Youth Sports Parents: Are we unintentionally harming our kids?
I left a recent Positive Coaching Alliance training empowered to be a better youth sports mom. Now I share their research-based advice with you!
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On with the show, I need to say something a bit controversial so let me try it in the nicest way possible: Fellow youth sports parents, please shut the hell up while your kid is playing.
I’m guilty. I’m sure many of you are too. But if there’s one sweeping takeaway from a parent training I recently organized with the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) for our community baseball and softball league, it’s that us parents are susceptible of stripping the joy from our kids, often without realizing it.
PCA, a national organization founded in 1998 whose mission is, you guessed it, to create a positive youth sports environment, calls it directional sports parenting. The basic premise is don’t yell anything instructional unless you’re the coach. Some of examples of directional sports parenting that may seem harmless:
“Mary, look at Janae. She’s open!”
“Remember to get a good load.”
“Shoot it.”
“Crack it.”
“Hurry, get back on defense.”
“The right lane’s open.”
“Crush this serve.”
“Ready position, play’s at first.”
“Just like last time, Carson.”
You might thing you’re helping, and maybe you coach your kid individually every other day of the week. But once you get to the field or gym or rink or wherever, you are not the coach unless you actually coach the team.
No matter how well-intentioned, young athletes don’t need multiple voices. It’s distracting and undermining for the coach. It can also confuse the kid. You’re yelling one thing while her coach is yelling another. She hesitates just enough for someone to blow by her. Boom, goal scored.
As we established in our last post and what a news flash it was: we invest gobs of time and money on this youth sports thing. That often includes private coaching, parent coaching on the side, and other training tools. Maybe you’ve been working with your young volleyball player at home on throwing with velocity and distance.
Now it’s game time. And this is where the life skill stuff kicks in. The kid now has an opportunity to process all the information they learned through training all week and try their best to put it into action. They don’t need their parent yelling, “hit it hard” or “remember what we worked on this week.” We’re not spewing strategies and reminders to our kids during a school exam; we shouldn’t be giving directions while they’re playing games either.
Let me again reiterate, I’m sharing the results of the Positive Coaching Alliance, which I thought were incredibly useful and enlightening. I’m in no way saying I’ve sat on the sidelines with a muzzle. In fact, I’m guilty of being something far worse than distracting … a straight up embarrassment.
When Mr. Fantasy Football (my older kid who turned 12 today) played fall ball as a 9- and 10-year-old, I would use his at bats during Sunday games to shower him with fantasy updates. “Hit it like Tyreek Hill just ripped a 47-yard end around” was acceptable, even embraced by him then. But two weeks ago, he was rightfully mortified when I yelled, “Hit it like the Cocaine Bear would” as he approached the batter’s box. It wasn’t quite directional in the traditional sense. My son was struggling at the plate that day and I thought referencing the awesomely ridiculous film we had seen the night before would loosen him up and make him smile. Instead, he gave me a glare that screamed, SERIOUSLY, MOM. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?
Arguably the most impactful portion of the PCA training was a video shared that was produced by the website “I Love to Watch You Play” asking young athletes how much they want to hear from their parents while playing. Spoiler: It’s not much.
As the kids say in this video, they don’t necessarily need the parents to go mute but just some basic support rooted in love.
All kids are different, of course, but a sensible starting point is asking our children what they want you to say or not say while they’re playing sports.
Other takeaways for parents from the PCA session:
Develop a positive relationship with your kid’s coach
It’s important to lay positive groundwork early with your kid’s coach. Whether it’s simply introducing yourself or asking if there’s anything they need help with, setting up a positive, respectful relationship with the coach can pay dividends later. At its core, you’re modeling decent behavior to your child. Hopefully that’s all the contact you’ll need, and you can just sit back and cheer for your child…in a non-directional way, of course. But sometimes issues arise – a conflict with a teammate, perhaps, or maybe you really do have that panacea that might get your kid over some slump. If you really feel like you need to approach the coach, having an established relationship is incredibly helpful.
Before you approach the coach with any issue, though, please try and empower your child to advocate for themselves. Sure, a struggling 7-year-old isn’t going to be comfortable approaching her coach, but there’s no reason a 13-year-old who is unhappy with his playing time can’t nicely ask his coach in a positive way what he can do to prove to the coach he’s ready for more action. Maybe it won’t lead to more playing time, but a sensible coach is going to respect the kid even more. And more importantly, your kid will begin building one of life’s most crucial skills: confidently advocating for yourself when appropriate.
But what if you’re the coach?
Well, hopefully you have a positive relationship with your kids. Always a good start. But the key advice from PCA is to have some tangible rules to help the transition between being a parent and a coach. When you’re coaching, you’re the coach. When you’re not coaching, you’re the parent. Threading these two worlds can be tricky to navigate, especially since many parents volunteer to coach as a bonding tool with their kid. But if you don’t set some level of boundaries, your kid may act like your kid at practice. And for some parent coaches, that can be a nightmare.
PCA suggests having a set routine with your kid. Like saying, “as soon as we cross this particular sign, I’m now your coach.” At that moment, it’s time to temporarily chuck the cutesy nicknames or give any type of special treatment.
PCA’s data showed that most parent coaches are actually too hard on their kids because they’re worried about the perception of favoritism. The goal is to treat your kid like any other player. To that end, PCA suggested that if you need to discipline your kid at practice or a game, have an assistant coach do it.
Focus on mastery, not the scoreboard
It’s easy to get wrapped up in wins and losses. After all, these kids are playing in games and tournaments with an outcome. And hell yeah, if losing means you must get to a field 90 minutes away at 7am on a Sunday, winning takes on even greater significance.
But PCA emphasizes the importance of minimizing the wins and losses. This means getting your child to believe that giving their best effort is how you define success.
In fact, PCA referenced a fascinating study of 100 grade school children who were given a written test. The kids who scored high were praised for their scores. The kids who didn’t score as well were praised for their efforts. All the kids were then asked if they wanted to take a harder version of the test. Of the kids who scored well on the first test, 67% opted to take the harder version. Of the kids that produced lower scores but were praised for their efforts, 92% were up for the challenge of the harder test.
Mastery is about effort, learning, and that mistakes are ok.
What to say or not say after a loss
Some kids are completely fine after a tough loss. Some kids seem fine but are stewing inside and might let their feelings be known until hours later. Others are emotional, angry, or withdrawn for what seems like forever. Sometimes to the extreme. (I plan to explore this deep emotional pain in a future post soon.)
PCA acknowledges these variables and has a few strategies to consider if you’re at a loss for words.
1) Don’t talk at all. Silence is golden.
2) If your kid wants to talk about it, try and be relatable. Talk about some tough loss you had. Or there’s anecdotes like how Michael Jordan got cut from his high school team. Or Kobe Bryant who was held scoreless in a Philly summer league as an 11-year old. His dad offered Kobe some heartwarming and very PCA- approved support: “Listen, whether you score 0 or you score 60, I’m going to love you no matter what.”
That’s the kind of thing our kids need to hear from us.
3) Don’t blame anyone or anything else be it another player or the coach or opponent or the weather.
4) Resist the urge for the instant fix. You might have great ideas on how to switch the approach of some aspect of your kid’s game. But right after a loss or a tough performance isn’t the right time to discuss.
5) If all else fails, go get your kid an ice cream!