Sports Bully

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How do you deal with a bully on a sports team? DS is on a team that is run by the parent-teacher group and is coached by parents. There's a kid on his team who continually makes fun of him to other players, tricks him, punches balls out of his hands, and also threatened to punch him. What do I do about this? The organization is associated with the school, but there are no teachers or school staff present. Do I confront the kid myself?

Noooo - do not confront the kid.

Talk to the coach.

In-team bullying is a symptom of BAD coaching.

I don't know what sport this is, but if I were aware of that I'd stamp that out sharpish (I do coach). Not only is it bad and wrong in general - but its bad sportsmanship and if you're playing competitively referees will look out for that sort of thing and award penalties (I do!) Ill-discipline causes teams to lose.

I have been very fortunate that we seem to have a bunch of well-behaved kids (for the most part) who aren't too mean. But maybe we've set the tone really well...or a bit of both.

I did have a new kid join this season who I could see being quite bad. One of the kids complained to me about his behaviour. I had already chastised him about something, but hadn't seen the particular incident. The kid who complained to me tends to over-dramatise stuff - so I didn't want to encourage him to be tattling, but at the same time I thought what he was saying was probably the truth and would keep an eye out. And you better believe I'll be watching that kid hard.

I would say go to the parents who run it, but I am guessing if you thought they were the type to respond well, you would have thought of it yourself.

I don't think I would talk to the kid b/c I am guessing based on the bullying you describe, that it would only make things worse. You can then add "sissy, momma's boy, snitch" to the list of insults. (Or whatever words of choice the kids use today.) I have only said things directly to children in very select cases, and even then I probably should not have. I was just too mad about kids saying mean things to my kid, in front of me, yet, and thinking it was OK. My son was super upset and I said something lame like "Your mother should be very ashamed of you."

I am sure you believe this is morally correct, but how widely held is this view?

It seems to me that many coaches are bullies and encourage bullying by others. Many rituals designed to create esprit de corps amount to bullying.

The saga of Mike Rice comes to mind. Many found his bullying intolerable and unprofessional but he built a long, nasty career on it. I have seen a lot of similar stuff from coaches in many sports at many levels over the years, and these were all setting the tone for the team.

There are other flagrant examples from the NFL such as the controversy around Miami Dolphins' Coach Philbin and Richie Incognito's bullying of Jonathan Martin.

There are similar stories from the NHL and other professional sports leagues and all over school sports at all levels.

There was a piece about this in Time:
http://time.com/5382/the-real-damage-bu ... t-on-kids/
All the expert opinion in the article agreed with you, but...


I think there are deeper psychological forces at work in these situations that make it very hard to control this kind of behavior.
There is an aspect of enforced cohesion in this that is a natural expression of the social psychology of groups. You can see the same thing in hazing rituals in military units and academies around the world. Here the bullying tends to involve some kind sexual assault in addition to beating and name calling. It's disheartening.

I think this is endemic in team sports. It's great to hear that there are people finding other ways, but I don't think it's easy to suppress when it's part of the culture.

The coach is a father, and it feels like he's interested in the sport rather than the kids. If that makes sense. I have talked to him, but he seemed kind of indifferent.

Just because there are many examples of it doesn't mean that this isn't bad coaching. Especially for coaching of children.

Bullying and victimisation is something I absolutely wouldn't tolerate on my team.

Just because a coach is a parent doesn't mean they don't have a professional role. Yes, they are volunteers - so you do have to take it easy on them. But when coaching kids sport you have a responsibility for mental wellbeing as well as sport skills development.

Some coaches may feel they are helping to develop 'mental toughness' by allowing a bullying atmosphere. Some coaches feel that they are helping them get used to the culture of sport as it develops with its hazing and initiation rites. But they are simply wrong. There's a line between team conformity and being mean.

I'm not a softie with my kids. They are going to be playing a tough sport where they will have to have physical and mental toughness.

Are there enough teams in the league to get your son moved to another coach? It really all comes down to the coach: either they stop bullying and teasing in its tracks, or they are tacitly allowing it. Not much in the middle. All the years my son played recreational sports, we only had one coaching team that really didn't seem to care about bullying. I had my son moved instantly; the league coordinator wanted him to have a good experience and, though they try to make kids stay with the teams they are assigned to, she didn't hesitate when she heard what it was like for my son.

My kid only plays rec league soccer, but this kind of crap is not tolerated by ANY of the coaches we've had so far.

I suspect one that did tolerate it-- or worse, encourage it-- wouldn't last too long as a coach.

In any case, I wouldn't leave my kid on the team long enough to find out how long the coach lasted.

There's a difference between "trash talk," the kind of semi-friendly banter that goes on between opposing players (and I note also isn't tolerated on our teams-- we've had parents banned from games for having bad manners on the sidelines) and outright harassment. Neither of them is particularly great sportsmanship, but harassing a teammate because a kid can't leash their competitive streak is quite a bit worse.

Part of a coach's job is to teach HOW TO PLAY THE GAME. Which includes good sportsmanship, every bit as much as prowess on the field.

A coach who isn't doing that isn't doing his/her job.

From what I've seen in personal experience, it seems like the older the kids get in team sports, the less mentoring the coach does and the more he puts his focus on winning whatever it takes. So if there is trash talk going on, if he thinks it's going to motivate the kids to work harder, then he's not going to interfere. I've really seen this in private sports organizations that are actually feeder systems to, and training ground for, high school teams.

Also I've seen coaches also start looking at the bullied kid as a sissy because the parent speaks up. Doesn't make it right, but it happens. It may depend on the sport - it was football I was talking about, where they want the kids to be aggressive, so they overlooked aggressiveness intra-team. A friend of mine's daughter recently changed competitive softball teams because of this coaching problem.

In an ideal world, you could approach the coach with this problem, and the coach takes a no-bullying stance and properly addresses the issue. However, this isn't an ideal world. That may not happen for you. So then you need to decide, do you pursue this further, by going above his head? Do you teach your son skills to address the bully himself (if it's possible)? Do you pull him out? I don't know the age of your son or how committed he is to this sport to make any suggestions beyond this.

There's only a few weeks left, so we're just going to stick it out. I'm going to be staying right by the sidelines (a lot of the parents leave) and if I see anything I don't like I'll go out on the field and deal with it personally. My own aspieness can be quite intimidating (I'm told) and DS is aspie enough not to be embarrassed by mom sticking up for him. If the coach doesn't like it, tough.

How old is your son? There are different ways to handle it based on his age I think.