ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS. Everyone can relate to the car ride home.
By Paul Krome
The trip after a game takes your son or daughter from playing a sport he or she loves with friends and teammates to a real world of homework, dinner, chores around the house and family dynamics. Depending on the result of the game, that car ride can offer a safe haven of comfort and support or be a catalyst for emotional turmoil.
“Just look at the physical dimensions of a car — close quarters, often with the parent having his or her back to the athlete,” said Jim Thompson, founder and CEO of Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), a longstanding partner of US Lacrosse that provides educational resources to support a positive, character-building sports experience for youth and high school athletes. “If it’s fi ve minutes after the older kid’s game ended and you’ve got to get the younger kid to a game, it could make for a cauldron of problems.”
Especially after a tough game. The age at which an athlete may take losing or underperforming to heart varies. What can’t vary, according to Thompson and other resources from PCA, is the parent’s unconditional love and support. “You have to avoid the aspects of the game until your kid brings it up, or say ‘I’ve
got some thoughts, are you ready to hear them?’” Thompson said. “If the answer is no, respect that.” Even better, Thompson said, become a “Second-Goal Parent” and focus on the life lessons sports can teach athletes, rather than offering game-specifi c advice. Partially excerpted from Thompson’s book, “The High School Sports Parent,” and from
positivecoach.org, here are fi ve postgame- friendly questions and comments that can support an athlete’s healthy transition following a game:
• “What did you learn from the game?” • “What was your favorite play or the most fun part of the game?”
• Avoid a generic “good game.” Be truthful and specifi c with praise.“I saw how well you moved your feet on defense.”
• Tread lightly on assertions, and offer support when doing so: “I’m proud of the way you dealt with the pressure at the end of the game. Many people get so afraid under pressure that they don’t give their best effort. You did.”
• “I know in my life that I learn more from my failures than from my successes. In fact, times I’ve been successful have usually come from learning from my mistakes.”
04 Respect boundaries.
With more kids playing lacrosse, parents — experienced or not — can be pressed into coaching. The US Lacrosse Coaching Education Program teaches adults how to coach lacrosse, but coaching your child’s team can be tricky. Some tips for those doubling as parents and coaches:
“Some are easily coachable, others aren’t,” said Becky Gregory, mother of three and a youth and high school coach in the Salisbury (Md.) area. “My middle child has her own agenda. Sometimes it’s easier to just coach your kids that are receptive rather than force it.”
Know your child.
Gregory and an assistant have switched roles in the past to coach the other’s daughter.
Don’t overcompensate. A parent/coach may worry about the perception
that his or her kid is receiving preferential treatment and be too tough on that kid, sometimes for all to see, during practices and games. How do you know if your perception is accurate? Ask the team. The results may surprise you. “We did a confi dential, private poll of the players on index cards, asking them to evaluate the performance of the coaches,” said David Jacobson, a youth and high school basketball coach in San Francisco and the senior marketing communications and content manager at PCA. “The players said they thought one of the coaches was actually being too hard on his son.”
There’s something about the pursuit of always winning that is detrimental to
children’s development as athletes and as people. There’s scientifi c evidence that shows that we actually should want our kids to lose. In January, I studied under one of our country’s leading researchers on human resilience at Harvard, Dr. Shelly Carson. I realized when we want kids to play on the most dominant team, we miss the boat on how sports build resilience. Decades of research demonstrate how we all develop resilience and how this leads to happiness, well-being and success. Isn’t that what we really want for kids? Sports are the perfect setup for resilience training, as losses present stress
and adversity. But from this perspective, you also realize that no one is going to die, get seriously injured, get cancer, lose a family member, get dumped by their girlfriend (and if so, good riddance I say), lose their home, get thrown in jail, fail out of school or face anything truly tragic from losing a lacrosse game. All of us will encounter some form of that real-life adversity at some point in our
life. Don’t we want kids to learn how to deal with it in a skillful manner? Dr. Suniya S. Luthar, professor of psychology at Arizona State, defi ned resiliency
as “the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change… a positive adaptation within the context of signifi cant adversity.” Not only do the skills of resiliency allow people to overcome and recover from tragic experiences, but resilient people also fl ourish, grow and experience tremendous success. I will take that over any win, any tournament championship and any trophy. One of the most effective ways in handling a stressor is utilizing “problem-
focused coping,” taking an active approach toward fi nding a solution. As I tell my players and parents on our Denver Elite lacrosse teams, instead of fi nding a better team to play on, fi nd a way to make your team better. That is how you will truly learn to win something of value. LM
Trevor Tierney manages the Denver Elite program and is president of the NSCLA. Follow Tierney at
TrevorTierneyBlog.com and on Twitter @trevor_tierney.
A Publication of US Lacrosse March 2014 >> LACROSSE MAGAZINE 63
Set clear expectations. Outline expectations and roles clearly with your
kid in private conversations before the season. “Your own child may try to push things, fool around, things like that,” said Gregory, whose husband, Dan, coaches football in the area. “We explain to them, ‘Once you’re on the fi eld, you’re there to work hard and accomplish goals. There’s no favoritism. At practice, you’re the same as everyone else.’”
A literal or visual cue can help, Jacobson said. “Some parents will literally put on a coach’s hat,” he said. “When the hat’s on, I’m ‘Coach.’ When it’s off, I’m back to being ‘Dad.’”
When a kid asks for a postgame evaluation, clarify what’s really being sought.
“Ask if they want the mom answer or the coach
answer,” said Johns Hopkins women’s coach Janine Tucker, whose son Ryan plays at Virginia. “The mom in me would say, ‘You busted your butt. I’m proud of you.’ The coach in me might say, ‘Here are some skill sets to work on at the next practice.’”
Have a mental line, but
forgive yourself. You may react differently when your child makes a great or bad play or sustains an injury than you do when another player experiences the same. You can’t control if that reaction reaches the surface. If it does, forgive yourself. You’re human. — P
.K.
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