Use of equipment

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Oct 1, 2014
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USA
Me either but if the kid is 9 YO I am also going to cut them a little slack..
I get where you are coming from and in general I would probably do the same but, at what age do you think they should understand boundaries and respect other peoples property? Is 9 yrs old to young? Maybe by age 21 they should know not to steal or trespass? Should parents, peers, coaches or our government teach these lessons? Get off my lawn!! ;-)
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
I get where you are coming from and in general I would probably do the same but, at what age do you think they should understand boundaries and respect other peoples property? Is 9 yrs old to young?

Maybe somebody needs to teach them? Hence my suggestion that the coach talk to the team about it at that age. Wouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. You cannot assume every kid has the greatest parents in the world. I won’t get into the birds and the bees but having a sense of decency isn’t a requirement for having kids..

To answer your question by MS a kid should know boundaries but even in that case what good is ripping them a new one going to do? As you probably know well enough, and something I am working on 😂, pre-teens/ teenagers don’t respond to anger very well. Having the DD talk to them would probably work out better and be a good exercise in the kid standing up for herself in a relatively low consequence situation..
 
Last edited:
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
Just going to have to say something to the other players. We've had to do that before - especially with bats but also with catching gear. Not easy to do, but find some simple/polite way to make sure the others know it isn't ok. Our daughter just made a point to comment to the offending party - "hey, can you not use my stuff?" Then either throw us (her parents) under the bus as the reason or that she is not comfortable with it.

(FWIW, when it is important, we've told our kids they can blame us for it - IE at a party that is getting out of control? just tell the other's that we gave her a curfew and she has to leave)

Big picture - one of those life lessons (how to handle conflict) that will come in useful over the course of your DD's lifetime.

Yup. Same happened to us. I'm a firm believer of not using other people's gear. First, there's the "What if they break it?" ackwardness and second, it's customized to the player. The glove is for her hand, the straps are adjusted to her body. It's her stuff, leave it alone.

I too went the "blame it on dad" route. My DD told the other girls "sorry, my dad says you can't wear my gear." That solved it all. And perhaps there's some parents who don't like me now. I don't care.
 

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