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From: Ronald W. Fox (ronfox@MINDSPRING.COM)
Date: Mon Nov 08 1999 - 22:27:42 CST
There was an excellent treatment of this sort of thing in Sports
Illustrated about 2 months ago. The title was somewhere along the lines
of, "Who's Coaching your Kid?" It had the usual stories of people who
seemed to be Citizen of the Decade who actually turned out to be sexual
predators. These were all coaches, instead of Scouters. The whole
community was defending these people.
There was a sidebar to the article which dealt with the question of how you
make sure this doesn't happen to your kid. Don't abdicate your role as
parent. Participate as a parent and make sure that the people running the
program can expect you to show up unexpectedly. Be there at games and
practices and see for yourself how the program is run. One sure danger
sign is if the coach is more comfortable with the kids than he/she is with
adults. Does the coach spend a lot of time with the kids outside program
activities? Does the coach give the kids gifts? Does he or she take the
kids to activites without parents or other leaders around? What I saw
again and again was that it seemed like the parents were glad that the
coach took their kids off their hands for a while. Don't treat these
activities as your time off. Participate yourself as well.
mailto:ronfox@mindspring.com
Scoutmaster, Troop 69, Des Plaines Valley Council (W&SW Chicago Suburbs)
Pachsegink Lodge 246 | <------<<< |
"... and a good old Eagle, too" (C-19-96)
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