Prof. Chiang-Schultheiss
English 100
June 26, 2002
On a beautiful, sunny, Saturday afternoon a mother and father walk their son to the field for his soccer game. All the while smiling, and encouraging their son to have “FUN”. [DCS1]The soccer game begins and so does the yelling. “Move faster son”, “You should have gotten that ball”, “Can’t you run faster than that?”, “That was such a stupid move”, “Don’t be so dumb”. [DCS2]Things only get worse. The name calling, the arm grabbing start, then the yelling at the other parents and coaches begins. Louder and louder, finally things escalate to the point of being asked to leave the soccer game. Who would have thought that a 7 year olds [DCS3]soccer game could change this supportive family into the “Wild Parent Beast”. Youth sports seem to invite parents to try to live vicariously through their children. Not only do the children suffer, but those who volunteer (i.e., coaches, team mom and other parents) [DCS4]do too.
The [DCS5]majority of parents sit quietly, supporting their team, cheering only when appropriate. There is a minority that are trying desperately to live their childhood sports fantasies through their son or daughter. [DCS6]A father whose son was on the Dodgers, a Pee Wee baseball team, came up to a volunteer coach and exclaimed his 4 year old [DCS7]son is a switch hitter and that the coach needs to work with his son to develop this skill. The father expressed that “My son will play Pro-Ball when he is older[DCS8]”. The dream to be a professional baseball player was that of the father, not that of the son. This parent crossed the line between caring and living the child’s life for him. This child, when he reaches adulthood, will have boundary issues [DCS9]and not have a clear sense of self. What will he like will be a problem for this boy when grown.[DCS10]
Not only does an out of control parent affect the children, but it also affects those who are volunteering to coach the team and all of the other parents. [DCS11]Recently, in boy’s ice-hockey, an angry parent hit another parent. He punched him so hard in the head that it killed the man. The reason for the fight was over the son’s playing time. The boy that’s father was killed, had the advantage of playing more than the boy who’s dad hit him, but was it truly worth his life? The fear of having aggressive and out of control parents is not far from a reality in most neighborhoods. Having an aggressive parent on the team is a real deterrent to coach[DCS12], and leaves all of the other parents to be on edge.
The AYSO Soccer league [DCS13]has implemented a policy which lets teams acquire points for the player’s parents/teams cheering section. The referee distributes the points after the game has finished. He also takes points away for yelling at the children and any negative connotation. The team with the most points at the end of the season gets to have a pizza party that includes the parents. Their exemplatary [DCS14]behavior sets the example for all other teams. There have been several teams that have been kicked out of AYSO for bad parent behavior[DCS15].
Not all youth sporting events have to end with a tragedy. There are beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoons that involve no yelling and are very positive and fun experiences. Millions of children actually dream of becoming professional athletes and some actually do accomplish their dream. The days of hot tempers and trying to live vicariously through your children are over! If parents can learn to check their emotional baggage at the door, for their children’s sake, and learn to watch their children play, the life of a child would mean so much more[DCS16].
[DCS1]This is a
sentence fragment. You can fix it by
adding a subject: All the while they smile, and encourage their
son to have “FUN”. You can also connect
it to the sentence before it by adding a comma after game: …game, all the while smiling…
[DCS2]commas go inside
these quotation marks—except where the ? is at. You don’t need a comma after it.
[DCS4]Good thesis that
you can support with general examples and further details within your
paragraphs below.
[DCS6]Combine and
condense so that the essence of your sub-claim (topic sentence) is captured in
the opening sentence of the paragraph.
Also it seems that you are developing the first half of your thesis,
that children suffer when parents live vicariously through their children’s
sports activities. Get that idea across
in your topic sentence here and then develop it more solidly in this paragraph.
[DCS8]A good detail—but
it’s what we call a telling detail. Use
more showing details so the reader gets a really good idea of what you mean by
parents who live vicariously through their children. The point you are trying to make is one most readers will be
familiar with, but paint a more complete word picture.
[DCS9]Readers won’t
know what you mean by this psychological/behavioral term. Explain it, but do so seamlessly not to
interrupt the essay’s flow.
[DCS10]Fused sentence:
punctuate as 2 sentences or use the right connector. See SF Writer under fused sentence or run-ons or
coordinating conjunctions.
[DCS11]This is a really
good transition-topic sentence combo.
Kudos! I particularly like the phrase “out of control.” You seem to be using it to refer to the
paragraph above, but it is a bit strong for the short example you use with the
vicarious parents. Hence, you need to
beef up the prior paragraph or tone down the phrase here in your transition.
[DCS12]You’ve done the right
thing by tying in the concluding sentence with the topic sentence (sub-claim)
of this paragraph; however, but give the reader some examples of what you mean.
Explain HOW it is a deterrent to be a volunteer coach. You are implying that harm might come to
parents who coach. I think you are also
implying that the guy who got killed was a coach, but you didn’t indicate
so. Give additional examples or reasons
why parents might be reluctant to coach.
Also I think you should have more sub-claims on additional ways the
children suffer—at least one paragraph, anyway.
[DCS15]This is an
informative paragraph, but it doesn’t really support your thesis. It sounds great for part or all of a
concluding paragraph, though, so don’t get rid of it entirely.
[DCS16]This paragraph
also accomplishes the function of ending your essay and adding some commentary.
[DCS17]Overall, this is
a solid start structurally, but the paper can benefit from developmentally from
more examples. In each of the 2 main
body paragraphs, you mainly give one anecdotal example, but remember that
readers are skeptical and want more.
So, offer other ways to illustrate how parents live vicariously through
their children and more importantly how those children suffer as a result
(remember—that’s the claim you make in your thesis I marked in red). --DCS