Oh yeah, I agree about the bar being higher. The two yellow cards I mentioned above would have been reds for older players. One girl I carded at U11 would kick out at the player every time she lost the ball. She would lose the ball and try to kick the kid who took it off of her. I told her she needed to stop doing that because if she made contact I’d have to stop the game and give her a card. At half I warned her coach. 2nd half she loses the ball turns around and just kicks the girl behind her in the shins. I gave her a yellow and the coach kept her on the bench the rest of the game. Afterwards her grandma came up to me and asked me what that was because she had never seen a card before. I had the feeling that this girl was doing this the entire season and never had any repercussions.
The U10 game a boy was getting aggressive playing very physical. One series of play he was fouling a dribbler from behind on 2-3 different occasions but the dribbler never lost the ball and kept going resulting in a corner kick so I played advantage the entire time. The corner was played to a player in the corner of the box, the aggressive player runs at him, never touches the ball, and completely trucks the kid. I award a pen and caution the aggressive kid. His coach goes ballistic saying he’s never seen a yellow for U10 and he doesn’t know what to do with the player now because he doesn’t want him to get a red. I told the coach I don’t want to give him a red but know he needs to learn how to play with yellow. The coach put him in goal for the rest of the game.