If you want your child to come out of youth sports experience a winner (feeling good about themselves and having a healthy attitude towards sports), then they need your help! you are a vital and important part of the coach-athlete-parent team. If you do your job correctly and play your position well, then your child will learn the sport faster, perform better, really have fun and have his/her self-esteem enhanced as a result. There sport experience will serve as a positive model for them to follow as they approach other challenges and obstacles throughout life. If you “drop the ball” or run the wrong way with it ,your child will stop learning, experience performance difficulties and blocks, and really begin to hate the sport.
Further, your relationship with him /her will probably suffer significantly. As a result, they will come out of this experience burdened with feelings of failure, inadequacy and low self-esteem, feelings that will generalize to other areas in their life.
Your son/daughter and their coach need you on the team. They can’t win without you! The following are a list of useful fact, guidelines and strategies for you to use to make you more skilled in the youth sports game. Remember, no wins unless everyone wins. We need you on the team!
When defined the right way, competition in youth sports is both good and healthy and teaches children a variety of important life skills. The true definition of competitions is a seeking together where your opponent is your partner , not the enemy! The better he/she performs , the more chance you have of having a peak performance. Sports is about learning to deal with any challenges and obstacles. Without a worthy opponent, without any challenges, sports is not so much fun.
You child should never be taught to view his/her opponent as the “bad guy”, the enemy or someone to be hated and “destroyed”, Do not model this Attitude! Instead, talk to/make friends with parents of your child’s opponent . Root for great performances, good play, not just for the winner!
The ultimate goal of the sport experience is to challenge oneself and continually improve. Unfortunately, judging improvement by winning and losing is both an unfair and inaccurate measure. Winning in sports is about doing the best you can do, separate from the outcome or play of your opponent . Children should be encourage to compete against their own potential.
When your child has this foucus and play to better themselves instead of beating someone else, the will be more relaxed, have more fun and therefore perform better.
A corollary to one of the main purposes of youth sports experience is skill, acquisition and mastery. When a child performs to their potential and loses, it is criminal to focus on the outcome and become critical. If a child plays their very best and loses, you need to help them feel like a winner! Similarly , when a child or team performs far below their potential but wins, this is not cause to feel like a winner. Help your child make this important separation between success and failure and winning and losing . Remember, if you define success and failure in terms of winning and losing, you’re playing a losing game with your child!
Your role on the parent-coach-athlete team is as a Support player with a capital S! You need to be your child’s best fan. unconditionally! Leave the coaching and instruction to the coach. Provide encouragement, support, empathy transportation, money, help with fund-raisers, etc., but… do not coach! Most parents that get into trouble with their children do so because they forget to remember the important position that they play. Coaching interferes with your role as supporter and fan. the last thing your child needs and wants to hear from you after a disappointing performance or loss is what they did technically or strategically wrong. Keep your role as a parent on the team separate from that as coach, and, if by necessity you actually get stuck in the almost no-win position to coach your child, try to maintain this separation of roles (i.e. on the deck, field or court say “Now l’m talking to you as a coach”, at home say, “Now I’m talking to you as a parent”). Don’t parent when you coach and don’t coach at home when you’re supposed to be parenting.
It’s a time proven principle of peak performance that the more fun an athlete is having, the more the will learn and the better they will perform. Fun must be present for peak performance to happen at every level of sports from youth to world class competition, When a child stops having fun and begins to dread practice or competition, it’s time for you as a parent to become concerned!
Number FIVE leads us to a very important question! Why is your child participating in the sport? Are they doing it because they want to, for THEM, or because of YOU? When they have problems in their sport, do you talk about them as “OUR” problems, i.e., “our jump isn’t high enough”, “we are having trouble with our flip turn”. etc. Are the playing because they don’t want to disappoint you, because they know how important the sport is to YOU? Are they playing for rewards and “bonuses” for you?