Saturday mornings and as usual PT is at a cricket ground with one of my crew.
During our pregame inspection of the ground it was apparent that some of the locals had held a party during the night on the cricket pitch. Don’t know how many were involved, but there were a dozen vodka cruiser empties and two empty packs of cigarettes strewn around and one butt that didn’t look like it was a cigarette. It wasn’t a huge mess, only one of the bottles was broken, but irksome to tidy up.
Showing themselves to be criminal masterminds in waiting, at least two of them had left school exercise books, a text book and school activity permission forms with their names among the detritus.
The thing is I know them. Tomorrow morning they’ll be at footie training. I’ll be there in my role as team manager and so I also know they are 14 and therefore underage.
Interesting. What to do?
Should chuck it all in a bin and do nothing? (which I’d do if I didn’t know them)
Give the kids back their school stuff and say nothing more?
Give their stuff back and tell them to have a conversation with their parents?
Give the stuff back to their parents and say nothing more?
Tell the parents how I came into possession of a autographed Year 9 maths textbook?
I’d hand the stuff back to the kids but telling them I WOULD be telling their parents, and better for the folks to hear the misdemeanours from the kids than from you.
You’re the team manager, so not just a disinterested witness. Tell the kids they HAVE to tell their parents and to tell them to ring you when they’ve been informed. If you don’t get a call from the parental unit, come down so hard on their arses they won’t know whether to shit or vomit.
Gather the team. Tell them that there have been problems with kids drinking on local sports pitches. Send out a “random pair” to go check the whole pitch for glass. Make them run as they do so while the rest of the team warms up.
Keep them running for the whole session - fetching stray balls, equipment, anything. Make them regret the night before the night before.
After the session, give them back their books. Then tell them that if you ever catch them pulling a stunt like that they will be in such deep trouble they will think that the lights have gone out.
But I do understand the dilemma - I am part of an organisation that goes out on Friday nights round our village. I also help out with a youth drop-in club run by our church, that is just a drop-in center and frequented by kids from outside the church. Mostly, we just talk to the kids, occasionally having to help someone who has had too much to drink. We have intervened in the occasional tense situation. I see kids getting up to no good, drinking, smoking and hanging out with others who are real trouble (for a middle-class english definition of trouble). Sometimes, I know their parents, casually or somewhat more closely. And sometimes the kids know this as well. But my rule is that anything I see when I’m on the streets or in the youth club, stays there. It is about trust - if they trust us not to get them in trouble for a few cigarettes, say, they might just trust us when they have a real problem they need to talk about.
Of course, if anything really illegal occurs (blatant drug use, violence) we have to call the police, and the kids understand that, and don’t really take it personally.
My vote: give the stuff back to the parents without saying anything except where you found it.
Now the parents know, and they know you know. There’s no (overt) pressure from you that they should do something about it, but even the most yuppie parent can’t make it something you did wrong (as opposed to if you said “your kids were drinking on the pitch” to which the parents might feel compelled to respond “yeah, well, I want them drinking on the pitch.”)
Prior to training on Sunday I approached the kids “involved” together.
Asked if they were hanging around that oval on the Friday night.
Got a blanket denial.
I asked if they’d like a second opportunity to answer the question.
Got an emphatic blanket denial.
Shrugged my shoulders and said OK, I’ll just go over to their parents, deliver their school stuff, explain how I came to be in possession and would leave the follow-up conversation to them. I don’t think they believed me.
Their parents thanked me, said it was confirmation of what they had suspected.
I think the parents then had a discussion with the coach.
The coach had them blowing a gasket in short time. I especially liked the time trial whilst dragging a tire, which was called a “rubbish run” used each time as a “clean-up” penalty when they goofed off.
