Effective Ways to Discipline Cheerleaders
- If a cheerleader has already been given a warning and continues bad behavior, she should be required to do physical conditioning with a coach. This might mean staying after practice to run extra laps on the track, do extra squats or pushups and crunches. The coach can determine the severity of the punishment based off of the behavior. If the cheerleader simply forgot to take her jewelry off, the conditioning should be lighter than if she was an hour late to practice.
- If the cheerleader continues to break the rules and physical conditioning is not correcting the behavior, develop a community service plan. It helps to develop different levels of offenses so the cheerleader knows ahead of time what the punishment will be. For example, being late to a competition might be considered a level one offense and require two hours of community service, whereas a more serious offense, like not showing up for a game, might be a level two offense and require five hours of community service.
- If your cheerleader is not responding to the aforementioned types of discipline, it might be time to resort to a more serious one. Bench the cheerleader from one or more games. This is usually an effective form of punishment because the cheerleader is on the team for one reason: to perform for her classmates and team at games. Removing this privilege can halt the behavior. Again determine the severity of the punishment based on the severity of the behavior.
- If other forms of discipline are not working, tell the cheerleader that she is going to placed on probation and cannot be a part of the team again until the behavior is improved. This form of discipline is often used for athletes with poor grades, but can also be used for poor behavior. Suspend the cheerleader from the team until she raises her GPA or improves her attitude.
- If no forms of discipline are effective in reversing the bad behavior, remove the cheerleader from the team. If she is placed on probation and continues to have a bad attitude or cannot bring up her grades, her letter should be taken away and she should be removed from the team. This is the most extreme form of discipline for an athlete.
