BY COURTNEY DIDDELL, Editor
Why do parents tend to think they can coach their kids from the sideline? Last time I checked, I didn’t pay to be coached by my parents.
There’s nothing wrong with giving advice, as long as it’s accurate and helpful, but parents need to understand yelling and harsh criticizing isn’t going to help any athlete get better.
“I get kind of down [when my parents say negative things], but I know that my coach and I know what’s best, so I try to ignore their insults and play the game I know how to play. I only use their advice if it has to deal with speed or it’s accurate,” freshman Sage Schlehofer said.
Most kids and teenagers look up to their parents for support and view them as a “personal cheerleader,” but what happens once the parent starts to lose faith? How long until their child loses faith in themselves too?
“I look up to my parents as someone to give me a boost of encouragement, as well as someone who pays for me so I have that ability to play,” Schlehofer said.
Psychologists Patrick and Lisa Cohn, on Active, advise parents to lower expectations, watch what is said, and emphasize process over results. These strategies will improve the athlete’s ability to achieve their full potential.
Coaches’ and parents’ high expectations can add a lot of stress on a player. Preparing an athlete for a win or loss creates a better mind set than just expecting a win and can relieve the athlete’s stress.
“Understand that strict expectations–parent’s demands about how their kids should perform–actually hurt kids’ performance. Overly high expectations can cause athletes to focus too much on the results, which causes them to be frustrated because they aren’t living up to their standards,” Dr. Cohn said.
When giving an athlete pre-game advice, parents are advised to watch what they say.
Simple things such as “hit a home run” or “score a goal” may seem supportive, but actually puts stress on athletes because they feel like they aren’t doing what has been asked of them.
“[Parents] might think this sounds like a stretch, but this is how the minds of the young athletes work. Kids adopt [parent’s] high expectations, then become overly concerned or worried about getting a hit every time at-bat [or scoring a goal] out of the fear of letting others down,” Dr. Cohn said.
Parents and coaches should focus on more manageable goals in order to help their kids focus on the game, rather than the results.
A good example would be, “move on from your mistakes,” because it’s simple and encouraging.
“We see it more often on the freshmen level because parents are used to coaching their kids, but it’s not as big a problem with the older players,” baseball coach Norm Welker said.
Parents who attempt to coach their kids don’t only irritate the player, but the coach too. Parents might not give their kids the same information as the coach, so if a player chooses to listen to his or her parent, it could mess up the whole team’s play.
“I’d rather have the parents come to me, and we can discuss what we want the athlete to improve on, or else the kid gets two different feedbacks which could be a distraction,” Welker said.
Some parents have never even played the game, but think they know they can tell a player of three-plus years how to play.
“My parents have never played soccer, and although they might have watched it, they don’t know the correct way to play the game,” Schlehofer said.