“What’s the matter with you?! Who taught you to play like that? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
While youth sports coaching experiences like this make most parents and coaches want to cringe, we have all heard this type of banter coming from the sidelines at some point in our lives. The words may once have sounded normal coming from our “old school” varsity football coach or the parent of a teammate. Today however, most would agree that this scolding sounds more like verbal abuse (especially when applied to young children). When emotional intelligence skills become part of a sports coaching curriculum children are the one’s who benefit.
Most youth sport leagues today are prepared to remove adults who behave poorly from a game. This goes for coaches, parents and other spectators. It is clear when this happens that the adult has lost perspective. Perhaps they have become so attached to the idea of winning that they have placed winning higher than other values that organized sports teach children. Children develop sports performance anxiety from these situations.
The reasons why we get our children involved in sports include developing emotional intelligence skills. Parents and Coaches are the most influential people in creating an atmosphere that encourages sports focus and sports confidence. If you want to influence your child’s environment, be clear about what you are trying to accomplish.
1) Choose wisely: Some teams are simply not congruent with your vision of a positive sports experience. Despite the many pressures that go into having your child on the travel team, for example. The reality might be that the traveling team in your town doesn’t foster the kind of lessons you want to teach your child.
2) Include your child in decision making. You’ll never know some of the reasons that children come up with to explain to themselves why they no longer play on a team with their friends. Children typically blame themselves and draw conclusions that are far more damaging than the actual reason.
3) Remember a child’s motivation for participating in organized sports is different than yours. Adults want their children to build self-esteem, to develop a healthy lifestyle and to build character. In short, parents want their children to develop emotional intelligence skills. Research shows that both boys and girls participate in sports for the same reason…. because it’s fun. If it’s not fun, you have failed at creating a positive sports coaching experience.
4) Teach your child lessons in maturity and emotional intelligence skills that go beyond sports confidence. Perhaps it means helping them deal with a difficult coach or come to grips with the fact that they are a contributing player but not an all-star.
5) Help your child make decisions. Ask yourself when your executive decision making power as a parent ends and where your child’s wishes begin. Often a child will choose to stay with a team even if their coach is difficult to deal with. Parents can help their children to deal with difficult youth sports coaching by teaching them emotional intelligence skills.
6) Get involved: there are multiple ways to be involved with your child’s sports coaching experience. Weather you become a coach, find corporate sponsors as a board member, organize the phone tree or have the pizza party at your house, your involvement is important. You get to share experiences and learn about your child as she expresses herself and you teach her that she is an important part of your life.
7) Role model the behaviors you want to teach. Your emotional intelligence skills are followed. Most would agree that cooperation, hard work, leadership and positive conflict resolution skills are learned through sports. Your children are watching you and are more likely to behave the way you behave rather than how you tell them they should behave.
Personal development trumps winning. Winning is important because it makes us try hard, prepare and push ourselves. It teaches us to think strategically even under pressure. This expands a child’s view of themselves. They learn that they are more capable than they may have thought possible before pushing themselves. However, winning in and of itself is not the important value we seek to teach. When winning becomes more important than our integrity and identity, our happiness becomes outcome dependent. This is a good way to insure that the rest of our lives become and emotional roller coaster. One day we are on top of the world and on day we are suicidal.
Organized sports offer tremendous opportunities for children to develop character by learning emotional intelligence skills. Through shared experiences you learn about your children and you teach them that they are important to you. They learn by using your actions as a model. They learn to prioritize personal development over winning and they learn to compete in the world with confidence. Incorporate these principles into your children’s sports coaching experiences and foster sports confidence that transfers to the rest of your child’s life.
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Mahrek started his career as an intelligence officer for the United States Navy. After achieving the rank of Warrant Officer and training in a classified rate, he retired early and began to use his communication skills for select clients. Today Mahrek is a powerful writer and runs a successful writing and editing firm in addition to many other pursuits.