Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

[Bob Gillanders]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Ken & Alex: yes, adults can be guilty of bad behaviour also, but at this tournament, it was 100% kids. We can also extend some blame to the parents for not exercising proper discipline. We had sufficient challenges already, the “bad” kids aggravated it. It took me 4 days and a bottle of wine to calm down and “come down off the cliff”.

To be fair, most of the kids are well behaved. But most do need to be reminded to keep the noise down, stop running around, and so on, on occasion. This is not the problem. This we can deal with. The bad kids are those that continue running around and making noise after being repeatedly warned. I addressed the entire room before round x about the problem. I even yelled inside the skittles room to keep it down, loud enough I am sure for all to hear for miles around. I stopped several kids running about numerous times, they kept it up. This is the problem. My patience for bad kids is completely exhausted. No more Mr. nice guy. It is painfully obvious to me now that expulsion is mandatory. The enjoyment of others and my sanity must come first.

Some of the bad kids are members of the Mississauga Adult and/or Junior club. They will be dealt with. I have spoken with the kids and adults who attended the junior club on Monday. The club is now closed for Christmas, so the dialogue will continue in January. I have spoken on this often at the junior club, with only limited success. We did move the stronger kids into the quieter side room, so that helped. The younger kids mostly in the noisier larger room, where quiet isn’t the priority. It gives the more serious kids extra incentive to move up to the gold cards and the quiet room. But I would like to see a further reduction in horseplay and noise across the board. Discipline will move up the priority list in 2018.

A group of kids were playing around with the church phone system on Sunday. Somehow they managed to call a church official, which prompted a very irate church official to visit. The number must have been programmed into the phone system, otherwise how would they have reached a church official? Some members of this group have been identified and are members of MCC. We will be talking with them in January. We know some of what happened, but we will explore in more detail in January. If anyone knows of any details or wants to “come clean”, we invite you to email me over the Christmas break. Appropriate disciplinary action will follow in January which may include a suspension from the club. As a result of this phone incident, we cancelled the CYCC qualifier scheduled for January 20th to make peace with the Church. Actions do have consequences.

I had lunch with Gord this week and we discussed solutions for our kids behaviour problem. I suggested 4 possible policy changes for Mississauga Open 2018.

Limit Junior registration to 50% of total. So if we had 100 players, maximum 50 Juniors. I think once Junior participation rate goes above x%, maintaining discipline is harder. I haven’t found anyone else yet that thinks this is a good idea.

Eject Misbehaving Juniors from tournament. Send them packing. This idea has some support. I would refund the entry fee, but others say “no way”. And how many warnings do you give?

Keep a naughty kids list. If you’re on the list, your next entry fee is an extra $20. This idea has possibilities. We could even send it to Santa to add names to his naughty list. Okay, that’s too drastic.

Letters of apology. The bad kids will compose a letter of apology to both the organizers and other players. This is my personal favourite, I even added jokingly that we post them on chesstalk. But a more popular idea appears to be make them read it out loud in person at the tournament. Yikes.


We had our annual club meeting at Mississauga Club on Wednesday. This was a big topic of conversation. We debated a few ideas and thanks to Omar from SCC for attending. He had some good suggestions.

Anyway, I never want a repeat of this past weekend.

[Ken Craft]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

I think ejecting any misbehaving players is legitimate as long as the policy covers all, regardless of age.

[Rob Gashgarian]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Bob:
I'm normally not one to be bothered by some noise, but Sunday I had enough from that room. As you mentioned, the greater majority aren't the problem. It was the same group that had to be told multiple times, to keep it down, which worked for a short time and then it was back to the same levels in a few minutes. I understand their level of maturity isn't where we would like, but I think it is also vital to teach them that they aren't at a playground either. At some point, their actions and their consequences need to be connected. Always best at the time of the incident so that the behavior and results are connected.
What do you think of a yellow/red card system like in soccer. For example, first warning is a yellow and a successive yellow at the same tournament means expulsion for that game/tournament and the next game/tournament. I'm ambivalent regarding the refund, but I'm not sure that type of behavior should be rewarded in any way. Under rare circumstances, a direct red card--for what I don't know, that would have to be a severe breach like pulling a fire alarm??--would be the same as two yellows.
I think this gives fair warning, as long as the parameters are clearly outlined beforehand. I would hope that this would 'encourage' better behavior, especially once they see it put into practice.

[Lee Hendon]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Hello Ken and John

Ken: I had included the word juniors as they were the main problem at Mississauga (please note most juniors were well behaved) Yes this policy would apply to everybody regardless of age

John: Nowhere can I find anything wrong with awarding a rated forfeit for a game in progress, also the disturbing player may hinder other players chances at prizes, therefore, I have no problem with expulsion without refund for the second major offense.

[John Brown]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Hi Bob;
You can just eliminate a skittles room.
The main offenders were playing double chess. In fact one of your offenders was talking in the playing hall and I told them to shut up Loudly, If Children are going to play in adult events they either need to become adults or not play. Chess 'n math give these kids enough tournaments and if parents think their kids are wonder children then run their own events. Manners is number one on my agenda and personally the kids of today are not manners taught. So look out for the intolerant Adults as there are many out there.
Get rid of kids Under 12 in adult tournaments and you bring chess back to reality. Leave them in and you have the atomic bomb released.
Just post the players names and all organizers can either ban them or charge a large fee like entry fee + $60. You wanna play then that's your fee take it or stay at home.

[Christopher Mallon]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

I see no reason to refund money if someone is expelled from an event. If anything, that might encourage the odd person to get intentionally expelled from an event they were doing poorly in to get their money back. The organizer still had costs to deal with related to that person being there, including rating fees. Not to mention the trouble of dealing with them!

[Ian Findlay]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

I am happy to report that at the Banff Open we had about 6 or 7 juniors participating. They are extremely talented and definitely added to the event. Maybe because most of them had both sets of parents attending they were so well behaved.
It would be a shame to punish everyone for a few bad apples. Saying that the Chess and Math runs tournaments is a 'cop out' in my opinion. The talented juniors need to get better by playing strong adults.

Also 'bughouse' tends to be noisy and very excitable by nature. I spent countless hours playing as a youth, and yelling 'no knights' or 'major piece mates' was common place. I sympathize for your problem, but be careful not to make the solution worse than the problem.

[Lee Hendon]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

John, I see no need to charge extra for youth playing in CFC all ages rated tournaments, we just need to be firm with applying penalties weather that is a warning to expulsion or being banned from tournaments for x number of events.

The offending player junior/adult will soon learn after having been banned

If the players behave then players have nothing to worry about

Skittles room is okay if players use a library/indoor voice which I am sure everyone is capable of with TD warning before the tournament starts if the noise continues after a warning then the consequences are clear to the offending party come what may.

[Alex Ferreira]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Hi,


The idea of shouting out punishments is a bit disturbing. I understand as arbiters and organizers that the laws of tournament chess are on our side, that we want to preserve the peace or interests of fair play, harmony of the majority (which incidentally is now trending towards children), etc...
Yes, forfeits, expulsions, or some form of punishment can always be applied. But doing this impulsively sounds like a bail-out by those who have been saturated from recent events, regarding these misbehaving juniors. I feel we're rushing with this approach a bit too much.

Overall... I am of the opinion that there is still room for improvement when it comes to us being better prepared.
Opening our doors to juniors should, as a general rule, be a good and welcoming thing. As everyone is agreeing... most juniors are well behaved.
Let us discuss how we can (re)educate players on code of conduct, taking into account that the field is now composed largely by children, and include their parents in the loop.
It is difficult to compare adult tournaments to CMA such type tournaments. Many junior chess activities are meant to be more about the fun aspect than about behaving at a proper class tournament. Junior events - be it through CMA, in a classroom, or some scholastic program - range from glorified babysitting to very serious qualifiers and championships, adequately staffed in numbers. I imagine that many of the kids (and some adults) don't make these distinctions.

Bob, and those at the Mississauga tournament, it does sounds like it was quite the painful and draining experience.
Sorry John but I think a skittles room is not only essential, but often overlooked or sacrificed and we suffer because of it.
The argument is of course that... the skittles room has actually become a playground.

A large skittles room area, not-that-close to the playing hall is ideal. Let those who have finished their game walk 50 metres to analyze their games not disturb the tournament that is still in progress. Kids need to stretch their legs. Maybe a babysitting room, or a room for extra activities would be ideal. It might sound like am joking but... in some receptions or parties, where many attendees are expected to have children, this is a thing.
Realistically though... extra rooms, or large rooms, means significant extra costs. Plus, what does an organizer now have to go through to organize a chess tournament? But when 75% of your participants are juniors... it might be worth discussing. Any event with this many children, outside of the chess world... would look quite different. There would probably be several guides and mentors, a magician, a clown, a dozen babysitters, play-doh, arts and crafts, soap bubbles, etc... At a chess tournament, we are asking dozens of kids to behave in a way they have not yet learned how to, by sitting quietly for a 4 hour game.

In any case... this whole situation is concerning me as well, as a player, arbiter and organizer. In a way, it's surprising it hasn't happened already, or more often. Probably because many of these juniors are probably more mature than their age, being involved in chess and probably many other activities. And I am in no way Santa Clause defending the kids no matter how many wrongs they're responsible for. There will be the odd case I am sure, that needs to be disciplined. But I will still prefer doing it through their parent. And when that day comes, perhaps as early as next weekend at Hart House, I hope to have the composure not to yell at a kid and save my emotions for when I talk to the parents, with whom I would have no problems saying what I think.
Like it or not... juniors are keeping our tournament scene alive and well in terms of numbers, and setting (reviewing, publishing) codes of conduct in a civilized and pleasant manner is worth trying. Before getting excited about forfeiting or expelling players.


Alex Ferreira

[Hans Jung]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Im enjoying this discussion. Alex thank you for your insights.

[Erik Malmsten]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Children need to run around, have some physical activity, such as soccer, every day. Perhaps expecting children to be well-behaved all weekend is unreasonable.

The Mississauga club is very isolated, no place else to go to in cold weather. Open the daycare on the southside? Is there not a basement or other area of the church that could be used for laughing and yelling? Organize a group visit to an indoor playground or the mall? Hart House is big enough to have the skittles room far away.

Kids feed energy off of each other, it is great fun being with other kids. The noisy excitement has to be stopped early, before gaining momentum. That requires a chess organizer/volunteer parents permanently assigned to the skittles room/hallways. Hire an experienced childcare provider? Rules can be explained. Step 1 is a verbal warning, step 2 is removal from the playing/skittles areas. To a quiet down room with low light, soft music?

Parents can't just drop off their kids to chess daycare. Somebody has to be responsible for each child and the arbiter of the skittles room has to know who that adult is. The organizer can ask an excited child to take a time out and give them to the care of the parent/ person parent appointed. Explaining that their joyful fun is disrupting other players doesn't stay with them. But some kids, especially hyped up on sugar, need someplace to explode.

[Lee Hendon]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Hello Erik

Most of the parents were waiting in another room in the church or the lobby no more than seconds from the playing hall, and others were playing in the tournament with their kids,
as a TD it is not my job to make sure the parents are looking after their children.

Unfortunately, not every space has the luxury of skittles room away from the playing hall and finding a qualified person for childcare due to liability reasons is a nightmare with police checks and trianing

[Bob Gillanders]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Hello Erik

Most of the parents were waiting in another room in the church or the lobby no more than seconds from the playing hall, and others were playing in the tournament with their kids,
as a TD it is not my job to make sure the parents are looking after their children.

Unfortunately, not every space has the luxury of skittles room away from the playing hall and finding a qualified person for childcare due to liability reasons is a nightmare with police checks and trianing

Thanks Lee. Good comments.
I hope we can find a new site with a skittles room some distance from the playing hall, but I have no intention of running a simultaneous daycare centre. Parents need to exert more control over their kids and stop them running about.
We need to develop, post and enforce tournament rules on behaviour for all players. We didn't think it was necessary, so now we have paid the price. I will work on it over Christmas. I am certain some will not take us seriously at first (that always happens) and at least 1 expulsion will be necessary! So be it.

To put this in perspective, most of the kids are good kids. We should be able to engineer out most of the bad behaviour with good enforceable tournament rules and good parental oversight. We all need to work together on this.

[Erik Malmsten]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Hello Erik

Most of the parents were waiting in another room in the church or the lobby no more than seconds from the playing hall, and others were playing in the tournament with their kids,
as a TD it is not my job to make sure the parents are looking after their children.

Unfortunately, not every space has the luxury of skittles room away from the playing hall and finding a qualified person for childcare due to liability reasons is a nightmare with police checks and trianing

Thanks Lee. Good comments.
I have no intention of running a simultaneous daycare centre. Parents need to exert more control over their kids and stop them running about.

To put this in perspective, most of the kids are good kids. We all need to work together on this.

Letting in so many new young players makes it a simultaneous daycare, and daycares have rules and supervisors. Four hours between games is alot of time to be still. The organizer (not the TD Lee) is responsible for organizing the site. Perhaps getting the waiting parents to take turns being the skittles room supervisor/ peace enforcer.

Leaving things unorganized is a disaster leading to an explosion of noisy chaos. Then you want to kick out future masters.

[Lee Hendon]

Re: Juniors misbehaving at Tournament's

Hello Erik: Please note that at most smaller events the TD and the Organizer is the same person, also I don't think you understand the liabilities associated with childcare, also having a random parent daycare a junior playroom is I am sure illegal. Any other sports tournament with juniors during downtime the parents are responsible.

Organizing a tournament with juniors does not equal daycare.

As for future masters, they must learn that etiquette is just as important as the touch move rule.

On a lighter note should we open up a pub for beginner adults that lose their games fast lol :)