Not quite sure how to handle this.

June 5, 2018 6:52 AM

My 14 year old daughter and a member of the coaching staff of her club are texting a little more than I am comfortable with. How should I approach this?

My daughter is a very serious, very competitive athlete. She is a very level headed kid and has a pretty good sense of right and wrong. She regularly interacts with coaching staff at her club via text often times to arrange private sessions, confirm practice times, and occasionally talk about specific things she needs to work on. This is all what I would consider reasonable and appropriate. In general the coaching staff is awesome.

She has been texting with one member of the of the coaching staff (male, 25 years old) more frequently than I feel comfortable with. The content does not make me think that this person has any ill intentions but it definitely shows a lack of maturity on the part of the coach. He will be leaving at the end of the season (this week) and he has expressed negativity about her club and coaching director. Most of the texts are regarding her sport and advice on the path she should take. Some have gotten more personal and off topic but nothing flirty or sexual. The conversation would be appropriate (if not a little unprofessional) if they were in the same roles and she was also an adult. My daughter has shared most of what they have texted about in casual conversation with us. I do not think that she realizes that there is something not right about this relationship.

If this continues, I know that I need to have one kind of talk with the coach and a different kind of talk with my daughter. Given that this coach is leaving very soon is it alright to monitor the situation closely and see if it stops once he is gone or do I need to jump on this immediately and get in touch with the coach, coaching director and have a tough conversation with my kid?

posted by jmsta to Human Relations (34 answers total)

Trust your gut. They could continue texting once he leaves, so I think you do need to handle this now with the coach's boss.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:56 AM on June 5, 2018 [26 favorites]

I would start with a talk with your daughter. She could be exposed to this sort of thing again in the future, and you won't always be in a position to know about it or monitor it (teens figure out how to hide this stuff), so this is a good opportunity to talk about this stuff even if nothing is going on. After you've spoken with your daughter, I think you will have a better sense of whether you need to also speak with the coach. I think going immediately to the coach (without first talking to your daughter) could teach the wrong lesson - that you are jumping in to cut off whatever is happening - without involving her own judgment/thoughts on the situation.

I would also not hesitate to go to the coach if you are still uncomfortable after talking with your daughter and/or you think this guy might present a risk to some other kid.
posted by Mid at 7:06 AM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

I think talking with the coach/coach's boss is a really good idea. 25 is still really young, and it's a good time to have a check in about boundaries and professionalism.

And I don't think your conversation with your kid needs to be or should be tough. None of this is her fault at all, at all, and she's sharing her conversations openly and casually with you. Because it's no big deal. Because she's not doing anything wrong! If you bring this up with your daughter guns blazing she's likely to get defensive, and the biggest thing that'll change is that she stops telling you things.

Your chat with your daughter can be more along the lines of what groups of people are personal conversation people and what groups of people are professional conversation people, and people whose job it is to interact with you in any capacity are professional conversation people. (This is also a good chat to have if you've got a son because it'll serve them well re: hot barista, etc, later down the line.)
posted by phunniemee at 7:06 AM on June 5, 2018 [24 favorites]

Seconding ThePinkSuperhero. And I’d go further — there’s no way a 25 year old man is not aware of the inappropriateness of a “friendship” with a 14 year old girl. Like, not a chance. Even if he’s emotionally immature (and I do not think this is the problem), unless he’s from a particular sort of religious background and he’s never been on the internet in the past few years, there’s no way he isn’t aware that this is inappropriate. There’s no way he’s ignorant of how other adults would perceive this. And he’s doing it anyway.

So I don’t want to freak you out, but this sounds like grooming. (Alienating her from her coach / other authority figure?) I want to stress that I don’t think all grooming is necessarily self-aware or deliberately manipulative; he can tell himself that she’s different, they have a real friendship etc. None of that changes the situation. I think you need to talk to his boss, and I think you need to talk to your daughter, and if it were me I would tell my kid that she can’t talk to this guy again. I hope she trusts you enough to trust that you’re right about this even if she doesn’t understand it. And I would tell this guy to stay the fuck away from my daughter.

(Also, not for nothing, but when I was on a team that trained 13 times per week, we didn’t need to confirm practice times? There was a schedule. I don’t know the sport, but I’m also side eyeing the whole private session thing. Is this normal? Do other athletes do this regularly? With coaches other than this guy?)
posted by schadenfrau at 7:07 AM on June 5, 2018 [40 favorites]

Jump on this immediately. Your daughter doesn't have the life experience to be able to see the problems inherent with this setup. Right now, everything's probably cool, and if things slide downhill, she may think it's her fault. Talk to her as soon as possible. She's not dumb, or incompetent, and there's probably nothing wrong, and that's why you talk with her now. "Here's a situation, here's some problems that might occur, here are things to look for."

The coach probably doesn't have the life experience to understand why this is a problem. Right now, everything's probably cool, and now's the time to speak with him. He needs to set hard boundaries. His conduct needs to be unimpeachable. Shit, he should be copying you on every single communication.
posted by disconnect at 7:07 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

The coach probably doesn't have the life experience to understand why this is a problem

I really, really need to push back on this. A twenty five year old adult who has lived in the actual world with normal awareness of what’s going on around him is not some innocent babe in the woods here.

I mean, at twenty five I would have known there was something wrong with this. And I was twenty five before tumblr, social media, #metoo, Reddit, etc.

Honestly, dudes on Reddit would know better than this. He is not some innocent child, he’s an adult, and he’s responsible for his actions here. Please don’t excuse this kind of thing.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:12 AM on June 5, 2018 [72 favorites]

Whatever you do, in your conversation with your daughter, be very careful not to call this guy any names or imply that she is immature or not smart.

Abusers rely on setting up an ‘us vs them’ mentality with their victims. He’s already badmouthing the sport and her other coaches. Don’t put yourself in line to be the next person who just doesn’t understand (something).
posted by bilabial at 7:14 AM on June 5, 2018 [34 favorites]

In a way you're lucky it's happening in 2018 because it will be taken seriously as a potential for trouble and shame by people it might not be previously. I would bypass the coach because I wouldn't want to get into a bullshit conversation where he tries to charm me or get me to sympathize with him as he seems apologetically clueless. I would just directly email the supervisor and tell him the coach is texting with your daughter. There is no downside for you. The young coach can't make your daughter uncomfortable with her teammates or any other kind of retaliation on the team because he's leaving. He'll get a talking to by his boss, and perhaps the supervisor will do an overdue session with other coaches about boundaries. If it were my daughter I'd tell her that a adults should not be texting kids to chat, because it's inappropriate for actual friends to have different positions of power in a relationship. I'd discuss the ways that the adults in her life respect and are proud of her, and how they want to support and help and mentor her, and let her know that she deserves that, and deserves their mentorship to stay on topic and in place.
posted by nantucket at 7:17 AM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

I think your worries are totally well-founded. I would be deeply worried about this. (For context, I'm the mom of a kid who's a medium-serious athlete, who does text with his coaches.) In addition to the suggestions above, I would absolutely look into your daughter's phone -- dig around in there. Check her email, check the chats in Instagram, etc. Try to suss out if she's friended him on other platforms. I would be very proactive about this, and keep it up even after he's left the coaching staff.

YMMV, of course, but one rule in my house is that my kid cannot expect privacy with his phone.
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:30 AM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

What sorts of conversations have you been having with your daughter about predators thus far?

The answer would inform how I spoke to my daughter about this now. Spotting people that may be trouble and how to mitigate potential trouble is a life skill. This includes just generally avoiding negative people, so the first discussion I would have with my daughter is whether or not she thinks the private criticisms he shares with her are appropriate, if she thinks his observations are better shared with her or his management, and so on. Shared complaints is often a way to build false alliances or just poison the experience for everyone. It's also something predators do. It's also useful in detecting toxic work environments. There are pro's and con's to the tactic, discernment is important. There is also a conversation to be had here about power dynamics.

I live in hope things are better now for young women than they were for me 30 years ago when I was a female teenager, but I don't regret being warned repeatedly to be careful (even though it was done in a really clumsy fashion.) Although it was exciting once or twice when a predator made an end run around my parents to contact me and ask me out, I didn't accept the invitations. With better and more open conversation on the subject, I would have shared the contact with my parents at the time. In one instance I definitely would have told them if they were better at handling difficult situations.

Tell his bosses about the inappropriate contact. I agree it's easy and appropriate for coaches to group text students alongside their parents, why isn't that a rule? Every parent wants to know about their 14 year old's practice schedule or injury questions. etc.. Why wouldn't coaches include parents in communications? That just seems easy and obvious.
posted by jbenben at 7:40 AM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

I work in athletics, and am in the UK so YMMV, but here, this is an absolute no-no for anyone in a coaching position working with children, and he should know it (if he doesn't, he shouldn't be coaching).

Coaches here are always instructed, without exception, that they should NEVER engage in one-to-one online (or text) communication of any kind with a junior athlete - someone else must always be copied in, either the welfare officer at the club, or another coach. Texting itself is discouraged because it's so difficult to copy in third parties continuously and obviously. It doesn't matter if he's only texting to say "Practice tonight is 6pm" - he should never, ever, be communicating with your daughter one-to-one. Report him to the club - they should have an appointed welfare officer whose job is to jump on this kind of thing. Don't speak directly to the coach himself - go straight to the club and let them deal with it.
posted by penguin pie at 7:41 AM on June 5, 2018 [39 favorites]

As unpleasant as it is, I would get involved now.

This actually happened to someone in my daughter's club, and from the sounds of it it's a very similar type of sport (serious athletes, group "teams" but really individual competitions where private lessons aren't unusual, varying practice times, etc). They ended up firing the coach and stipulating that he couldn't contact their athletes, they let all the neighboring clubs know, etc. That was all handled without anyone other than the people involved knowing it, so the rest of us didn't find out until he broke that agreement and they went public with it.

It could well be nothing, and when he leaves that could be the end of it. But it could also be a part of a pattern of behavior, or he could have already been told to not text the kids, or he could end up in a few years as the head coach of a club a few towns over and now you have a 17 year old going to him for private lessons without the structure you have now.
posted by true at 7:46 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

In addition to my comment above, just seconding what true says - don't leave this and see if it stops when he leaves. If he's doing this now as a coach, he needs to be told to stop and to have it made clear that he shouldn't be doing it at any clubs he may work at in future; the club may know if it's part of a pattern and has happened in other cases; if it is, the sports governing body may need to be made aware so it can consider whether he should hold a coaching licence that allows him to coach junior athletes. It might sound over the top, but it's hard to overemphasise how seriously this kind of stuff is taken these days. The rules, at least where I work, are very clear, and someone who is breaking them either needs to be brought up to speed fast, or is doing it knowing that they're in the wrong and thus needs to be moved out of these positions.
posted by penguin pie at 7:56 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

This is inappropriate contact, full stop.

Inform the program director and the coach by email; if you have the staffer's email, tell him directly that you wish for him to stop texting your daughter.

If you can't contact him directly (while cc'ing his supervisors), tell the supervisors (director and coaching head) that you want the coaching assistant to stop contacting your daughter in this way. Make sure you document the contact, and at least provide a detailed timeline. If you can get screenshots of the texts, that would be ideal.

If there is a regulatory body, be prepared to escalate if you don't get results.

It's important not to put your daughter in the middle of all of this, where she feels she has to choose (this may make getting screenshots of the texts difficult). Instead, tell her what you have done, explain why, and state that you wish her to end this texting relationship.
posted by JamesBay at 7:57 AM on June 5, 2018

As someone who supervises people in a similar role, absolutely go quite far up the ladder until you
get a good response. This coach should know that it's inappropriate. If he doesn't, the organization has a big issue they need to address. If he does, the organization needs to address his issue.

There's really no shades of grey here. This kind of thing does happen and it can be relatively "innocent" in that the boundary-violator is not actually looking to date the younger person per se (sometimes it's an over-identification or an ego thing), but it is still wrong and inappropriate. And also, that's not your problem. As the parent, your job is protect your daughter, full stop.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:32 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

I will say that you can flag this as super inappropriate and why you think it is to your daughter without saying or implying that you're in any way certain that this guy is maliciously grooming her. Presumably she's got some background level of awareness of the general problem of adult teachers or coaches molesting/harassing their students. And you can talk to her about how the fact that it's a relationship that involves a lot of trust that makes that kind of abuse possible, and because any competent teacher/coach knows it's an issue, they know that they have to maintain boundaries so that they're not normalizing the kind of relationship that an abuser can use to groom victims.

Where that comes out is that your daughter's coach may perfectly well not be an abuser who's grooming her, but he's definitely an incompetent fuckup who doesn't know how to do his job appropriately. And you can tell her that explicitly, and that you're going to talk to his supervisor about it, because if even if he's perfectly well-intentioned he's going to get himself in trouble if he continues to interact with teenagers this way, because there's no way to tell the difference between what he's doing and someone who is grooming victims.

Hopefully, framing it like this to her will help her understand what's going and that you're not overreacting, even if she's convinced that he's harmless (which he might be! But you're still not overreacting.)
posted by LizardBreath at 8:32 AM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

And I'd talk to your daughter about it in those terms whatever you do about reporting it up the chain, because that's the sort of structural thing that she should understand for when she runs into the next guy like that.
posted by LizardBreath at 8:37 AM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

I'm surprised no one's brought up that she might have a crush on this guy. You'll have to tread lightly if so. When I was 14 I had no understanding of why I couldn't date a 25-30 year old (fortunately, none of them were creepy enough to do it). I would talk to her about the inappropriateness of his actions (not hers), ask her to cut back on talking to him about non-essentials, and see how he reacts. If he pushes back, definitely go to his boss.
posted by AFABulous at 8:42 AM on June 5, 2018 [14 favorites]

I have to agree with everyone saying this is out of line and creepy. My only thing to add, not to sound completely dire, but the US Gymnastics team is/was full of very serious, competitive young women who were level headed and had a good sense of right and wrong. That didn't stop the abusive, predatory behavior. Once the coach leaves the club there's nothing to stop him from escalating his messaging from sometimes personal and off topic to inappropriate.
posted by toomanycurls at 8:53 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

My first thought was, "he's toeing the line now, while he's technically still a coach and subject to club rules etc.; but once he leaves, and those constraints are pretty much removed, then what?"

Is he just going to stop contacting her? No way. if they are interacting that much now, it's only going to continue or increase. And that means, increase in (probably) inappropriate ways. If his judgement has been this bad so far, it's not going to get better. Without the "officialness" of the coach/student relationship to sort of govern things, I cannot see this ending well.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 9:07 AM on June 5, 2018

It honestly doesn't matter whether he's mature enough or not to know better (I am Team Men Love Plausible Deniability on this myself, which is a slightly different thing, but no matter what it doesn't make it okay or make him less dangerous), this shouldn't change what action you take because it's not women's jobs to have to figure that out and it's fine for your daughter to know that. You don't have to prove he's doing anything on purpose in order to have bad feelings about what he's doing and wanting it to stop or wanting boundaries to be respected.

So, whatever course of action you take, take it regardless of his suspected motivation. (Obviously, if he escalates so that is motives are obvious, go full nuclear.)

I think this is an excellent opportunity to start a conversation with her about power dynamics and power imbalances. If she does not have a friend who's already on the receiving end of definite grooming or very bad family dynamics in that way, she's going to, and kids tell each other and talk each other out of escalating to an adult (which I personally refer to as "Don't Tell Dumbledore", jfc every single time they wait until someone dies, but this may be an outdated pop culture reference for a 14 year old), so for her sake and also everyone around her, it's a thing she needs to be processing.

Maybe start with, "Hey, so do you feel like there's anything in the texts with this guy that you would be uncomfortable if they were shown to me or a friend or another coach or a jury?" She'll say no, that's fine, let her percolate a while. But you can say, "I'm a little nervous, honestly, from what you've said. Coaches shouldn't be complaining about their jobs to coachees, for one, it's unprofessional and could be used against you to accuse you of shit-talking the other coaching staff*. I'm super nervous he's going to continue communicating with you after his job ends and that is really uncomfortable territory in the world today. And here's the thing, I'm already on the threshhold of ready to escalate even without seeing the texts, and as your parent I'm allowed to have boundaries that concern you but in which you do not have a vote, sorry, but I will give you a couple days to think about in case you have anything else you want to tell me about your own boundaries and this person."

*If you have NOT had the "Nothing Is Actually Private Ever" conversation with her, it's time.

Here's the other hard thing you need to think about, if it's not already an ongoing conversation in your house and it sounds like it may not be: if your daughter is a serious athlete and is going to be having ongoing relationships with coaches etc, especially in an increasingly semi-autonomous way as she gets into high school, you need to be having ongoing dialogue about USA Gymnastics and MSU and systems of abuse and the kind of predators who are drawn to that sort of occupation/hobby. You can't not talk about this, because they're already there waiting for her. She's on a collision course with people who want to hurt her and her friends and opponents. Not telling her is not going to keep her safe, and not teaching her what to look for and how to maintain a feedback loop with her teammates and with you does her a disservice.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:21 AM on June 5, 2018 [10 favorites]

if your daughter is a serious athlete and is going to be having ongoing relationships with coaches etc, especially in an increasingly semi-autonomous way as she gets into high school, you need to be having ongoing dialogue about USA Gymnastics and MSU and systems of abuse and the kind of predators who are drawn to that sort of occupation/hobby.

I would agree and extend it to say that this is not just for serious athletes, it's for teens generally. "Stranger danger" for little kids is, IMO, seriously overblown: the number of people who want to molest elementary-aged children is pretty small. Adults getting sexually interested in post-pubescent teens, on the other hand? Is super common. My high school I knew about several stories of teachers having 'relationships' with students; my daughter's high school had a big thing culminating in criminal charges (very luckily before any significant impact on the targeted kid; she went to her parents who went to the police immediately); lots of people I know have similar anecdotes. That's a shitty awful thing that happens, but it's a common, conventional, ordinary shitty awful thing that happens.

Which means that having strategies to recognize and deal with inappropriate behavior from a teacher/coach is something every student should have, and they should understand that it's not a freakishly strange possibility, but something that happens all the time.
posted by LizardBreath at 9:30 AM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

Nthing that this guy's behavior is completely inappropriate.

Your daughter is not at fault, but that doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy the attention and wouldn't continue to enjoy hearing from him after he leaves. The most ideal solution is one in which she no longer wants to be in contact with this man.

True, the power imbalance is a massive problem (and one that, to you and to us, certainly indicates extremely poor boundaries), but from your daughter's perspective, that issue disappears as soon as he leaves the club. And contact after that could easily fall into categories of, "People just don't understand," and, "Age is just a number," and so on.

His leaving is something of a double-edged sword.

What I would do involves a white lie, so YMMV. I'd anonymously report to his superiors that this coach has had inappropriate contact with your child (he has indeed). I would explain that the anonymity feels necessary for the privacy of your child and because of fear of retaliation.

I would tell my child the club was informed of inappropriate conduct on the part of the coach (the white lie comes in if she asks who complained and you say that the superiors aren't revealing that or that you believe it was anonymous or whatever).

This is why I would do this:

Your daughter is important and loved and deserves to feel special, but she does not need to feel that she's special to this guy in particular. She needs to think of this guy as a creep, because he is one. Realizing that she's one of several (and dollars to donuts, she is*) might sting in the moment but be beneficial in the long term.

*I would also explain to her that this is how grooming works. A creep casts a wide net and will continue trying to convince each child that he's been misunderstood and that she's the only one with whom he feels this connection. I'd tell her he's likely saying the same thing to others as well as trying to figure out which child ratted him out. I'd even genuinely commiserate with her about the sad feelings of learning someone was not a true friend. It sucks.

Look. I realize that trust is something to be treasured, and white lies are risky, but continued contact with this man is also risky, especially if she feels she has reason to hide it from you.

Best of luck. This is a shitty situation, but it sounds like you're on it!
posted by whoiam at 9:49 AM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

As a post-script to my alarmist "people are awful out there" thoughts, I think you should work with her on a safety-net solution to sports communications going forward, in which she gets a specific email address (daughtername.sport@gmail) and associated Google Voice number, access to which is shared with you, and the rule is that you only communicate with adults via that email and number, and trying to go private (there is no private, until you are 18, in any case) ends your sports participation.

Because there should be no reason any communication with coaches, chaperones, officials, teachers etc shouldn't be shared or shareable with a parent, and all those adults damn well know it and shouldn't even want a hint of impropriety, so all it takes is a simple "fyi my mom has access to this number". Tell her if she has a problem with you or another family member so severe she needs to obtain help in secret, she should speak to a proper authority (help her understand who that is) by whatever means necessary, but there's no chitchat that should be private. It's unnecessary and honestly her coaching orgs and school should have already been implementing transparency protocols, so maybe you will light a fire under someone's ass by starting it yourself.

And look, while the "intrusion" chafes, most kids want safety nets as long as it doesn't make them weirdos to their peer groups, and this solution can be pretty low-profile if she chooses (though frankly I think they should all be doing this). You may want to frame this in terms of the working world, in which there really is no privacy and there's a lot of ass-covering because adults, eh, they come in a wide range of quality and we all do our best to defend ourselves from them.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:20 AM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

If he’s leaving wouldn’t that mean he could be coaching at another school with full glowing references if you don’t say something? Beyond your own child he could continue doing this OR that he’s doing this already to many children who aren’t as open and monitored by their parents.

I don’t have a script for you. I’ve only been a woman who has been manipulated by people and honestly it’s tough even coming from that place to try to think of a way to talk to her that she will listen to. I wasn’t a moody teens but teens think they know best.

I CAN tell you that unless you read ALL the texts word for word (and none were deleted) then you can’t be sure she’s an accurate narrator. I sure as shit wouldn’t say if a dude was flirting with me at 14 TO MY PATENT! (And my dad and I have always been extremely close.)

I also know that she likely feels special from his attention in some way and it’s important to talk about that. She IS special. But there are things that are appropriate as adults and coaches and teacher with students.

This is WAY not okay on his part. And OF course he knows he shouldn’t be best buddies with a 14 year old let alone groom them. Report him.
posted by Crystalinne at 10:38 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

That he's leaving is the impetus to act now-- my gut says he's going to keep texting after he leaves, when the school has no jurisdiction over his contact with her.

As others have said, it's important not to shame her or even make outright accusations of him. It's not the content, it's the frequency/off-topic contact that makes this inappropriate on his part.

Your gut seems to be doing a great job, and you have a great kid who shares this kind of stuff with you.
posted by kapers at 11:51 AM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Another vote for inappropriate. Why would a normal adult man want to converse with a teenager outside of work hours? His job is to coach during certain set hours, not text your daughter outside of work.
posted by parakeetdog at 11:55 AM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

As a former serious kid, I want to say that serious kids often get crushes on adults because they're (ostensibly) more mature than teenage boys. When I was a teenager I was very smart about a lot, but too dumb to realize my teacher seeming to reciprocate my feelings was NOT cool.
posted by kapers at 12:02 PM on June 5, 2018 [15 favorites]

Setting aside creepy versus not creepy and grooming behavior and all that--I would assume this is a club for which you are paying or have otherwise given permission for your daughter to participate.

All club information should be going through the adults. Coaches should be contacting parents and guardians, not the minor kids. You should have whoever is in charge ensure this is how communication is handled from now on.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 12:19 PM on June 5, 2018

My son was a gymnast at the gym where Larry Nassar abused many gymnasts, and I followed the case closely. A popular gymnastics podcast, Gymcastic, did a number of extended interviews with experts in sexual abuse prevention, and I learned a lot from them.

One important element of preventing sexual abuse is setting clear boundaries on grooming behavior. Like the rules that preschools have about one adult and one child never being alone together, these are steps that set up protections way, way short of gray areas like the one your child is in right now. Some of the boundaries we've gone over with our son:

1. Your coach should never directly text you, and you alone. Any text your coach sends should go to the whole team. If your coach needs to speak to you between practices about something that affects only you, that communication should go through your parents.

2. Your coach should never give you a gift unless all the members of your team are receiving gifts. So, for instance, at my son's new gym, all the gymnasts got gym-branded hoodies with their names on the back at the holidays. Identical gifts for every athlete, given in public: totally OK. Individual special gift to individual athlete, given in private: nope. Nassar ingratiated himself with many gymnasts in part by giving them things like floor passes from when he'd been at the Olympics. Nope, nope, nope.

3. You should not be invited to your coach's house unless the whole team is invited. End-of-season team barbecue? Totally OK. Special invitation just for one athlete to come use the swimming pool? Nope.

So, in your case, I wouldn't be worrying about whether my kid and a coach were texting too much. I'd be explaining to my kid that it's not OK to text privately with the coach at all.
posted by Orlop at 12:52 PM on June 5, 2018 [30 favorites]

The coach has poor boundaries. I'd talk to your daughter and the lead coach, maybe also the texting coach. Things can get out of control unbelievably quickly, not all kids have parents who pay close attention; that's why boundaries are great.
posted by theora55 at 1:16 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I keep thinking about the guidelines Orlop posted and I think you should call the head coach and ask if they have an explicit stated policy about being alone with or individually texting kids. If they don't, ask why not. Ask what kind of training they have in responsibly working with minors and preventing inappropriate relationships or watching for and preventing abuse systems, and will they be extending that training to parents and kids so that everyone involved helps prevent the sort of system USA Gymnastics allowed.

Then they're going to ask why you're asking.

And what you want to say at this point is up to you.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:25 PM on June 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'm relieved to see that the consensus here is that something is wrong. The only thing I can add is: maybe your daughter is sharing the content of the messages because she's unsure about his texting, and wants to give you an opening to step in. She may actually be relieved if you tell her that he's overstepping boundaries.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:35 AM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

So I coach girls high school sports, alongside a mostly-male coaching staff. I would say that the situation you describe is not normal, but also some people in this thread do not have an understanding of high-level athletic training and the high-volume communication between athletes and coaches.

I am in a group chat with my athletes. My male coaching counterparts are also in group chats with their athletes. We text as a group about things to work on, to review videos I send them of their practices, etc. I text them individually to tell them things to work on that they would be embarrassed to discuss in larger groups. I text them individually to confirm carpools, see why they're running late, and set up extra practices (if they want them). My male coaching counterparts do the same thing. I do not see this as problematic. I don't think it is in any way problematic that your daughter texts with her coaching staff "to arrange private sessions, confirm practice times, and occasionally talk about specific things she needs to work on."

What we do not do is text them about their personal lives. They are teenage girls. We are adults. It is not appropriate for us to text them about their boyfriends or their friends or act in any way as their peers. We do not have ongoing or open-ended casual conversations via text. I don't text them just to say 'hi'. I have provided advice to athletes about bullying or other difficult situations but that is not what is happening here.

I think this coach is doing something wrong. I would be highly concerned if the texting continued after he is no longer her coach. If the coaching staff is otherwise great, I would entirely endorse bringing this up with the head or lead coach next time you see or speak to them, in the context that this is out of the ordinary, concerned you, and you were wondering if they had guidelines on this type of thing.

Best of luck. Sports can be such an amazing and transformative experience for teenage girls. I sincerely hope some creep doesn't ruin that for your daughter.
posted by hepta at 10:16 AM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]