Yes, your child is amazing

Lilacs4Me

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 31, 2015
I'll make this brief -

Went to a ceremony last night for my son's sports team. We were instructed to tell our son the following when he was called up, and keep it under 2 min MAX because there were 50 kids to get through:

1. we love him
2. We are proud of him
3. A trait about them that we admire and why

99% of the parents adhered to this.

ONE family decided that this wasn't good enough for their son, so the parents and literally 20 of their closest family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc) burst into the theater, danced down the aisle to "Simply The Best" with matching t-shirts that had a pic of the kid flexing his arm muscle on the front, his jersey # on the sleeves, and some sort of quote on the back (I didn't catch what it said)

The mom proceeded to tell us for over 10 minutes how awesome her kid was, down to his grades, sports accomplishments, girlfriends, etc, including how her son makes such good choices as a teenager that he has NEVER made a bad choice and even excludes himself from social situations that might get him into trouble and how hard it is for teens to do this.

When she was done, Dad read his speech - another 10 minutes on all of the sports he played, stats, college acceptance letters, awards, prizes, etc.

I will refrain from saying what I thought about it other than this being my biggest takeaway:

If you are going to "go rogue" and sing your kid's praises to 150 of his teammates and their parents in this fashion, you'd better be darn sure there is not ONE person in that audience that knows something about your kid that you don't know.

DS17 says the kid drinks and smokes pot with his friends at parties all the time. HIs friends include many members of this team.

I mainly feel bad for him that if he hiding anything, how can he possibly tell his parents after all of this??!! What kind of pressure are they putting on him!!

Not really looking for advice, or whether you agree or disagree they they were right or wrong to do this at the event, or anything like that, although you are free to comment lol. Just thought it would be a good discussion to have with the parents of teens here about the pressure we put on kids, or, even, the discrepancies we all have in how WE see our kids vs. what the real world sees them as - all thoughts welcome!
 


I remember so many parents like that of kids I went to high school with. Their children were perfect and could do no wrong, but were also the worst partiers, drinkers, and smokers and in the school. There was one kid who was on the varsity soccer team when they happened to go out of town for a competition who comes to mind. The team got caught drinking and got in a lot of trouble, but of course his parents believed he would NEVER and were honestly convinced he had the flu when he came home, not that he was hungover haha.
 
Honestly., I think this sort of behaviour is all about the parents wanting to be recognized for their supposed amazing child rearing, and not about the poor kid at all. They're too busy patting themselves on the back and attention grabbing in t-shirts and dance routines to actaully see their child for his own self and love him for who he is and help him grow into who he wants to be. It's pathetic
 


The first part kinda sounded awesome (I'd have died as a kid - or an adult - though). It could have been funny, short, and sweet...but no.
 
I feel bad for ALL of those kids. How embarrassing to have your parents stand up and proclaim their love for you and how proud they are and why.

There's nothing wrong with telling your kid you love them, obviously, but why force parents to do it in such a public place. And to have to listen to 50 sets of parents do it? Barf
 
Is it normal for parents to make some sort of speech or have to comment to the audience at sport's ceremonies?

My kid's haven't been on any teams good enough to warrant any kind of ceremony LOL

This is a tradition for DS17's HS varsity football team called the Helmet Decal Presentation. His coach started it about a decade ago, I guess, and they have been doing it every year since the week or so before the games begin. DS missed it his sophomore year because he had a season ending injury in the 3rd summer camp practice, and missed it junior year because he had a slight complication with getting his wisdom teeth out the day before, so this was our first experience with it.

Basically, the coach asks the parents to come up with their son, and say the three things that I noted in my OP to their child. They then present us with us a sticker decal (this year it said FAMILY) and we place it on the helmet with our player and the coach. It's really a very sweet and nice thing....I cried through the whole thing last night. It was a time to reflect on the goodness in our kids and publicly tell them what we may or may not say in private, within reason, of course....

The coach is really big on family support in his system, and this is way of having all of us show support for the kids. 99% of the parents said a brief little story or whatever to explain what they were proud of, and many moms AND dads cried, esp the senior parents, haha. My son was the 3rd player called, so I was the first to cry! Oh well!
 
I feel bad for ALL of those kids. How embarrassing to have your parents stand up and proclaim their love for you and how proud they are and why.

There's nothing wrong with telling your kid you love them, obviously, but why force parents to do it in such a public place. And to have to listen to 50 sets of parents do it? Barf

Haha, there were many kids who looked quite uncomfortable up there!

But all in all, it is a nice thing....there was very little gushing, more like:

"Your mom and I are very proud of you. One trait I love the most is your perseverance, because....A,B,C. We love you, and can't wait to see you play in your senior year".

It varied a little, of course, with a cute story thrown in here or there, but that was the gist of pretty much everyones "speech". Only that one family was over the top.
 
Haha, there were many kids who looked quite uncomfortable up there!

But all in all, it is a nice thing....there was very little gushing, more like:

"Your mom and I are very proud of you. One trait I love the most is your perseverance, because....A,B,C. We love you, and can't wait to see you play in your senior year".

It varied a little, of course, with a cute story thrown in here or there, but that was the gist of pretty much everyones "speech". Only that one family was over the top.

I have a question and I promise I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just trying to understand this whole ceremony..

What happens if the player doesn't have parents that love him or can't be bothered to show up? Not everyone lives in a fairy tale and I can't imagine how awkward it would be for everyone if a players name was called and no one stood up for them.
 
This is a tradition for DS17's HS varsity football team called the Helmet Decal Presentation. His coach started it about a decade ago, I guess, and they have been doing it every year since the week or so before the games begin. DS missed it his sophomore year because he had a season ending injury in the 3rd summer camp practice, and missed it junior year because he had a slight complication with getting his wisdom teeth out the day before, so this was our first experience with it.

Basically, the coach asks the parents to come up with their son, and say the three things that I noted in my OP to their child. They then present us with us a sticker decal (this year it said FAMILY) and we place it on the helmet with our player and the coach. It's really a very sweet and nice thing....I cried through the whole thing last night. It was a time to reflect on the goodness in our kids and publicly tell them what we may or may not say in private, within reason, of course....

The coach is really big on family support in his system, and this is way of having all of us show support for the kids. 99% of the parents said a brief little story or whatever to explain what they were proud of, and many moms AND dads cried, esp the senior parents, haha. My son was the 3rd player called, so I was the first to cry! Oh well!

Sounds like a nice tradition. It is a shame that some parents use it as a way to showboat their child.
 
I feel bad for ALL of those kids. How embarrassing to have your parents stand up and proclaim their love for you and how proud they are and why.

There's nothing wrong with telling your kid you love them, obviously, but why force parents to do it in such a public place. And to have to listen to 50 sets of parents do it? Barf
Agreed. The whole ceremony sounded terrible before the OP even got to the part about the crazy family that went off the deep end.
 
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Gross. Something similar happened with my son's grade six "celebration". It was a very low key afternoon affair and only parent were invited. We were even told that clapping was not allowed when they went up on stage to collect their little certificate. One of the kid's parents also owned and ran the school day care. Her and her husband were something else. The mother not only invited every living relative and friend she could muster up but all of the daycare employees, including the younger daycare kids who were not in school yet. She and her husband rented a limo. They lived across the street from the school. I swear this is true. Anyway, little Mr. Tuxedo gets up to get his certificate and parents and co. all ran up to the stage clapping, whooping and generally being *********. Tons of flashes going off. It was something to see, for sure. Most kids were wearing shorts and a collared short sleeve top and running shoes.
 
Some parents think they can will their kids to success. We always stressed its all about how hard you work. Its an epidemic now, just a lot of people upset they are not richer and have good jobs, but you ask what did they do anything to deserve one. No one pays you to be special
 

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