Yesterday we had a fabulous day outside observing Cinco de Mayo (do you know what its about?) in an amazing amount of wind.  Afterwards it was swim team sign-up, Kiki & Colin's soccer practice, and Tin Tin's "soccer".  All at roughly the same time, in 4 different locations.  We did it though!

Tin is doing "Passing Penguins" at the Y.  With much begging & pleading and very cute faces and much flattery, both Spencer & Tin convinced me to be a coach for their respective teams.  It really is more like babysitting than coaching, but it means I have to be there and I need to be attentive.  I am one of 6 parent "coaches" and there is a head coach.  There are 60+ 4 & 5 year olds in all split up into 2 teams, red & black.  Tin is red.  Half the time they spend running around learning how to move the ball with their feet.  The other 30 minutes kids were split up into small groups of 3 red players & 3 black players and sent with a "coach".  At this point they learned how to not use their hands while playing soccer.  As in no pulling, punching, hitting, grabbing, or tackling of the other players.

The kids were great.  The problem was their t-shirts.  As I said they have red or black t-shirts.  As they progress games will become more like real soccer and teams will be made from whoever shows up, red vs black.  In the past we had set teams with a dozen different colors, 1 color for each team.  But a few problems arose from that.  First you never know whos going to show up. 6 yellow team players show up, but only 2 of the green team.  Secondly there is 1 white player that has been kicking the ball around since he was 6 months and one blue player that is just as good, so unless they are playing against each other its just the one kid dominating everyone.  So I am totally onboard with splitting the group in half and essentially having pick up games every week.  It decreases some of the competitiveness too as their is no "team". And seeing as these are 4 & 5 year old kids, it just isn't necessary. 

So what is my problem with the t-shirts?  The name.  Due to safety the kids no longer have their first name on the backs of their t-shirts.  They have their last name, not their first as in years past. Its a safety issue so our kids aren't running around in public with their first names on their back.  Do you know how many 4 & 5 year olds even know their last name?  Of those how many would respond to it? Tin thinks his last name is Paula. So as I'm supervising these 6 children that are pulling, punching, hitting, grabbing, and tackling each other to get the ball I have to REMEMBER the name they just told me. Fortunately Tin was in my group so that brought it down to 5 names, and 1 was a girl, ok I can remember that.  4 boys, 2 blond & 2 brown hair.  All short crew cut styles.   2 had the same name. So only 3 names to remember.  I did ok, but it was really much more stressful than it should've been.  And the kicker is I  will not be working with these same kids next week. Over the course of  6 weeks I will be working with 60 different kids for 1 hour a week.  I will not know their names.  I think that isn't fair to the kid.

I will not debate the safety issue of a child wearing a t-shirt with his or her name on it in public.   There are different viewpoints on that and its a parent's prerogative.    But I don't think the answer was to take the name off the shirt.  Those shirts served a purpose.  Its a uniform. Red or black so the kids know who their teammate is, a name so the coach isn't saying "hey you".  If a parent doesn't want the child having his/her name displayed in public, don't wear the shirt off the soccer field.  Its that simple.   Kids don't wear their other jerseys off the field/court/pool.  Don't wear these off the field. Throw them away, burn them, make them into a quilt  http://www.favecraftsblog.com/soccer-jersey-quilt/ whatever you feel comfortable with.  I think this is another example of paranoia going too far.  I understand vigilance and safety.  And I know in the big scheme of things this is not a big deal, but I do believe this will do more harm than good.  Parents will still complain about a "bad" move even if they don't know a kids name, but you aren't going to hear as many "good shot Adam" from someone other than a parent, because no one will know the kids name. And a predator will still approach a kid on the park - "Hi, your mom "Mrs Olson" wants you to help me look for my dog" or whatever, I'm not a predator so I don't know how they operate. Taking the name off the t-shirt isn't going to protect our kids its just going to aggravate people who are trying to help our kids. But apparently I'm easily aggravated lately. :)

So those who know Tin, yes he did his fair share of pulling, punching, hitting, grabbing, and tackling, but he certainly wasn't the worse.  His biggest issue was dropping on the ball when other kids tried to take it.  What he wasn't figuring out were the other kids would still try to kick the ball and their feet would have to get through his body & face to get there. Overall he did very well and he had much fun!