Swearing on a children's chat group by the coach. Am I wrong to find this objectionable?

[Momoftwoscallywags]

Just want a reality check.

My DS (13 yrs old) has played a team sport for a few years and this year the coaches have set up a chat just for the players and coaches only. As parents we were informed of this and was assured that all messages sent to the kids would be appropriate.

Anyway, after the game at the weekend was abandoned due to the aggressive behaviour of the opposing team, one of the coaches (he is new to the team this season, so haven't met him) put a message on the kids/coaches chat referring to the game and used the word "Fuck" twice in relation to the other teams behaviour and what the kids should do the next time something like this happens.

In my opinion, I think the use of the swear words was really inappropriate. I did deliberate in saying something as I felt there may be some comeback on my son but, as my Husband said, sometimes you do need to stand by your boundaries.

So, I sent a message to one of the longer standing coaches, for whom I had immense respect for, basically saying I objected to the swearing, as it is not something I expected from a coach who was coaching children.

His response was a little disappointing, he basically said get over myself as it's the nature of the game but condescendingly conceded to say something to the other coaches about toning it down.

So now this feeling of being gaslighted won't go away and I feel that, as coaches, they should be able to "break the cycle" of thinking it's okay to swear in front of children. Am I being unreasonable?

The issue is not the swearing, although it shouldn't happen-not least because there are kids whose parents would withdraw them from the club because of it-the issue is that the WhatsApp group with coaches and young people only is inappropriate.

I wouldn't be impressed.

Sports coaches are teaching more than just how to play the sport. They are role models and should be demonstrating humble sportsmanlike behaviour.

DC2's PE teacher said to DC2 and the rest of the Y7 class (early in the year, so most of them would have been 11). "I know you are all calling me a bitch behind my back, but....." I really regret not complaining.

Why is it ok for your daughters to call their teacher a bitch, but not for her to pull them up on it?

Agree with most others - forget the swearing, focus on going nuclear about the existence of a group that gives coaches access to the phone numbers of Under 18s. Wtf!?!

How long has it been in existence? If recent, I would be 99.9% sure that it has already been reported to the organisation. I can't imagine that, out of a whole team's worth of parents, there isn't even one who knew that this is not allowed and is a serious safeguarding breach. Anyone who's a teacher or has had any connection with young people within the last 15 years would know this and not let their child be part of it.

Quite apart from the obvious risks of adults having chidren's numbers and communicating directly with them, you can't even have Whattsapp until you're 16 so the coaches are encouraging children to sign up for an app that's not open to them for good reason. If parents feel pressured into letting the child have it so they can join this sports group then what's to stop the child joining other group chats full of other children and things going even more wrong there.

Safguarding in amateur organisations is usually red hot; they will take this seriously. I do adult amateur theatre and occasionally we do a show which requires a younger cast and is open to 16+ not 18+. Even if we have say 4 under 18s in a cast of 30, all digital communication has to be done through email and a facebook group - no Whattsapp allowed, even though they're old enough because we can't have the phone number of an under 18.

Ok. So when your teacher sits and tells you to "fucking make sure your kid does xxx" you'll be cool.

I

Yes. You're the one who's cool if your teacher's swear in front of the kids...

You’re missing the point (because i didn’t make it clear enough). I’ve no idea whether the teacher genuinely overheard a kid calling her a bitch or not. Obviously if a child did that, I would expect them to get detention. But even if a child did say that, that doesn’t make it ok for the teacher to repeat a swear word to the whole class.

As said by many others, the swearing is a red herring. The coaches having a WhatsApp with 13 years olds is so inappropriate and a massive safeguarding risk. This is how kids get groomed and abused, and why would the coaches want to open themselves up to the risks as well? Absolutely I would be reporting this to the club’s welfare officer.

And however cool you are with your 13 year old swearing (of course they do!) I would also be going nuclear if my teen’s school teacher was on a WhatsApp with them or was swearing at them. It’s not ok.

Or not be in chat groups without parents.

There should never be a WhatsApp for just coaches and the kids. Parents should be in it too.

It's of absolutely no consequence what her son may or may not say, that's not appropriate language in a setting/chat with children. You wouldn't expect a teacher to use it, you shouldn't expect a coach to either

I have a safeguarding role in football. You haven't mentioned what sport it is but I can confirm that coaches having any form of WhatsApp/text chat with players under 18 is forbidden unless the parents are also in the chat. If it is football, complain to the welfare officer, if the group is not closed/ has parents added, you need to contact your county FA safeguarding team.

if it's any other sport, the exact same will apply but with the relevant sports association. Safeguarding is taken seriously and this is basically rule one and featured in all coach mandatory training. What could be a group chat at one point could easily turn into private messaging or worse if it's not stopped

One of mine came home to say a policeman swore at him. I phoned the station and told them what I thought of that. I asked the sergeant how he expected children to respect them if they don't respect the kids.

I would do it again in a heartbeat. I don't like bad language anywhere, even on here - especially on here.

Safeguarding absolutely is much better than it was in the 1980s.

The issue isn't the swear word, it is that adult men are posting inappropriate messages in a chat group with children.

Perhaps you're deliberately missing the point.

It's absolutely inappropriate for the coach to swear in a message to the children. Which the coach knows - otherwise he'd have posted the exact same message in the parents group.

Which in and of itself shows exactly how inappropriate it is for the coaches to have a chat group with the children.

Which other safeguarding rules do they see as inapplicable to them, or simply optional?

Due to your final sentence, it's not okay if the parents are in the group either. Coaches and parents is fine. Coaches, parents and children is not fine - it means the coaches still have the children's numbers and can message them privately.

Lighten up is the kind of attitude that leaves the space for predators to access children.

We don’t actually have chats with kids in there at all, but there are times when having a child’s number may be needed - I.e. overseas trips - but there are apps that can manage that.

On our parents WA sports groups the safeguarding and our chair were also on every single grp for oversight. Now we use an app where messaging is visible to the people running the club, most messages are seen by the whole team parents and again NO child - not the 7 , 12, 17 years olds etc are on it because as children, it goes through parents.

Am i the only person who knows 13 year olds who don’t swear?! I know adults that don’t really swear either. Not everyone is walking around saying fuck all the time.

I think it just shows a general lack of safeguarding awareness, to have the chat in the first place and to then think that’s ok? Well what else is happening? It’s showing the coach to have poor judgement.

None of my 13/14 year olds in my football team swear! Not in training, not on the pitch. It wouldn’t be tolerated.
And my teens don’t either, at least not in front of anyone who doesn’t want to hear it anyway.