Forget about worst dad trophy. The entire Great Valley deserves the trophy of being the worst parents ever. 
Haha! That's true...none of them are watching their kids half as closely as they should be! Watching Journey to Big Water again the other day, I realized that even though the grown-ups weren't able to find the kids in the aftermath of the earthshake, the parents were all back in the valley when the Gang of Five returned--meaning they gave up and went back home without finding their kids. Nice! 
That is so true. The parents and grandparents are constantly losing the Gang; worse they don’t seem to notice they’re gone for hours to days. The only exceptions were LBT II when the parents did notice the Gang had waundered into the Mysterious Beyond, and then JOTB Grandpa and Topps go looking for the Gang of Five with Chomper and Ruby. Are there any other times the parents went looking for the Gang outside the Valley?
In IX, the parents had been looking for the Gang after the earthshake...but by the time the kids return home, all their parents have gone back there already. 
What, they decided their children were a lost cause?
I suppose I have to give Grandpa Longneck points for showing up to Littlefoot's rescue towards the end of VI, though. 
The climax of VII similarly had Petrie's mom (plus One Big Flyer) fly in to help the kids escape from Threehorn Peak. Those are about the only examples I can think of where the parents (or grandparents) went after the kids, though--and they were cutting things pretty close! Hmm, I guess at least everyone noticed their kids were gone in film V. Not that that's saying much.
Great points. This reminds me I need to do an LBTathon when I can afford it. I want to buy all the films digitally as well as the series.
As for worst Dad, interestingly only Topps and Hyp’s dad are really the only contenders. Ducky & Spike only has her mom, Petrie only has his mom, and Littlefoot has a great dad in Born; unless you want to argue Bron is more dedicated to his herd. Perhaps Chomper’s dad? Except he’s just being a normal Sharptooth and he came to find his son in LBTII.
P
Hm, I guess you're right, we have hardly any dads to work with here.
Hyp's dad, Mr. Threehorn, Bron, Chomper's dad, and Big Daddy are the only dads in the whole series...strange, now that you mention it. As if that's not enough of a slap in the face to dads, half the characters in that group are pretty poor fathers...
I agree that Bron is a pretty great dad. He might not have stayed with Littlefoot in the end, but hey, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. We haven't seen enough of him interacting with his herd to know how much they depend on him. Plus, at least he comes by the valley to visit.
Chomper's dad also is a great parent, at least from a sharptooth point of view.
He'll fight an entire valley to look for his son. Besides, we can tell from film V that both Chomper's parents check in on their kid more often than anyone in the valley does with theirs!
Big Daddy is in sort of a gray area, I guess. He could be pretty controlling of his kids in his distrust towards "the big ones." In the end, though...well, his suspicions were basically right. The little longnecks were forced out of their home because Littlefoot used them as a scapegoat (ugh).
