The Unknown Parent is a series of musings for Sports360AZ.com from an anonymous parent of athletes. The parent is an Arizona high school sports fan from their time involved in education, coaching and athletics. Want to have your questions or comments featured in future articles? Email TheUnknownParentAZ@gmail.com.
Like most parents who have spent time raising kids in the valley and who now have kids involved in athletics, I’ve been captivated and horrified by the stories of violent encounters between Arizona teenagers- especially in the wake of the tragic death of Preston Lord two years ago.
I feel that the public was oversold on many things to sensationalize that tragedy. Still, it can also be argued that a little bit of sensationalism regarding the previous year of fast-food restaurant parking lot-based violence would have prevented Preston Lord’s killing. If the supposed gang of “Gilbert Goons” had been labeled a mysterious, violent teenage organization by the media when they started to attack random strangers with brass knuckles, maybe there’s enough self-reflection in the community for parents to step in and address the simmering purposeless and anger in our young men. Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered, but that’s where the heart of the tragedy lies… that we just don’t get to know.
The truth is, the Preston Lord story’s link to high school athletics is incredibly circumstantial compared to the link to the general lack of supervision of teenagers in a couple of suburban East Valley communities. Yes, one of the alleged perpetrators of the killing was an athlete. Yes, it led to one of the state’s most influential and successful coaches losing their job.
But the majority of the young men involved in this case were the same kids we see in student sections on Friday nights, not the ones on the field of play. The commonality between everyone involved- parents that were too far removed from the experiences of their teenagers, whether generationally or out of apathy, to intervene.
Aside from the approach of the second anniversary of this senseless crime, the reason this topic is on my mind is two-fold:
- My oldest child has reached the age where they’re able to leave the safety of our home and drive to local hangouts. There are already reports that In-N-Out and other gathering places are shutting down completely to avoid being a breeding ground for teenage violence. But these kids will still gather somewhere.
2. Earlier this year, a postgame fight that left a teenager bloody and battered was posted online, and has led to a concentrated effort from the school district to make sure teenagers are supervised, weapons are kept out of stadiums, and families leave the premises in an orderly and conflict-free fashion.
As parents, we can’t control every outcome, but we can control our intentions and how honest we are with ourselves.
We have to admit that our kids, mostly our boys, have the potential for violence.
More than that, we have to admit that the kinetic energy of these Friday night events we love so much, possess the ability to unlock that potential.
Think about it. Two groups of people, separated by a field in which their acquaintances and loved ones are smashing into each other to enforce their athletic will. Mocking signs and chants in the student section. A weeklong leadup of social media trolling. The catharsis of release after a whole school week of authority figures directing your every move. The pressure or performance. The injustice of subpar officiating. The bravado of the music over the PA system. The beat of the snare and bass drums in the marching band, whose origins are in wartime morale.
This gameday environment is a powder keg.
We have to be intentional in supervision, in setting boundaries, in role playing scenarios, in conflict resolution and in keeping the peace in our own homes. Otherwise, it’s like feeding our kids a pound of sugar before bed and expecting them to fade into a gentle sleep.
Maybe you think I’m overselling the potential for conflict. Maybe it’s not enough that in the last six years in Arizona, we’ve had gunfire outside a Betty Fairfax game, gunfire outside a Carl Hayden / Douglas game, threats of gun violence outside a Millennium football game, the Casa Grande stands evacuated for multiple in-game fights, and a teenager stabbed by another teenager at a Peoria game.
And those are just some of the things we know about. Only a small percentage of postgame conflicts actually garner any type of media attention. Want proof? Ask your kids about the fight videos they’ve been sent or seen on social media involving their own schools this year alone.
I’m aware that this message is probably going to fail to hit its mark. How many open-minded parents (that aren’t currently being intentional with their kids regarding conversations about violence and conflict resolution) are also avid readers of anonymous high school sports blogs?
Moreover, how many football parents are actually doing the opposite of modeling this behavior by continuously having verbal and physical conflicts with each other on Friday nights? More is caught than taught.
If I could leave the reader with one takeaway- have the conversations. Make up scenarios. Prepare your kids for various social situations the way that defenses prepare to defend the triple-option. What will you do if someone mocks you? What is your instinct when your pride is injured? What friends do you have that you feel would accelerate a conflict? What is the moral culpability of someone that sees impending conflict, and seeks to either provoke it, or to gleefully film it for social media consumption? What adults do you trust to reach out to if there’s a conflict fomenting on social media that could reach a boiling point at the next school-sanctioned gathering?
All of these are valid questions to ask your kids! And if you need more ideas for conversation topics, email me! You’d much rather be intentional, and even be seen by your teenager as “cringe,” than dealing with the fallout of a violent interaction. Trust me.
- The Unknown Parent
The post The Unknown Parent – How to avoid Friday night fights during Friday night lights first appeared on Sports360AZ.
