The tournament weekend is the highest-leverage adult-minor configuration in youth sports. A whole team in a hotel, away from parents, with coaches who are also off-duty. The policies that govern it are specific. Most parents have never read them.

The SafeSport MAAPP travel rules. The Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies cover adult-minor travel for NGB-affiliated programs. The two load-bearing pieces:

No adult should be alone with a single minor in a hotel room or sleeping space, with narrow exceptions for parent-and-own-child situations.

Hotel room assignments should keep adults and minors in separate rooms. Adjacent or facing rooms are fine. Same-room is not.

These are not suggestions. NGB-affiliated programs that violate MAAPP can lose certification and individuals can lose participation eligibility.

Model policies the major NGBs publish. USA Volleyball, USA Hockey, USA Swimming, and USA Gymnastics all publish travel policies that operationalize MAAPP. The patterns repeat:

Minors room with minors of similar age. No mixed-age pairings (a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, for example) without parental written consent.

Curfew enforced by chaperones, not by self-report. Chaperones do bed checks, not coaches alone.

A minimum of two adult chaperones per team, ideally not married to each other, ideally one of each gender if the team is co-ed.

Players’ phones charge in the chaperone’s room overnight, in many programs.

Coaches do not enter players’ rooms one-on-one. If a coach needs to enter, two adults present, door open.

The chaperone math. A reasonable ratio is one chaperone per six minors. For a 12-player team, two chaperones is the floor. For a 24-player team, four. Some programs run higher. Programs that run lower are operating below the published norms.

The chaperone is not the head coach. The chaperone is a designated adult, often a parent, vetted and trained for the role.

Transportation across state lines. SafeSport’s standards require parental written consent for adult-minor unsupervised travel. The same is true for transporting another family’s kid in your car. A signed permission slip per family per trip is the minimum.

Insurance matters here. Your auto insurance covers other people’s kids riding in your car if you are at fault, but the deductible and limits are what they are. Some leagues carry supplemental policies. Worth asking.

The conversation with your team manager.

“What is the published rooming policy for this trip?”

“How many chaperones are coming, and what is the chaperone-to-player ratio?”

“What is the curfew, and who is enforcing it?”

“Is there a written code of conduct for the trip, and have the players read it?”

“What is the procedure if a player has a concern at 11pm in a hotel?”

A team manager who has answers is one who has done the work. A team manager who improvises in the answer is one whose program has not published the policy.

The conversation with your kid. Two weeks before the trip, age-appropriate. The version that lands at 12 is different from the version that lands at 16. Common elements:

“You can call me at any hour for any reason. Picking you up early is not embarrassing.”

“If something happens, you tell me, and you will not be in trouble.”

“The chaperones are the people you go to first if I am not there.”

For the parent who is also the chaperone. Read MAAPP before you go. Read your NGB’s travel policy before you go. Know the SafeSport reporting line (720-531-0340). The role is bigger than “chaperone” implies.

The trip is supposed to be fun. The policies do not get in the way of fun. They make sure the trip is one a kid can look back on without anything that should not have happened.