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We all see issues with volunteer youth coaches who want to make a difference but become frustrated. Their visions of success paired with a passion for teaching the game erodes when it doesn’t work out just as they expected. The frustration leads to shouting at officials, expressions of disgust and coaching stops. They no longer are the role model you want for your kids. Kids who need to learn how to work with others and grow.

We need to be focused on making sports a positive experience for all kids. Together we can turn frustration and failure into learning opportunities. Please help be part of the solution.

Play My Kid Framework

The Play My Kid Framework is a mechanism to help you break down situations you see that make you feel uneasy or know can be handled more effectively. The purpose of the framework is to give you the tools to identify the issue, recognize the change and communicate the solution. The framework will help you, as parents:

• Why are these situations so uncomfortable?
• Is there a better way to handle these situations?
• What can parents do to improve youth sports?
  

Please share this page with a friend, coach or program director. Let them know you want them to be part of the solution.

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Dreams of Success

We all see the success stories on TV and read about the huge contracts for professional athletes. Then we hear about the “hard work” and “dedication” they put into their craft without credit to the God given gifts they were bestowed. The message is clear. If YOU put in the hard work, or someone pushes you hard enough, you too can reach these levels of ‘success’.

While most of us realize those are the exceptional stories. Not everyone actually reaches those levels. However, it doesn’t keep us from dreaming about that as our ‘success’. Although dreams are important and necessary, they can also turn out to be more humble as we grow older and gain knowledge from life experiences. This was brought to my attention recently when I discovered this Chinese proverb, “Knowledge makes humble, ignorance makes proud”. This aligns perfectly with my Catholic faith. It allows me to accept everyone’s dream today with the knowledge that it will morph without becoming any less important.

Knowledge makes humble, ignorance makes proud

Chinese Proverb

Purpose

I had superstar dreams once upon a time. Dreams of playing  basketball on television. I thought performing in front of a national audience while playing a game would show everyone else “I made it”. For many reasons, (we won’t get into now), that dream morphed into a more humble version. I’ve upgraded my dreams to help others.

My dream today is to help kids keep those dreams alive. I want to help morph those dreams into a powerful and humble life filled with happiness and success. Moreover, I want to help today’s parents see a better, more humble vision for youth sports. A vision full of ‘experiences for everyone’ to help kids win the ‘championship of life’. The championship which has the lifelong daily rewards of happiness and success.

Today’s Dream

My vision for youth sports is to get participation rates in youth sports up to 100% by teaching parents how to use sports to raise happy and successful adults. That may sound like an unrealistic goal, but I can’t think of any kid who would not benefit from the life lessons learned in youth sports. Plus, with the right perspective, even the worse experiences teach life lessons in relationships and mindset.

The key is getting parents to drive change in youth sports culture. We need to shift the focus of youth sports. Parents need to keep kids, and coaches, focused on the skills developed along the journey rather than focusing on the outcomes. Parents hold the keys.

Parents Have Control

There are tons of awesome resources for coaches to change the focus of youth sports. We have resources like Changing the Game Project, Winning Youth Coaching, the Positive Coaching Alliance and others listed on our resources page. Coaches have boundaries when influencing parents to change their thinking about the value in youth sports.

Ultimately, parents have the control. They impact the focus, direction and environment of youth sports by deciding where to place their kids and value those experiences. They need to evaluate the best solution for THEIR kids.

More and more, parents have to chose between two polar opposite ends of the spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, they can participate in recreational sports that have novice coaches and inexperienced players. At the other end of the spectrum, they are asked to commit to super competitive, and expensive, programs that require an unrealistic dedication to one sport at the expense of any other sports or activity.

Making a Changes for Success

Together, we can make a change. We can change the expectations of parents everywhere to make youth sports a positive force for ALL kids. Help us tweak the “dreams” of today’s kids to make sure the hard work and dedication is recognized as tools all kids need. Tools that will make them happy and successful adults.

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This past May, 2018, a 19 year old University of Maryland football player died after running sprints during a team workout. He was disoriented and struggled to stand before he collapsed and was transported to the hospital. Reportedly, his body temperature at the hospital was 106 degrees and he was diagnosed with heatstroke.

Although these tragic stories are rare, we have to ask ourselves, “Are we, as parents, doing the right thing when it comes to protecting our kids from sports?” Everyone want to know how this could happen given everything we know about sports performance.

Pushing Kids

We have a strong belief pushing through pain and struggle is just “tough love” or “building character”. There were times, when I caught myself pushing kids beyond their comfort zone.  I felt sympathy for them. In part because they had painful expressions, but also because it wasn’t fun any more. It was just WORK.

This drive is taught to kids across the country and endorsed by today’s high performance athletic programs. I wonder if we are teaching our kids to recognize their limits and understand their

Effect on Kids

In hindsight, I wish there were parents around that told me, “you are not motivating them, you’re scaring them.” Eventually, I realized this on my own but only because I wasn’t the worst offender.

I watched other coaches rant and rave about players. Then I watched in amazement as parents stood behind the coach and echo the messages of disapproval and disappointment. I could see the grade school kids sulk, ashamed of their performance. Who is really helping these kids? What are they learning?

While they are getting scarred emotionally, all they really want is the satisfaction of getting better and support from the adults they know best. When athletic performance is the only way to achieve that satisfaction, they may put themselves a permanent risk physically and emotionally.

Purpose

Today, we need to focus on protecting our kids. We need to teach kids the relative value of sports performance to the value of life. Pushing your self to get better in sports is awesome for everyone to experience. However, sport is only a metaphor for the lessons on how to have a happy and successful life. Play My Kid is here to help today’s parents make youth sports an experience for everyone which helps kids win the championship of life and the prizes of happiness and success.

Lesson

Parenting five kids is learning how to parent three plus. You learn how to get them safely independent. A key strategy is teaching them how to play. Good play keeps them occupied, but great play keeps them occupied and trying to get better by learning ‘how to fail’.

Teaching vs Learning

Kids do not learn because we know how to teach. They didn’t learn to walk because we did drills with them. You put them in safe situations and let them fall. If they got frustrated you tried to encourage them, unless they were done for the day.

However, they didn’t just give up and walk away when they saw other kids walking. They watched others and tried to imitate. Eventually, they realized they had to figure out how to move their body to mimic the outcome, standing on two feet. That process included dozens or hundreds of attempts along the way. Correcting and adjusting taught them how to improve.

The process learning how to walk is a simple example of how we learn, grow and advance. They saw a model that works because walking got them where they wanted to go much faster. They tried it on their own, probably with some encouragement and support. Then failed until they saw success.

Life Skills

This process of setting a goal, trying with failure until those tries looked a lot like the goal. The same is true your whole life, but the goals are more complex and each failure can take longer than falling to the ground as a toddler. This is the real value in kids playing sports. They learn to fail until they succeed.

I’ve learned the most successful people are confident because they know each failure is closer to success. Moreover, they are not afraid to continuously enhance the goal to make sure they are always improving.

Parents spend hours shuttling kids from school to practices or games. Then back home in time to complete homework. It is not part of the vision we had when we started a family. Although, I’m sure no one sacrifices their time because we love our car so much or even just to get our kids on the “right team”.

However, we decided to commit to another season because it is an investment in their future. Right?

Transactional Sports

Parents actually are trying to take advantage of every possible activity to develop happy and successful adults. Therefore many gravitate to the most convenient option or most popular program. After all, could the crowds and recommendations be wrong?

Parents need to be wary of “popular” options. They should make sure the program is focused on transforming kids into well-rounded adults. There are many coaches and programs which are available just to fill demand and make a few bucks. They often offer many games, but very few practices. These programs are strictly transactional programs focused on building capacity and revenue.

Transformational Sports

The most valuable programs are focused on transforming your kids into adults. They focus on practices and experiences over tournaments, games and trophies. Winning is important as a relative test of improvement, but the practices and instruction create the growth.

Moreover, the time spent with coaches and team mates allows kids to work on relationships. Although, not all relationships blossom into friendships, each one teaches kids how to work with others.

At the end of the day, parents need to step back and identify what they really want for their kids… 10,000 games or 10,000 experiences? It’s the experiences that will be transformational for your kids, on and off the playing field.