What to do about obnoxious sports parents

Posted on April 25, 2022 by E.A. Wickham

diving off the blocks — My daughter diving during at a swim meet where the swimmers were selected from So Cal teams.

As a swim parent, I saw my share of obnoxious swim parents. And I had my own moments of not being able to contain myself — although not to the point of punching a ref out — or yelling at a coach.

I saw so many parents taking over their kids’ sports, coaching from the stands, and yelling at their children when they had a less than awesome swim, that I wrote weekly articles with sports parenting tips. You can read them on SwimSwam Parent Tips on my blog or on SwimSwam HERE.

We hear about “those” parents in the news. Their videos of violence on the field or gym go viral.

I saw an article today that had the perfect solution. Duct tape.

Here’s an excerpt from the NY Post’s “The solution to obnoxious sports parents? Duct tape” by Kyle Smith:

Last July, a woman on a flight from Dallas to Charlotte bit a flight attendant, then tried to open a door to the plane while screaming. Crisis was averted when she was duct-taped to her seat.
An excellent start! Now let’s get out the duct tape for sports parents, who need to sit down, shut up and remember that Pee Wee football is not the Super Bowl. In Mississippi this month, an umpire presiding over a ballgame played by 12-year-olds was punched in the face and given a black eye by a woman wearing a Mother of the Year shirt who had been thrown out of the stands for cursing. “It gets harder and harder to staff these tournaments because no one wants to listen to the verbal abuse and run the risk of what happened to me happening to them,” the umpire, Kristie More, told WLBT.
Like other forms of bad behavior (deaths in car crashes are way up), hyper-reactive-sports-parenting seems to have spiked during the pandemic, when tempers have been running as hot as Bidenflation. Even before that, anyone who was thinking about helping out the kids by signing up to be an umpire or a referee would have been smart to buy a Kevlar jacket and make sure his insurance was paid up. “There has been a huge drop off in the number of available referees and officials in youth sports due to the obnoxious behavior of parents,” Rick Wolff host of WFAN radio’s “The Sports Edge” told The Washington Post in 2020.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/23/the-solution-to-obnoxious-sports-parents-duct-tape/

I highly suggest you read the article. It’s funny, but highlights what’s wrong with public discourse in today’s world.

What’s the most obnoxious thing you’ve seen parents do? What solutions do you have? Do you think things have gotten worse since the COVID shutdowns?

Who cheats at Wordle — and why?

Posted on March 8, 2022 by E.A. Wickham

Wordle from 3/7/2022 — Yesterday’s Wordle. I used my son’s three starter words. Then figured out the answer.

I saw a series of articles from different news sources — from NY Post to CNBC — that said cheating on Wordle is on the rise.

Why? What’s the point?

To be totally honest, I cheated once. I couldn’t figure out the word. I had four of the letters so I googled “Five letter words with R U P E….” rupee came up which I didn’t know was a currency from India — let along a word.

How did I feel after I cheated? Like there was no point in playing the game if I had to look up the answer. I haven’t done that again. I felt like a cheater. We had a t-shirt for our swim team that had this saying on the back: “Cheaters never win. Winners never cheat.”

In the NY Post there’s an article called “‘Everyone is cheating at Wordle’ and these are most guilty states: study” by Ben Cost.

Here’s an excerpt:

These are Wordle’s biggest cheaters.
A recent study by data compiler Wordfinderx found that online answer searches increased 196% since the Times acquired the puzzle, in which players get five attempts to guess a new five-letter word each day.
“Cheating for the game is at an all-time high and only growing,” read the study.
Per the research, the US state that most frequently cheated was New Hampshire with the word “swill.” Coincidentally, the Granite State ranked third among US states with the most Wordle prowess, per a study last week by Wordtip.
https://nypost.com/2022/03/07/everyone-is-cheating-at-wordle-and-these-are-most-guilty-states-study/

CNBC’s article about Wordle cheaters by Mikaela Cohen was under the category “SUCCESS” and called “It seems like a lot of you are cheating at Wordle: Study.”

The jig is up — we know you’re cheating on your daily Wordle.
Or, at least, it would certainly appear that a growing number of people have been looking online for answers to the popular five-letter word guessing game — possibly to avoid putting a stop to a winning streak.
That’s according to a recent study by Wordfinderx, a reference website for word games like Wordle and Scrabble, which used Google Trends data to determine that Google searches for the answer to Wordle’s daily puzzle have nearly tripled ever since The New York Times acquired Wordle in January.
The study found that searches for Feb. 15′s “AROMA” and Feb. 19′s “SWILL” daily Wordle solutions reached a 100 out of 100 on Google’s search popularity scale, which compares search results on a topic and then rates them on a scale of 0 to 100 “based on a topic’s proportion to all searches on all topics,” according to Google.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/05/it-seems-like-a-lot-of-you-are-cheating-at-wordle-study.html

Why do you think more people are cheating at Wordle? One theory is that from the end of 2021 to today more people are playing, hence more cheating. But why does the cheating coincide with NY Times buying Wordle?

Have you cheated at Wordle or other games? Have you thought about cheating? Have you noticed a difference in Wordle since the NY Times took over? Do you have a strategy to play?

Wordle saves the day!

Posted on February 11, 2022 by E.A. Wickham

I saw a headline yesterday that grabbed my attention after I finished my daily Wordle:

Chicago woman rescued from naked kidnapper thanks to Wordle
https://nypost.com/2022/02/10/chicago-woman-rescued-from-naked-kidnapper-thanks-to-wordle/

In an article written by Yaron Steinbuch, a woman in Chicago was rescued from a naked man who held her at scissors-point and later knife-point because of Wordle. Her daughter lives in Seattle and was concerned the next morning when her mom didn’t text or contact her about Wordle. That prompted the daughter to call the police.

This reminded me the importance of staying in touch with family members. I wrote a blog post called Inspiration can be a daily, family thing a number of years ago when one of my college roommates was visiting me. She and her two brothers and mom would have a group text each morning to make sure everyone was okay. Their mom was in her 80s and lived alone, and it was the kids way to make sure their mom was ok.

I was doing this with my kids but it went by the wayside. We would share something we’d find inspirational in a group text every morning. My mom is turning 90 next month and she’s in assisted living. Unfortunately she isn’t tech savvy and isn’t good about answering her phone. But she has a staff to check up on her. My dad is 90 and lives alone. He has friends who check up on him and we talk on the phone every few days. Maybe I should start a morning text with him, though.

How do you keep in touch with your family? Do you have a set time to text or call?

Parenting Styles Can Affect Children’s DNA

Posted on June 11, 2019 by E.A. Wickham

three I found an article called “Crappy parenting can damage your kid’s DNA: report” by Hannah Sparks to be eye-opening. Parents today are scrambling for parenting advice from coaches, books, neighbors, friends and complete strangers online. I don’t remember so much drama and concern over parenting styles and methods when I was young, or when I was a new mom. The big controversy back then was whether to put your child on a strict nap schedule or let them sleep whenever they were tired.

But here’s a new scary reason to think about your parenting skills. Not only have we learned that how we parent can lead to depression and anxiety in our children — now it’s been discovered that bad parenting can change our children’s DNA — and not in a good way. Here’s an excerpt:

Blame your parents for all your problems? Science supports that.

A new report by researchers at Loma Linda University suggests that aloof and unsupportive parenting damages their children’s health on a genetic level, potentially leading to disease and early death in adulthood.

“The way someone is raised seems to tell a story that is intertwined with their genetics,” says lead study author Dr. Raymond Knutsen, public health professor at Loma Linda University.

Telomeres are the protective tips at the ends of DNA strands that shield our chromosomes from damage and decay. When are DNA isn’t properly protected, our cells age quicker and we become more susceptible to illness and disease.

Of the 200 subjects tracked for this study, which will run in the July edition of Biological Psychology, researchers found that those who reported growing up with a “cold” mother had telomeres that were an average of 25 percent smaller than those with “warm” mothers.

“As early life stress increases, telomeres shorten and the risk of a host of diseases increases, as well as premature death,” says Knutsen.

I did a lot of things badly with my two kids. There are definite moments I’d love to forget or be given a “do over.” One thing that’s positive — I was not a “cold” mother, but was a “warm” mom. Thank goodness.

What are your thoughts about how parents can affect our kids’ DNA?