@bigsteelerfanhere said:

Sound like yuins moonshine is kicken in.

Next they will be suing so they can all be prom queens

@alporcini said:

One of the big NY private school's athletic department's i s being sued by the parent body because they think that term "benchwarmer", scrub", etc, is demeaning to the ego and developmental growth of the kids who are not getting PT... their argument is that the kids' have made the squad and a being singled out because of lack of court time (forget about talent!!!)

From now on, they want these kids referred to as "spectating players".

Totally true.... This is happening at my nephew's school.

Parents are under the mistaken impression that self esteem is based on feeling happy and worthwhile at every moment in one's life. This is absolutely not true. The way a child develops self esteem is, in part, by getting accurate feedback. In the case of the "benchwarmers," the correct response is "play better ball" and you may be able to play. My question is, why do these kids have to be 'called' anything. They're players. They're inactive for one reason or another. That's it. I hope someone tells the parents they need to get over it.

My son decided, when he was age 10, that he wanted to play ice hockey. At the time he made this decision, he didn't know how to skate. He took lessons and became the goalie on his hockey team, not because he was good at it, but because he was willing. There were only two teams in the league at the time and his team lost every game in the first half of the season. He and another boy swapped teams. My son's new team promptly lost every game in the second half of the season. This made him the only kid in the league who had lost every game. The boy he swapped with was the only kid who had won every game, as he reminded my son nearly daily. Though to a lot of parents this sounds like an absolute nightmare, we had lots of good discussions about how to evaluate one's performance, how to handle losing, how to improve, the importance of team play, etc. My son will tell you today that it was a tough season but it was a fantastic experience and he's glad he went through it. You'll have to trust me when I tell you that his self esteem, ego, and developmental growth were not adversely affected by the experience no matter what he was called by the other kids or anyone else. BTW, at the end of the season the two teams had the same record of wins and losses so there was a championship playoff game. My son's team won. So he lost every game during the season but won the one that counted and went home with the trophy. When kids get through tough experiences like these they learn about their own resilience and what it takes to be successful. It's the process of going through something like this that helps a child develop; It's not the avoidance of some arbitrary designation like 'benchwarmer.'