our work schedules, they need to tell us about practices and such AS SOON as they know. If they fail to communicate effectively, then they learn a valuable lesson about the importance of listening and communicating.


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Good god that sound so much like an actual parent. Crazy talk!!!
 
Feb 24, 2021
26
3
I get it, that DD's coach cannot schedule practice the same day of the week, every week. He runs practices on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night, on some weeks it runs two practices. He usually announces the practice times on the Sunday or Monday of that week. He announces the practices times on the players group chat, sometimes announcing it on the parents group chat later, sometimes he doesn't even announce it on the parents chat at all and we find out through the kids.

Do you think a coach should inform the parents first, or is it common practice to announce it to the players first?

Announce practice schedules to both players and parents so that every one is on the same page.
 
Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
We typically communicated with both until 18u, then it was player only. That said, my daughter played high school softball and basketball. The coaches for those high school sports never notified the parents of any practice schedules. DD was responsible for that even if we had to drive her.
 
Jun 19, 2016
858
63
I guess this is the old post of the week, but in general I think even at 14U and even 16U there needs to be communication with parents as well. The teenage mind is simply not fully developed and they can't be allowed to make all their own decisions, nor can they be expected to perceive all threats.

I can think as something as simple of an indoor practice I vetoed during a particularly high period of Covid in our area. My daughter thought it was fine but my wife and I disagreed.
 
Dec 2, 2013
3,410
113
Texas
We typically communicated with both until 18u, then it was player only. That said, my daughter played high school softball and basketball. The coaches for those high school sports never notified the parents of any practice schedules. DD was responsible for that even if we had to drive her.
This is true! DD's former TB coach would notify the Team Captain of any changes in schedule, uniform combinations, etc. and she would send out the group text. In 9th/10th grade it would drive me nuts when I hear about the changes at the last minute. I always asked my DD, how long have you had this information? Most of the time it wasn't last minute. I shared this before. When DD made the 18U team her soph year, it became a different dynamic than the 16U team. I was so cheap that I bought DD a cricket phone and it worked for the most...until the large group texts became a thing. We soon realized that DD was not getting group texts and asked one of the players to send the text individually to DD. We had the 8am game on Sat morning and we get to the fields at 6:45am like we always do. I didn't see anyone dragging or preparing the fields due to the over night rains. In fact, I didn't see anyone!!!! Hey DD, did you get a text last night? No. Hmmm. Called another team parent to see if the schedule changed. No, but the tournament moved to the Scrapyard which is 50 minutes away from Imperial Park. Ugh!!!! I was so pissed. We showed up to the game just as they were starting. This forced me to get an iPhone.
 
Jun 11, 2013
2,619
113
The kids need to learn to give the information but it's not always easy especially if parents work odd shifts or kids split time between parents. In this day and age where it's so easy to send out a group text I think it's better to send to everyone involved. It's not like the old days where you had to call everyone so the extra 5 seconds it takes is worth it.
 
May 7, 2015
842
93
SoCal
This forced me to get an iPhone.


Haha... I'm laughing with you! Just today I had to finally break down and buy my DD an iphone... We are an android house, but the large group texts are killing us. DD doesn't get them and so much info is traded back and forth on the group text. DD showed up to last weekends game with the wrong uni... Grrrrrr, apple!

My opinion is, in TB for 2nd year 12's and up, there should be no routine communication to the parents. Everything should go through the players. The exception is hotel and tournament days for future planning.
 
Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
One thing we did do at 16u is assign a team parent to be responsible for communicating with the parents. We created a group that would include all players, coaches, and the team parent. The team parent then communicated with everyone else. Coaches are often "volunteered" for so many things, while they are already taking care of numerous responsibilities on top of their own personal lives and jobs. Having some help is extremely important. Unless you have experience coaching, not many people truly understand how much of a commitment it is.
 
May 6, 2015
2,397
113
DO everything in GC. problem solved. each fan and each player can choose what type of alerts they want to receive.
 

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