Is it usual to need to stay while a 10 year old plays football?

[ConfusedFC]

2 close relatives of mine, both age 10, play for different (small, grassroots, FA affiliated) football clubs.

In one club children can be dropped off for training and games. Parents are welcome but staying is optional, and certainly during training most don't.

In the other, children must have an adult onsite at all times, training and games. Doesn't have to be a parent, and adults can 'share' so an adult could be responsible for a number of children, but it is emphasised everywhere that this is NOT a drop off club.

If it is relevant, fees for both are the same.

I don't know which one is 'normal' or 'correct'. The FA website doesn't specify either way as far as I can tell.

What is the experience round you?

Can't answer specifically about football but is it likely to be for insurance/safeguarding?

My DD goes to a music club where parents aren't allowed to stay, ditto dancing, and a climbing club where we have to stay. Might depend on the ratio of coaches to children.

I think I'd expect to drop off and leave at any organised activity once they reach school age i.e. 5+.

Always drop off for training. Can drop off for games but in practice one parent usually stays to watch. Various variations during Covid eg for a while a parent had to stay for games in case the DC were ill or injured and coach was not allowed to attend to them.

Ours have to have an adult on site (can be sat in the car) until under 12, about age 11. Due to insurance not ratios for us

Is it a covid choice? DDs activities that I used to drop her off at required a parent to stay on site (in carpark) after they went back after the initial lockdown

I'd expect drop off once they are at infant school.

apart from kids having a good time it's "free" time for the parents, innit?

It honestly depends on how well the kids behave. Having been involved in grassroots football for over 10 years (DS and DH both FA qualified coaches/referees) I can say that we have on rare occasions had to insist on parents staying. Normally if there's an escalating issue with kids mucking around and disrupting the sessions week on week. We ask the parents to stay so a) they can witness the mucking around for themselves and b) as a last resort take the child home. (There's only so many times you can sit the child out on the touch line in freezing cold temperatures mid winter at 7pm)
And some parents do view it as a childcare club and don't care how much grief the kids are giving you (remembering that the coaches do this voluntarily, not being paid) so are quite happy to drop and run - do there gym class/ go for a swim/ etc.
However generally speaking as the players get older, the kids who are less interested in learning and developing start to drop away so it becomes less of an issue (and threats of starting the Sunday game as a sub is normally enough to get them to toe the line)

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba

I'd expect drop off once they are at infant school.

apart from kids having a good time it's "free" time for the parents, innit?

My point exactly.... many view it as 'free time for the parents innit'

@Thunderpunt

if they pay for it then absolutely
if free then depends I guess

I totally agree with your point if requesting parents to stay if there's an issue with little Robbie & Eddie punching each other up etc.

In the clubs my dc attended, parent didn’t stay for training, unless they didn’t live locally. Most parents stayed for matches. However, it. Wasn’t compulsory.

When I was doing these a few years back, the ones you paid for were drop off but the ones run by volunteers you had to stay, mainly because volunteers don't want to have to deal with poor behaviour etc.

We were encouraged to drop and go roght from age 4. The trainers are volunteers but the consensus is parents are more likely to cause disruption than kids... Obviously there are a small number of children who need a parent or carer to help them integrate or manage special circumstances, which is different. From experience in my working life the fact parents are often more of a disruptive than calming influence doesn't surprise me! However we're not in the UK - ethos may be different - here any child causing disruption or even missing or arriving late to more than the occasional training session without a really good reason (like a long term health issue) is fairly directly told to leave.

@UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme my experience of such groups is that the parents are always more trouble than the kids!!

It's run by volunteers who give up their free time to run the sessions. So if there's an injury or poor behaviour it's a good idea to have parents responsible for certain children who can look after them if there's a problem.

The subs go to the club - to pay for insurance, pitch bookings, League affiliation etc.

It sounds like some of you expect volunteers to offer a childminding service.

My DC's football club sends round a code of conduct at the start of every season saying that parents should stay for training and matches. But it's not enforced - some parents stay, some drop and leave. I usually leave and have never been told off for this.

In my DC's club the team manager is a voluntary role (usually the parent of one of the kids on the team) but the coach is paid.

[quote ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba]@Thunderpunt

if they pay for it then absolutely
if free then depends I guess

I totally agree with your point if requesting parents to stay if there's an issue with little Robbie & Eddie punching each other up etc.[/quote]
I'm not sure whether it's free or paid for comes into it.

Parents pay fees to the club, which is for insurance, pays for training facilities, FA affiliation etc. so there's a cost to them. But the coaches aren't paid.

But even if they were paid, it's to provide training in a sport... not childcare for little Johnny to run wild and fuck around

@converseandjeans
It's run by volunteers who give up their free time to run the sessions. So if there's an injury or poor behaviour it's a good idea to have parents responsible for certain children who can look after them if there's a problem.

The subs go to the club - to pay for insurance, pitch bookings, League affiliation etc.

It sounds like some of you expect volunteers to offer a childminding service.

I totally agree with this. My dh is a grass roots coach - under 9s. Parents see his voluntary hours and hours of training, organising, coaching every week as childcare. Drop the kids off - no help with setting up or taking down the goals etc. Rude and ungrateful in my opinion. Some of them clearly on this thread!

Both of my boys played rugby and parents were always expected to stay in case of injury

DP's experience from being the kid concerned was that drop offs are better, as his club changed to one after there were punch ups between Mums over their PFBs tackling one another or not passing the ball.

I think it's good for kids to not have parents supervising all the time as well - they certainly make less fuss about falling over when there isn't a parent to run crying to.

We can leave them but parents tend to stay. It's pretty much essential to go to matches. I do drop fs at training but it'd barely worth it as it's a short drive and only got an hour.

We were always asked to stay, or to delegate to another parent if we left. Someone who could deal with an injury.

Having had a child who had an awful football studs injury after being stamped on his hand aged 8, I was glad I stayed.

And the complicated broken collar bone in rugby at 14 (DH was there fir that particular moment of fun).

At 17, I obviously don't stay for training, but one of us watches matches (rugby).

Our football training has always been twice per week for 90 minutes or two hours plus sometimes an extra goalkeeper training session (at one point I had two goalies) shared with another team (but my goalies were one girl, one boy, and training was never mixed sex - girl goalies over 11 trained with the women's team, so they were never together) plus at some times of year a match each per week. Luckily dc3 chose a different sport but bloody hell, staying at all those for two or three different age children would quickly result in a high drop out rate and the teams folding!

Our teams are always trying to recruit commited players but kick out those who don't turn up or misbehave. Both my kids are sometimes asked to play for older teams who have players off sick and part of the deal offered is always that one of the coaches picks the loan child up, takes them to the match and drops them home!

Especially with goalies its always been an emphasis on having the player there, not on parents hanging about!

We've always car pooled to both training and matches - sometimes with the girls'team it wipes out the whole day as there are fewer girls' teams so the matches are over a really wide geographical area. Often the other kid is playing on the same day of course.

Parents tend to wind their kids or one another up for the most part anyway and some parents are quite keen on bending the coaches ear/ criticising the coaches' decisions, making everything about them.

Our girls'team is now coached by men so a female parent or adult woman family member of at least one of the teens chaperones the changing room and stays in case needed, which we alternate.

I don't know but our two always liked our support so we always stayed. No idea if we could have left them. I suppose it depends on insurance, etc?

My DD is now 20 and drives but I still offer to take her to football training and I stay. Too far to come home and they have a clubhouse where I could go and have a cup of tea and read my book/play my game in peace. There is always something to do at home and an hour out is bliss 😂.

Saying that it has never been a condition to stay for training and she has been playing since Y4.

It's not a normal request but as others have said it could do with underlying tensions within the team or something they have written into their Covid risk assessment.