The Truth About Sports Parents

We see it all the time - that one parent out there barking orders from the sidelines at their kid.  Maybe you are that parent.  Here is a great video from the kids themselves about what goes on in their minds when we yell at them as parents.

Here is a link to a great article where a former major league baseball player answers this simple question: What is the point?

His simple answer is: The heart of the child is the point.

A coach can either be a stepping-stone to success or a stumbling block.  It is important to build up a young athlete through relationships first and foremost.  Teaching fundamentals and discipline through sports should be a by-product of a relationship.  

Do everything you can to help foster and grow the love and creative expression of your athletes.  Don't over teach or coach so much that you lose their heart.  Don't focus so much on winning that they lose their love of the game.  Don't push them so hard so early that they get burned out before they are a teenager.  

Discipline and the fundamentals of the sport are important, very important.  But when we over-demand the fundamentals at an early age, we sometimes do so at the peril of the love affair of the young athlete and the sport.

A youth coach will find the joy of coaching when he/she asks the question: what's the point?  And finds the answer to be: the heart of the child.