When you become a parent, it can be the most challenging job you will ever have in your life. There is no instruction booklet that comes with a child so as a parent you must trust your instinct, listen to advice from those you trust, and use each day and circumstance as a learning experience. As it relates to youth football, or youth sports in general, one of the most challenging aspects of being a sport parent is how to balance disciplining your child versus hurting his or her team in the process.

What I mean by this is that if your child is guilty of bad behavior, poor grades, or any action that would require discipline, a knee-jerk reaction would be to say, “that’s it, you’re punished and you’re not playing this weekend!”

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However, if you take a step back and think about it, the decision by parents to “bench” their own child not only has an impact on their own household, but there’s also ramifications on how it will affect their team. By not making your child available for a game, it could put his or her team in a precarious position. What if your child was one of the better players on the team? What if keeping your child out of a game prevented the coach from having enough players to field a team?  

Sometimes, a parent may have to come up with alternative discipline tactics like taking away video games or lessening and removing television time.

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By benching your child for a game, you run the risk of creating some bad feelings around the team with the coaches and other parents and players. In doing so, you want to make sure that it’s really the right thing to do before you make that final decision. It’s in these situations where the prudent thing to do is to use a sliding scale to determine how to discipline your child and how it will affect the team.

In our nine years of being involved in youth football, my wife Sheryl and I have been around different types of coaches. There have been coaches that have stressed that school work, family, and religion come first and there have been some that go all out to win no matter what the circumstance. If your child has an issue that requires discipline, it’s probably a good idea to discuss it with your child’s coach and let them know what your possible proposed actions are going forward.

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At the end of the day, a parent’s voice is more important than the coach’s. You must make the best decision as to what choices you make regarding your child.  

Being a parent is not easy and being a youth football or sports parent has its own issues. Combining the challenges of both can be a tough task but knowing how to balance discipline with compromise is where you’ll find success in being an effective sports parent.