WAG Something that's bothering me...

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Anyone--parents, coaches, gym owners--feel free to comment:

This is something that's been bothering me for a while. We have some very, very young coaches at our gym. I have no complaints about their ability to coach the kids, but they spend a significant amount of time hanging out with the kids they coach and their families outside of the gym. I'm sure there is no set rule for this (how do you police your coaches' social lives?), but there are issues of favoritism at the gym and some parents are beginning to talk...it has not yet affected DD and she is relatively happy at the gym, so I doubt I'll make an issue out of it beyond this forum, but I'm just curious how others would feel if something like this happened at your gym?

BTW, we are not the only gym in town who has this issue, and ours is by no means the most egregious violations of appropriate boundaries, but still....it just doesn't seem like it would be something that's okay...

I'd really like to hear from parents who are employed as public school teachers because, to me, this is a similar scenario to teachers hanging out with the kids in their class outside of school...
 
I don't really have a problem with it, as long as it doesn't come into the gym. We've socialized with teacher outside of my girls' schools multiple times, and I never really saw a problem with that either.
 
Its a tough one, a lot of our young coaches are "home grown" in fact our HC is only early 20's and she used to train with both Big Boy and Pink and Fluffy at their first gym.

Here we have guidelines on appropriate contact, for example not being facebook friends with students etc, but if you live in a small town everyone knows everyone anyway. I believe BG says no social media contact with under 18's, but I may be wrong. @Jenny , @Faith @marie83 you might know better.

The problems do start with perceived favouritism, but then I do remind Pink that we are all individuals and some people will get on with some better than others. She complained the other day that A was HC's "favourite", but I reminded her that she was her coaches favourite so swings and roundabouts
 
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As a teacher, I do not hang out with families outside of school until I no longer have that child in my class. just not worth the possible headaches. We had something similar with our last coach, which eventually contributed to him leaving. One of our other coaches just unfriended gym parents on FB. I think it was because she was friends with some, not with others, and there was apparent or perceived favoritism.

It really depends on how it is seen. If the hanging out carries over into the gym, then it is a problem. if the family and coach can keep it separate, then it should be fine. The coach has to be able to keep it professional.

In our situation, the coach was babysitting, house sitting. One family gave him a car to drive. The coach then was doing more with those boys than the others, and it was obvious.. Those 2 would be with the coach on one event while the others would be on the other side of the gym "working independently" nearly daily. When it reaches that level, it is not good.

However, in most cases, it doesn't reach that level.
 
I totally sympathize OP. I think that type of thing is inappropriate and that coaches that do that stuff are unprofessional. We have an optional coach who is always doing social outings w/ her group of girls and their parents (and does bring it in to the gym so I have heard), but since my daughter is not in that group I guess I need to just ignore it cause it is doesn't really affect me except for the annoyance of their inappropriateness when they post their outings on social media. It disappoints me that our owner is probably seeing this stuff on Facebook and doesn't think it's an issue - but like you, OP, I got to take the bad w/ the good cause my daughter likes her gym and her coaches.
 
I think it's a sticky situation, largely because you just don't know how other families will perceive it. Many of my team parents are Facebook friends, I chat with them during gym activities, but we are just in different places in life and extending that friendship outside of the gym would be pretty odd, making it easy to draw the line. I imagine it's different for coaches who have children the same age as team athletes or share a common interest with a team parent. I think coaches just need to be aware of potential difficulties and keep in mind how such relationships could be perceived by other families.
We had/have an issue with an assistant team coach becoming too close with certain families. It has not caused friction among other athletes, but did play into the CGM in the mother coming out. The mother greatly preferred the assistant coach (who did not attend meets) and would make snide remarks to this coach about things in the gym she didn't like, her child's meet scores, how much she hated a specific meet, try to give her advice while she was coaching, the list goes on. Any actual concerns were never directed to her child's head coach or the gym owner, only received second hand from this assistant. It was a mess, and continues to be. The child is no longer working with that assistant coach, but we still have to remind her that those discussions are not acceptable if she intends to have a friendship with this woman. After that, HC and I both decided we would much rather just not walk that slippery slope altogether.
 
We have a very clear rule with our coaches that they are not to socialise with students or families they coach outside of the gym. This is in their contract. We all have a lot of young coaches and they are all home grown. But we would not put them in a situation where they are coaching their peers.
 
As a teacher, I do not hang out with families outside of school until I no longer have that child in my class.

This, I prefer a more professional line in the sand.

We are at a gym where the coaches don't cross the line, they are coaches, not family, not friends. And that is how as a parent I like it.

I am friends with all my daughters former teachers, the operative word being former.
 
I grew up in a REALLY small town. SO small that the Mayor was also the Shop teacher at the high school, the head of the Fire Department/EMS was a science teacher, the History teacher was on town council, etc. I was friends with 2 of the mayor's daughters. I was also friends with the EMS director's daughter (they lived on our block and we shared a bus stop). We had block parties and everyone was invited. It was never a big deal.

When I moved to my current small town, there was a lot of the same. The vice principal of the elementary school was a little league coach. There is a lot of interaction because teachers and administrators have children the same ages as the students.

My only problem is when there is blatant favoritism. I was able to see this when I observed a teacher at the local middle school for a college class. Being a former child care worker, I knew several of her students. I was MOSTLY just observing, but did a little "actual" teaching and some "assisting" on occasion. During the first few days of school, I noticed that she had obvious favorites (football players and younger siblings of her son's friends). Most of the kids I knew were NOT on her favorites list. "My" kids got yelled at more… got less attention during activities… etc. Day 3, they were working in groups for 45 minutes in one class. There were 5 groups of 4. That would have allotted the teacher 9 minutes to spend with each group (of course I mean spread out, going from group to group to see how they were doing… any questions… and gentle guidance if needed). The kids picked their own groups. My kids were all in 2 of the groups. After the directions were given, the teacher started walking around. She stopped at the first table (not my kids) and spent 4 minutes talking about the football game coming up that afternoon with 3 of the boys in the group… bringing 2 of the boys from the next table into it too. Then she moved on. Since it was only Day 3, I was still in strict observation mode. I was to observe interactions, so I was actually timing them. In the end, she spent 5 minutes TOTAL between the 2 tables where "my" kids were… and over a minute of that was reminders for them to "stay on task." Football was a topic of conversation for a total of 15 minutes and volleyball took up another 10 minutes.

Back to OPs question… as long as there isn't blatant favoritism resulting from the outside friendships, I think it is ok for coaches to socialize with families.
 
This is very tricky. Puma teaches 11th grade and we used to generate a lot of babysitters that way, but we would not use them until they were out of his class. And he does not become FB friends with a student if they ask until after they graduate. But at the gym, it seems pretty liberal. Our old gym was very small and family owned, so coming to the largest gym in our area I was hyperaware to pay attention to how these things were handled. But again, even the new gym is fine with this cross pollination. I am FB friends with most of the coaches, including HC and one of the owners. And Puma Jr became friends with a daughter of one of her coaches. When she first wanted to hang out with the girl, I gave the coach/mom every opportunity to give me her honest opinion, telling her I totally understood if it was a conflict of interest, but she was fine with it. And I know her older daughter is friends with team girls as well. So far I have not seen any issues, but I can see your concern and see why some gyms may make rules against these things. Hopefully ours will remain drama free! Good luck!
 
Thanks a bunch for all the replies.

There IS blatant favoritism in the gym, hence the reason for my post. There is one kid in particular who is being pushed harder than her teammates even though she is very, very immature for her age, cries at the drop of a hate, feigns illness or injury to get out of the stuff she deems not fun (like conditioning), is usually sat out of most of practice, etc. But...her mom is very, very friendly with her coach (barbecues at her house, birthday parties, and various other social interactions), so what this child wants, she gets. I'm sure there are these types of kids at every top-level gym in the country, but I am very good friends with some of the parents whose DDs train with this kid and they can't figure out why their child is not getting the same attention ans this one, even though their DD is a hard worker, is very obedient, has a good work ethic, etc. (pretty much everything a parent would ask of their child to do in practice). The whiner may have elite potential, but her lack of maturity masks that at this point. She is not the only one in this group of favorites (who are spread across levels and practices days/times), but she is the most extreme example of the blatant favoritism.

I think it sets a bad example for the kids as the coaches are, through their behavior, telling kids one thing but doing the opposite. How do you, as a coach, tell a kid to work harder, have a better attitude, etc and threaten handstand holds, running, push ups, or other physical discipline when they fail but then allow your 'favorite' to get away with bloody murder? We have lost a lot of kids over the past year and, while I have no idea how much of an impact the blatant favoritism had on their decision, I'm almost certain it was a factor.

I guess with no official policy (like Aussie_coach), there's not much that can be done and it is just another one of those annoyances that comes with the territory, but it is distressing and frustrating to see more deserving kids get passed over simply because their parents prefer to keep that line drawn.
 
At DD's old gym the level 4 head coach used to have a group of 4 girls from team that she had over to her house frequently for sleepovers. There were roughly 10 or 12 girls in level 4 at the time and it did cause a lot of hard feelings from the parents and other team girls. DD was not part of the select group but was so new to team then that it didn't bother her much. But with some 2nd year level 4 girls/parents that were left out, it got pretty ugly with favoritism accusations at practice (parents could watch practice from inside the gym which didn't help). DD's current gym the head coach and asst. head coach are Facebook friends with every parent and all team girls are invited to everything.

As a high school teacher, my colleagues and I are told over and over again to not be Facebook friends, follow on Instagram, give out cell numbers, etc. to any student. It really is too easy for a student to accuse a teacher of something inappropriate and, unfortunately, once the press gets a hold of the accusation the teacher is presumed guilty until proven otherwise.
 
As a young coach who grew up in my gym its almost impossible for me not to socialize outside of the gym with people from the gym. I have two younger sisters who are still gymnasts there, and all their friends are from the gym so I am constantly seeing them outside of the gym. While I don't coach my sisters or their friends (anymore) I don't think it ever caused any issues as I never had favorites or gave any of their friends any extra attention. I don't see any issue with socializing outside of the gym as long as its not affecting the gymnastics.
 
Just to play the other side here as a coach,
I am friends with another coach at the gym who I happen to also coach her kids. I am a lot closer to her and her kids outside of the gym than lots of the others, I have brought the kids to movies, ice cream, babysat ect. However none of this matters when they are training, to me a bigger problem to hanging out outside the gym is inviting certain athletes to open gym, trampoline parks, and such which could be interpreted as extra free training.

If it is purely hanging out and not gymnastics related at all and stays out of the gym (which I understand does not happen to be the case) it is a different story.
 
Oh the stories I could tell! Thankfully all in the past, but there is a fine line, and coaches need to be careful to not show favoritism even if they are like a big sister to the gymnasts they coach.
 
At no time should a coach be alone with a gymnast -- be in at the gym, at a party, or just "out and about". In my mind this should be a firm rule for all adults who work with children- it protects both gymnast and coach. Beyond that, it would seem to be a judgement call but I would probably be leery of coaches who were really social involved with some families. We are with the Y, so there are very firm rules in place and I don't know how I would handle it in other situations.
 
Anyone--parents, coaches, gym owners--feel free to comment:

This is something that's been bothering me for a while. We have some very, very young coaches at our gym. I have no complaints about their ability to coach the kids, but they spend a significant amount of time hanging out with the kids they coach and their families outside of the gym. I'm sure there is no set rule for this (how do you police your coaches' social lives?), but there are issues of favoritism at the gym and some parents are beginning to talk...it has not yet affected DD and she is relatively happy at the gym, so I doubt I'll make an issue out of it beyond this forum, but I'm just curious how others would feel if something like this happened at your gym?

BTW, we are not the only gym in town who has this issue, and ours is by no means the most egregious violations of appropriate boundaries, but still....it just doesn't seem like it would be something that's okay...

I'd really like to hear from parents who are employed as public school teachers because, to me, this is a similar scenario to teachers hanging out with the kids in their class outside of school...

it's not appropriate. period.
 

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