Teenage Boys

I had a parent come to practice - note that this parent normally doesn't come on the practice field - says that he's watching practice from his car and sees too much fooling around. He's worried that his son is going to get injured, pulls him from practice and leaves.  I think this points to something that is important to consider.

Newsflash:  These are teenage boys!

Teenage boys fool around, roughhouse, get silly, and or just generally in high-energy mode.  Of course they're gonna fool round!  Trust me I've seen a lot worse at practice, and no one was going to get injured this night.

At the start of the season when there is more focus on conditioning, there's not much time to be silly, and they are normally too much out of breath.  As the season progresses the focus becomes more on technical details, such as finishing drills, crossing drills, free kick setup, etc. These are drills that don't require physical exertion and do require mental focus.  Mental focus int one of their stronger skills.  Add to this large number of players, one coach, it's mid season so they're getting a little punchy and tired, add a wide age range, and you can see where the players may start to goof around more.  

Recommendations:

Remember you're dealing with teenage boys, this going to happen!

Get a parent to help with crowd control.

Split JV from varsity.  See if you can get a parent to run the JV practice.  This will require more work from you to develop a workout plan, but will be worth it.

If a parent does this, just let it go.   Don't make an issue out of it.  There are more important things to spend your energy on!

You do need to constantly be on guard for the safety of the kids and despite being teenagers, the can fool around and get hurt.  It takes experience to distinguish between the two but, if you have teenage boys you probably already know!

As far as The strange things that parents sometimes do, remember that you're doing a good thing, and you will be attacked by the evil one for that.  Those attacks can come in all different shapes and sizes.