Teaching Kids to Think (23 page)
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Authors: Darlene Sweetland
Let the Coaches Do the Coaching
In discussing the role parents take in their child's high school athletics, a nationally known and highly respected high school wrestling coach told us that he asks the parents to support the coaches completely. He tells parents, “I'm going to help you raise your son for the next four years because you're going to need me.” His experience is that a great coach can teach your children things in ways parents can't, which include things like perseverance, dedication, commitment, and discipline. He said that when parents play a strong role in supporting the child's efforts by making sure he gets nutritious food to eat, plenty of sleep, and time for schoolwork, the coach and parents can work as a team in meeting these goals together. He can then support the parents in teaching their children to respect the rules of the home, being responsible, and being a positive family member.
It is easy to see that there are a number of significant advantages to having your child play youth sports. There is no doubt that athletics has the potential to play a big role in the lives of children. One of the biggest reasons is the role of the coach. Coaches expect a lot of things from their athletes and they communicate with them in ways not often found in the classroom or at home. In addition, their position as a leader and authority figure that the players respect, offers a unique opportunity to be heard. A high school coach said it best: “We have a better platform as a coach because they want to please and they want to make the team.” Good coaches make an impact on the development of children and great coaches help raise them. Coaching is a lot more than telling kids what position they play or how to kick a ball farther. It is a complex relationship that grows in intensity and breadth the older the child gets. It involves being a role model, a motivator, a confidant, and an inspirational leader. So as a parent, we need to let them do their job.
Many parents of athletes become very invested in their child's sport and become “sideline coaches,” at times overruling things the coaches says or does. In doing so, the child's participation becomes family participation, but that is unfair to the child. Not only is it important for children to follow the guidance of their coach, but if a parent is overinvested, it takes away from the child's accomplishments. If the child does well, she doesn't feel like she earned the achievement on her own. In the same way, if there is a challenge and the overinvested parent gets involved, it takes away the opportunity for the child to solve the problem on her own. Both instances take away the child's opportunity to grow and gain confidence. In addition, when parents can't let go, especially in high school, they are sending the message to their children that they don't trust them to accomplish their goals own their own. It can make them feel like their parent sees them as incapable or not good enough.
Involve the Coaches in More Than Coaching
Parents sometimes ask our opinion about how to resolve an issue involving athletics. Sometimes a child's grades or attitude around the house slip if he is spending a lot of time on a sport. Other times there may be a disagreement between a child and a parent about what it means to make a commitment to be a part of a sports team.
Our first response is almost always, “Have you asked the coach what she (or he) thinks?” We believe that coaches are a great resource for parents.
A powerful experience is to request a family meeting with the coach and have your child present the issues at hand. If your child is mature enough, have him make the first contact with the coach. It is often difficult for a child to tell his coach about poor grades, being disrespectful at home, or a lack of commitment, but it is a great opportunity for him to learn how to talk about difficult issues with nonfamily members. The overwhelming majority of coaches value the behavior and attitude of their athletes when away from the playing field or court. You are likely to find them very supportive of your concerns and eager to offer valuable opinions about how to proceed.
The Ultimate Benefit of Athletics
Throughout this book, we have spent a lot of time discussing the skills and abilities that are so important for children and teens to practice in the formative years. Now let's look at how these skills and abilities are specifically emphasized in athletics.
Getting Better Takes Time and Work
With the Instant Gratification Generation, children and teens come to expect everything quickly. Perseverance and working toward a goal can be difficult qualities to instill in this generation. With athletics, there is no way around it.
To learn a sport, a child needs to experience hours of practice and coaching to get better. It doesn't matter how coordinated or fast she might be; she needs to teach her muscles to move the way she wants them to for a particular sport. That comes with a lot of practice. Children are dependent on themselves to put in the work. There are no shortcuts.
There are children who are athletically gifted and can pick up almost any sport and play well. But you will notice that even these kids work hard to get better. In fact, it is so reinforcing for them to be a strong player on the team, you will find these kids love to practice.
Direct Interpersonal Communication (without Electronics!)
As we've seen in previous chapters, much of the communication between today's children and teens is through electronic devices, particularly text messaging. With sports, they are required to actually talk to each other through direct communication. They need to be aware of their nonverbal cues, such as tone of voice and body language so they don't come across as a bad sport when giving feedback, and they need to be able to clearly communicate to each other during a game to set up and execute plays. Athletes are also required to communicate with their coach respectfully. Additionally, the opportunity to learn how to support their peers when they make a mistake, and feel comfortable with doing so, is invaluable.
Low-Cost Risk Taking
Children and teens of this generation become accustomed to being rescued any time they encounter a challenge. In this way, they are reluctant to take risks, and this is true with athletics too. When they begin playing sports at a young age, it offers them a wonderful opportunity to try something new with very low risk. They can try several different sports and see which one they like.
In addition, if children do not do well when they first try something, they often tend to want to quit. Committing to a sports team offers an opportunity for them to stick with something even if they change their mind. No one will come in and rescue them to ease their discomfort. They will actually have to stick it out. Aside from the frustration you hear from your child, the negative consequences for sticking it out are very limited and the positive consequences are abundant.
For many children, after the one or two days that they are frustrated and want to quit a sport, things typically get better. When they end up enjoying the sport, they may learn that their first impulse isn't always the best. It also teaches them that they can survive discomfort and that their parents won't allow them to quit something just because it gets difficult.
Balance Multiple Responsibilities
Playing sports offers children and teens the opportunity to practice balancing multiple responsibilities. As noted, school and family responsibilities need to come first. Then they can add things of their choosing. Playing sports is a great motivator for them to manage their school and family responsibilities well, because it allows them the reward of participating in other activities that they really enjoy.
Anytime you can set your children up to build skills of organization, planning, and decision making, it is a great thing. Playing sports offers this opportunity.
What If Your Child Isn't Interested in Sports?
This chapter focused on the role that athletics can play in a child's life and the benefits of participating in organized sports. However, many activities can provide these same experiences. If your child is not interested in sports, you can apply these same tips and recommendations to the activity of their choice.
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Playing an instrument requires practice and perseverance to get better. It also offers the opportunity to receive coaching from another adult. Playing in an orchestra, band, or ensemble offers the same sense of teamwork and commitment that playing on a sports teams does.
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Participating in Scouts or a similar organized group can also offer the same opportunities. Scouts have to work to earn badges, participate in community service activities, and communicate with others (peers, adults, and community members).
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Theater is very similar to playing on a sports team. It has a significant time commitment, and your child will need to learn to manage personal responsibilities with rehearsals. In addition, adult coaches teach and model the craft for the cast. And again, practice is essential to getting better and earning the roles your child may want.
Almost all the teachers, parents, and coaches that we talked with said that they see irreplaceable benefits from having children participate in organized activitiesâsports being one. It offers children a constructive alternative to spending hours on electronic devices, helps increase confidence in their skills, introduces a balance to their self-identity, and keeps them comfortable interacting with others in multiple environments, not to mention the positive influence of having other adult mentors in their life. There aren't many opportunities that offer these same gifts for children and adolescents.
Putting It All Together
The Issue
We want our children to be happy, successful, and popular. In athletics, that often manifests as being the star player on the winning team with the best coach and the coolest uniforms. It means winning the biggest trophies and having all your friends on the team. Parents enjoy sharing with other people the athletic accomplishments of their children.
The Trap
It is so easy for parents to get caught up in making athletics the perfect experience for their children, especially if sports were a large part of their own childhood. You may want to find out which coach has won the most and maneuver your child to be on that team. You also may feel the need to buy the best and most expensive gear, even if it doesn't help him hit a ball better or run faster.
The Alternative
When your child is young, the leagues support many of the issues discussed earlier. They put friends together on teams, make the kids feel like they always win, and often give participation trophies. If this is important to you and your child, then make sure you start your child in athletics during the pee wee stage. There are a lot of great opportunities for kids who are five or six years old.
As children get older, fewer of these comforts will be available. It is important to resist the temptation to jump in and rescue them. If they get selected on a team without their friends, talk to them about the opportunity to make new friends and support their new friendships. If they don't think the coach is playing them in the right position, it is a great opportunity to have them approach the coach to discuss it. Often the coach will listen and offer suggestions about how they might achieve their goal, many times through hard work and practice. Also, remember that if your child's team isn't winning a lot, it is OK. Kids on those teams often work harder and appreciate winning even more than the teams that win because of having gifted athletes, instead of hard work.
Finally, seek out opportunities to use the coach as a mentor and role model. Expect your child to treat the coach with respect and utilize the coach's role to support you in setting expectations for your child. Equally important, do not criticize the coach in front of your children because it diminishes the value of the coach as a leader for all the coaches to follow.
C
HAPTER
10
Why Drugs and Alcohol Are So Appealing
Teenager:
Dr. Darlene, I have been looking online and it says that smoking pot is just fine. I can show you one hundred articles that say there is no problem with it. I am sure that it is true.
Teens have always presented themselves as invincible and confident in their knowledge of how the world works. Today's Instant Gratification Generation is no exception. If a teen has an interest in substance use, she will find online resources that prove drugs, alcohol, or both are safe, and she will believe wholeheartedly that the information is evidence that her parents and teachers are all wrong. However, sources are often faulty, along with the teenager's rationale.
Recent research presented by CNN Health suggests that when it comes to drugs and alcohol, teens are actually more vulnerable to negative effects on the brain than adults.
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Young people have more receptors in their brains with which drugs and alcohol can bind, creating more opportunity for brain damage and inhibiting personal development. Since so much is going on in the developing brain, drugs have a greater potential to change the trajectory of brain development for the worse. While many teenagers think that marijuana use is safe, verified research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) indicates that the frontal and the prefrontal areas of the brain are negatively affected by cannabis use.
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Reflecting back on findings discussed in
chapter 5
, you will remember that the frontal lobe of the brain is continuing to develop into early adulthood. Further, the frontal lobe is the part of the brain that guides executive functioning (e.g., planning, organizing, decision making, problem solving). The teen years are crucial to strengthening these abilities, not damaging them.
