There I was on a Thursday night, 8pm, sitting in a metal bleacher at the volleyball gym with an ice cold gatorade in my hand. I was trying to soak in one of those moments I know I won’t get back. My sister’s only got a few more years of this left, and so do I, honestly, as someone who gets to watch.
The gym lights buzzed overhead. The bleachers were cold. My laptop bag sat at my feet, still full of homework I hadn’t touched yet, the same homework that had been waiting since I left class that afternoon.
Our team’s family and friends section was full, everyone tired but happy to be there, swapping updates on how the week had gone.
Everyone was running on empty. School, work, traffic, dinner, whatever else the day had thrown at them. But there we all were anyway, showing up. My sister is 16 and plays for a club volleyball team I’ve genuinely come to love being part of. The girls are pushed to work hard, build real skill, look out for each other, and treat people with respect. It’s competitive, sure, but in a way that feels healthy. The kind of team where you can tell the girls are growing into more than just athletes.
I’d claimed my usual spot, dead center, right at the net line. My people were to my left. The other team’s parents were to my right, already yelling at their daughters before warmups even finished. And the difference between the two sides was hard to miss.
The parents on the other side were loud. Not excited-loud. Angry-loud.
Constant yelling.
Talking down to their own girls.
Sharp comments aimed at ours as they walked past.
Picking apart every missed serve, every mistake.
Arguing every call.
At one point, the ref had to tell them to knock it off. Their coach earned himself a card after getting in the ref’s face about a call he didn’t like.
It didn’t stay on the sidelines, either. It showed up in their players too. Trash talk directed at our girls. Rough play that didn’t need to be that rough. Eye rolls. A couple of their own girls getting snapped at by their own parents mid-rally. One girl even said something sharp to one of our parents who’d reacted to a play involving her own daughter.
Then came the line at the end, where the teams walk past each other shaking hands. Except our girls walked away rattled, after one of the opposing players said something to one of them that didn’t need to be said.
Sitting there, half homework-stressed college kid, half someone who’s spent enough time around adolescent psychology to notice patterns, my chest just sort of ached for a second. Because these are kids. High Schoolers schoolers. On a school night.
Kids whose brains are still very much under construction. Kids who already sat through a full day of school, social pressure, expectations, and exhaustion before they even put their kneepads on. Kids trying to figure out confidence, identity, where they belong, how to manage their emotions, and what they’re worth, all at the same time.
Youth sports are supposed to build character. Teach teamwork. Build resilience. They’re supposed to teach kids how to handle losing, how to put in effort, how to recover from a bad play and keep going. Somewhere along the way, a lot of adults seem to have forgotten that part.
At the time I was not a therapist, but I’ve spent enough time around kids, around my sister’s team, around conversations about adolescent development, to recognize what’s actually happening when adults lose it on the sideline. Kids don’t just hear our words. They pick up on our nervous systems. Our tone. The way we react when something doesn’t go our way, or doesn’t go theirs.
They’re watching how we handle frustration. They’re watching how we talk about people in authority. They’re watching how we respond to mistakes. They’re watching whether competition feels like growth or like getting torn down.
When adults scream at refs, insult coaches, or snap at sixteen-year-olds, kids learn that pressure is an excuse for disrespect. When adults stay steady, encourage effort, own their own mistakes, and keep their emotions in check, kids learn something else entirely: that how you carry yourself matters more than the score.
None of this means adults can’t care, or that coaches can’t push hard, or that players can’t want to win badly. It just means there’s a real difference between intensity and intimidation. Between teaching grit and teaching aggression. Between raising athletes and raising people who are also emotionally okay.
Sometimes I think adults forget what sixteen feels like. How self-conscious you are. How much you want approval. How much you worry about fitting in. How a bad moment can replay in your head for days after everyone else has moved on.
A tough comment from a coach might roll off an adult’s back. A humiliating moment in front of a crowd can sit with a kid for years.
Most of these girls aren’t going pro. But every one of them is going to grow into an adult. And what they’re absorbing right now, on a random Thursday night under fluorescent gym lights, is part of what they’ll carry with them.
I wanted my sister to learn how to work hard. How to lose without falling apart. How to stay disciplined and coachable. How to compete with integrity. How to stay respectful even when things get tense.
But just as much, I wanted her to learn how to treat people. Because long after the jerseys don’t fit anymore and the medals end up in a drawer somewhere, the way she treated people is what’s actually going to stick.
So maybe this is just the reminder: these are kids. It’s a game. On a school night. Under bright gym lights. With tired bodies and brains that are still figuring themselves out. And the adults on the sidelines are still some of the loudest teachers in the room, whether they mean to be or not.
What I keep coming back to is this: the stuff that shows up on the sidelines usually isn’t really about the missed serve or the bad call. It’s stress. Burnout. Old pressure people are still carrying from their own childhoods. Fear that their kid won’t measure up, won’t get picked, won’t reach whatever potential they’re imagining for them. And when the adults in the room are dysregulated, the kids feel every bit of it.
Mental health support can help with a lot of this, not just for the kids who are absorbing it, but for the adults trying to manage their own stress in high-pressure moments. Learning how to stay regulated, how to respond instead of react, how to separate someone’s performance from their worth, how to build connection instead of running on fear and pressure. That’s not just useful for parents. It’s useful for anyone trying to show up better for the people they care about.
The point was never just to raise good athletes. It’s to help raise healthy humans. Kids deserve adults around them who can teach effort without humiliation, accountability without aggression, and competition without cruelty.
Watching from the bleachers, homework still untouched in my bag, I keep thinking about how much these kids are learning just by watching us. How we handle stress. Conflict. Disappointment. Mistakes. Authority. Each other.
If any of this sounds familiar, the stress, the tension, the reactions that feel bigger than the moment calls for, it might be worth having a space to slow down and unpack some of that. Not just for what it changes on the sidelines, but for what it changes everywhere else too.
These games should build character, connection, confidence, and memories worth keeping. Not fear. Not shame. Not something kids end up carrying into adulthood that they never asked for.
