What to Do: Parents Yelling From the Stands

Parents are yelling out from the stands. It’s too much on the players, on the coaches. What can you do?

You know the scene. The players are playing, the coaches are coaching and some loud mouth parent won’t shut up. They yell, they “coach” from the stands. It’s too much. It’s negative and distracts from the game. The coach deserves space to focus on the game and the players deserve to play without heckling from the stands.

Here are four tips on how to solve this problem.

These tips follow a cycle. What you can do long before this becomes a problem, what to do right before it might happen, when it happens, and what you can do afterwards.

Tip #1 Tell them your expectations
What to do way before it happens

Basically, you need to tell them what you expect them to do. What kind of behaviors do you want to see from the stands? And then what kind of behaviors do you not want to see from the stands? You’ll want to see people cheering on the players, telling them they’re doing great, giving words of encouragement. What we don’t want is negativity, yelling, “coaching.”

You should do this because it’s important to communicate consistently what you expect from them. Make it clear in the beginning and continue to bring it up throughout the season. Communicating it consistently, keeps it top of mind and it helps everyone know that this is something you're still expecting.

Take Action for Coaches

If you are the coach, the action that you should take is to communicate your expectations to the whole team. Everybody needs to hear this. I suggest having a team meeting and also following up with an email or some kind of document that you might have that has all the expectations listed.

Take Action for Parents

All right, parents, the action you can take first off is don't yell from the stands. Don't be that parent. Don't be the parent that yells things at the players from the stands or from the sidelines. Second of all, learn the expectations from your coach. Hopefully the coach is sharing this with the team. If they're not, you can encourage them to read this blog so they can get some advice and tips on how to do that. Or you can just ask and say, what do you expect from us from the stands? This should be easy enough for any coach to explain and talk about it.

Tip #2 Send a reminder
Right before it might happen

Right before a game or a tournament or a time when you think parents are tense and they're going to be yelling out from the stands or they're going to be “coaching” from the stands, go ahead and send a reminder to the families about what you expect. Send a reminder since you've already told them your expectations when the game is going on. This could be in an email, it could be in the group chat. It could be just a verbal reminder to everyone before the game or after practice, but it's good to say it right before. It's important to communicate consistently. So parents know that you're paying attention and it's not just something that you blankly say at the beginning of the season, and you never address again. When you're communicating consistently, it keeps it top of mind and it helps everyone know that this is something you're still expecting, you're still watching for, and that you need from the parents so that the team can play the best that they can.

Take Action for Coaches

Coaches, I suggest sending out an email to everyone, reminding what you expect at games. If you send an email it is documented. Everyone should have access to it. You could also send a reminder in a group text or say something about it practice to parents.

Take Action for Parents

To help, you can keep an eye on everyone. Just make sure if anyone's getting too yelly or upset or too tense, be around people to help calm them down or to let them say things to you in person, instead of shouting them out on the field. 

Tip #3 Tell them directly
What to do if it happened

Let's say it happened. There was a game and this parent was consistently shouting out in the game. You can't really take care of it completely during the game. Maybe you can, but maybe you're focused on the game. So, what you need to do is tell them directly, this is not okay behavior. This is not cool. It doesn't help the team. It doesn't help you coach. It gets parents riled up in the stands. This is not what we want for our team. And then give consequences, let them know since this happened or if this happened again, this is what you're going to do. It could be anything from you're going to tell them that they need to be quiet during the game. Maybe you are going to ask them to leave. Maybe you're going to ask them to back off, take a walk around the field before they come back. So you do what you need to do and figure out what you can enforce, but you should tell them directly. This isn't just general to the team anymore. You need to talk to the parents who are doing this and give consequences for that behavior. Why do you need to do this? Well, they need more incentive to stop, right? Just telling them wasn't enough. Some parents, you can say this is the expectation and they'll be like, cool. I'll never yell out from the stands. But some parents can't control themselves. They don't think the rules apply to them. There's all different things that go on. So you need to talk to them directly. Maybe see what's going on. Or maybe just let 'em know, this is unacceptable and this is what's going to happen. Since it happened or when it happens or if it happens again. 

Take Action for Coaches

Coaches make sure you follow through on this and enforce the consequences. Hopefully, if you ask the parents to leave a game because they're “coaching” from the stands, they're never going to do it again. Hopefully, once you follow through with this and enforce the consequences, then it won't happen again. And that's what we're looking for. That's what we want to happen. 

Take Action for Parents

Parents, something that you can do is to be positive. There's usually more positive behaviors from parents than negative behaviors. So the parents that are exhibiting the positive behaviors, join them together and have them give some support to the people who are not following the expectations. So that might mean sitting close to them. It might mean talking to them. It might mean helping pull them away. If they start yelling out, acting out you'll have to decide what feels right and what's best for your team, but there are other parents there that can help you support the expectations that the coach wants for the team.

Tip #4 Have a Meeting
After it happens

After the incident happens, it’s time to have a team meeting. So maybe you had one at the beginning of the season. But it's okay to have another meeting in the middle of a season or especially if something got out of hand, it's good to have a meeting afterwards to just follow up, reset the expectations. Remind everybody what's expected of them. Pull the team together to have a meeting. And I always suggest if you have a team meeting, also follow up with an email. So there's a document of what went on and everybody has the same information. So why should you have another meeting? Well, to review expectations, you might even need to talk about if there are consequences that were enforced, you might need to explain those. You don't want gossipy things going on about what happened. You wanna make it clear, be upfront. This is what happened. This is what I expect. I don't want it to happen again. So here are the expectations. Let's everybody pull together for the team. Be on our best behavior. So the players can play the game that they love.

Take Action for Coaches

Coaches, even if you have a team meeting, you should speak individually to the parent that is yelling from the stands. Make it clear that even though you're resetting and reminding the expectations for the whole team, and you're needing to do this because of their behavior. Make sure you speak individually to that person or to the people that are not following your expectations.

Take Action for Parents

Parents make sure that the yelling parent has a friend or you're someone that they can talk to when they're starting to get frustrated or upset with what's going on on the field. Usually the parents have a good intention. They're wanting to help the kids. They're wanting to move the game along. And it is true that everyone's has intense emotions when they watch their kids play. Everybody is invested with time and money and invested just in the heart of all. They know how hard their kid works and they feel it for them. There's lots of reasons why they're yelling out. So the more that you can talk with them, have empathy for what they’re feeling, the better chance you have to keep them under control when it gets either frustrating or upsetting. So if it's not you who can help the person who's coaching from the stands. Find them a buddy, find someone that they can talk to through the game and be a support for them. 

If you follow these tips, then you'll make it the best place to play for your team. So when you have clear expectations and you're communicating all the things that you need, you have fair consequences when people don't follow through on those expectations and you're consistently following up with everything, then this makes it the best place to play. The kids can play the game they love, they can be more competitive and everyone can enjoy the game.