OK, raise your hand if you used to smirk at all those Tide commercials on TV. Clearly that was waaaay before parenting days.

I don’t have a solution for muddy white shorts. I’d say fire the uniform parent, but that creates new problems.

A few weeks ago Holmes came back from a college camp (yes, we acquiesced and sent him to a few) with clothes that were stinky after a full wash. Before drying them, I ran them through the washer again with some soap and a cup of white vinegar. Miraculous! The smell was gone, so now we have a permanent bottle of white vinegar in the laundry room.

Boring but true.

Mr. Watson was telling me about Doyle’s U-13 game today, and he said, “Ya know, I didn’t say any of my usual stuff to him before the game. But he really played well and seemed to be having a good time out there.”

Wow.  Resisting the urge to point out a possible cause-and-effect, I dug this classic from my files. From Bruce Brownlee,  USSF “C” License, Tophat Soccer Club, Atlanta, it circulated throughout the soccer world ten years ago, but remains valid today.

A lot of soccer parents with good intentions give a 30 minute lecture, covering all the player’s supposed deficiencies and giving playing advice, in the car on the way to each match. The kids arrive far off their optimal mental state, and dreading the critique they are likely to hear, whether they want it or not, on the way home.

Kids who are massaged in this way tend not to play badly, they just tend to not play, possibly to avoid making mistakes.

The easiest way to detect this problem is just to ask the player if it is a problem. Kids are more than willing to share this grief. The easiest way to correct this problem is to speak to the parents, as a group, about your expectations, and to cover this as a routine problem. Many of the parents will recognize themselves if you can present this problem with humor and illustrate the importance of the kids having fun and arriving in a good state of mind.

For best results, parents should memorize and use the following.

Before the Match:
I love you
Good luck
Have fun

After the Match:
I love you
It was great to see you play
What would you like to eat?