Bye weeks can happen at any stage of football, including the youth level. When that happens, a coach has a tough decision to make. If there’s no game, do you still have practice, do you cut down on the practices that week, or do you give the kids the week off? It’s a tough spot for a coach because kids have other things going on their lives aside from football.

In the case of my son Bradley’s team, the East Meadow Rams are off to a tough start this season at 1-3, but had a bye this past Sunday. There was no game this week because there’s an odd number of teams in the league, and each week there has to be one team that is off. Even though there was no game, Bradley’s coach decided it was a good idea to still have two practices last week so the kids could work on a few things.

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I don’t necessarily agree with everything that youth coaches do, but I think Bradley’s coach made the right decision here. Not that winning or losing is all that important, especially when everyone makes the playoffs at various tiers, but when kids are making mistakes in the games, they need to work to correct them. Whether it’s a running back finding the hole, the center not shaking the ball before the snap, or too many missed tackles, the best time to work on correcting those miscues is at practice.

But last week, only about half of Bradley’s team showed up for each of the practices, and for the most part, it was the same players who missed both workouts. More troubling, the parents didn’t tell the coach they weren’t coming. I’ve always maintained that attendance at practice should be a factor in how much playing time a player gets and I would say the same goes for practice on a bye week.

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The coach, volunteers his time, is making a commitment to help these kids get better and learn the fundamentals of the sport. That coach has a right to be upset with kids who don’t show up for practice. Again, things come up from time to time and a child will miss a practice here or there, but to simply not show up for a practice because of a bye week is not the right thing to do. You can’t have your child miss practice and then complain to the coach about playing time in the games.

Bradley went to both practices last week and then spent his bye week Sunday watching his brother play flag football. Then, our whole family watched our beloved New York Jets on TV. He loves football and is eager to step on the field any chance he gets because it’s an opportunity to get better. To be honest, he was a little miserable that he didn’t have a game, but Bradley always wants to be around football, so he wanted to go to practice and then made the best of a day without a game.

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It’s too bad that a lot of his teammates didn’t join him on the field during the week, but the onus is on the parents to encourage their children to fulfil the responsibility they made to the team and to themselves.

Peter Schwartz is a sports anchor for the CBS Sports Radio Network and WCBS 880 Radio in New York. His older son, Bradley, plays youth football for the East Meadow Rams on Long Island and his younger son, Jared, plays flag football for the LSW Giants. Peter, his wife, Sheryl, and the boys are busy cheering on the New York Jets when they’re not at a youth football field.