Anyone else’s Junior Parkrun overwhelmed with competitive parents?

[Doodlesnoodlesdoodles]

DD used to love parkrun but got tearful tonight and said she doesn’t want to go anymore. If I’m honest I can see why. At least three quarters of the kids have a parent running with them, which in some ways is lovely as a family weekend activity but it’s become really intimidating for the kids who are running on their own.

Lots of the parents are great and are running with their little ones who can’t do it on their own but there are a significant number of parents (all men) who are super competitive and run the whole race alongside their older kids shouting encouragement and instructions/advice or berating their kids. They also get in the way of other fast kids running. DD is quite slow but enjoyed it until last week when, one dad humiliated her by loudly repeatedly encouraging his younger kid to beat/overtake DD and crowing when she did.

We wont go anymore but I wish there was a way to make it inclusive for parents to enjoy with their kids but not exclude/discourage others. I can’t run with dd due to disability.

Are they all like this?

There’s nothing wrong with running with your kid at junior parkrun. It’s getting in the way of other junior parkrunners and forcing your kid to run under a certain time which is
problematic. The vast majority of children do want to do it, but the atmosphere can be spoiled by the competitive nature of a handful of parents

This is a very interesting post and one I agree with in my current experience of teaching. scouts and grassroots sports. The kids are generally brilliant but the parents make it so hard.

These dad's sound awful, sorry your DD had to deal with that OP. When I was young I went to a children's running club run by the local counci. There were no parents involved, just the children and it was very non competitive. Is it worth looking into if there's anything like that in your area?

I have friends who volunteer in kids sports and it’s often the dads causing problems. And before anyone says ‘not all men’ - there are lots of great dads who run these groups. That’s not the problem.

sadly, the toxic blokes who a generation ago took no interest in their kids now get kudos from being a ‘great dad’ and sports are a popular release for them.

I don’t think there is a general problem with parents running with their children, but the organisers need to be made aware of the behaviour of anyone shouting to their kid to overtake others and crowing when they do. What a horrible, horrible, man. At our local park run they would be taken aside and given a stern talking to.

I completely agree.

There’s so many amazing men running coaching, supporting children and being fantastic role models for the children.

Plus, lots of men seem to struggle to find friendships so coaching provides opportunities for them to bond with other dads over similar interests and activities.

My DH would never just say to another dad, let’s go to the pub, but will often say let’s go and debrief the game. He needs a purpose for the visit!

Sadly there are also many men who seem to be toxic and negative. Last week at my DC’s sports game, a dad and a grandad for the opposing team were standing next to me and the other parents for our team. Their comments such as ‘take him out’ ‘get him’ and constantly criticising the referee and our players were horrific. The coach was a supportive coach but the parents made the experience awful.

its really shocking isn’t it? I’m appalled at the aggression from some parents who, of course, must be like that in every part of their life. They are the abusive husbands, horrible customers, and nightmare colleagues.

a friend of mine who referees at football has been followed to his car and harassed by a parent. ( about a game between 7 year olds)

there was another dad who is a coach who is awful. He started a physical fight with another coach about player selection for a game with 12 year olds. This isn’t a highly competitive league either. These kids are never going to be professional or anything like that.

I said this to my husband today. I used to really enjoy taking my now 10 and 6 year olds. Today, I took my 6 year old - he now runs by himself. I understand some reluctant older children might need reassurance. However, one mum was quite clearly pacing her 8-9 year old today. Another couple of dads running alongside older kids at the end. I stand and clap and say well done to all the children. I

I know you’re not keen to mention it because they are all volunteers, but please do. The run directors at ours take it really seriously. They all feel passionately about Park Run. There’s also a safety aspect of parents running along the course. If parents are running alongside cheering there’s more chance of barrelling over the little ones.

@greyweek ours is mainly kids age 10 - 14 which will heavily skew the average. Most 4 year olds go a lot slower! My 5 year old is bang average and does it in 15 minutes.

I read an interesting article about this recently which I've managed to find.

http://archive.today/mtUBL

The gist of it is that for every child prodigy like Tiger Woods who becomes a superstar there are lots more who don't and lots of superstar sportspeople who were excellent at a number of sports and specialised relatively late on.

For example the footballer Phil Neville played cricket with Andrew Flintoff as a kid and was considered as good as him but ultimately chose football instead.

So most of the parents hot housing their kids until they crack under the pressure are wasting their time.

This sounds really horrible and not in the spirit of parkrun. I go most weekends with the kids and I run with my 5yo who definitely needs encouragement to get round, but I don’t see parents running with kids older than about 6 I’d say. Certainly the fastest are all running alone!

Perhaps they should consider some guidelines like no parents with 7+ unless special circumstances?

I remember 20 years ago a friends dad telling us if we weren’t going to be in the top 3 running a race we may as well give up and leave the course, these men have been around forever. Encourage your child to keep going, speak to the organisers. Don’t give up because of one idiot, you can’t win everything and the best people know that but still take part anyway.

There’s a couple of tiger parents at ours who run with each child and a stop watch, shouting the times. It’s cringe.

Is the anti-parkrun brigade back out again? Organisers normally look out for this kind of trouble. Another hard to believe scenario.