Do you as a parent find yourself confused as to how much pressure you should put on your child to help them reach their athletic potential? Did your coaches, mentors and parents put a lot of pressure on you and so you think that pressure on kids work too?
Read on to find out that is not always the best way to go…
Welcome to the Mental Toughness Academy! I’m Craig Sigl, the Mental Toughness Trainer. Today we have a guest article from Dennis Hillyard about what parents pressuring does to kids in sports.
Coach Hillyard has been a player, coach and administrator for youth soccer for more than thirty years. Having worked at all levels of the game, he has some insights into both, the GOOD and the BAD that afflicts our wonderful game.
We would love to hear if you agree or disagree with his views. Please let us know in the comments below.
Enjoy his article he calls A DISEASE CALLED WINNING
A child arrives home from a game and what is the first question mom or dad asks is…
NOT DID YOU HAVE A GOOD GAME ? OR DID YOU ENJOY YOURSELF ? BUT DID YOU WIN ?
Let me be perfectly clear, this is NOT a criticism of these parents simply, because it is a natural question for any parent to ask. However it is a question that the kids face all of the times and from all quarters.
The unfortunate result is that where learning and enjoyment should be their ONLY objective, in actual fact it is reduced to win or lose.
The late, great Malcolm Allison who was the head coach to Manchester City one of England’s top clubs in the 80s once told a group of coaches including myself the following:
“You need the kids more than the kids will ever need you. Place a ball down and leave it and a group of kids come by. They will organize themselves into two teams and get a game going. They will argue, dispute decisions etc, but at the end they will all go home tired, muddy but happy and probably not knowing or even caring who won or lost.
ALL OF THIS ACHIEVED WITHOUT A PARENT, REFEREE OR COACH IN SIGHT.
When ever I mention this to both, parents and coaches their response is always the same. “Kids are naturally competitive and love to win so what is the Problem”?
Imagine their surprise when they hear me agreeing with them, but with one important difference. Of course, kids in sports are disappointed when they lose but, the disappointment soon wears off and all they now do is to look forward to the next game.
Unfortunately, the ‘WIN AT ALL COST” type of parents and coaches will immediately refer to the league stats to determine what difference the loss will make to the team’s league position.
Go to your local recreational area and you will see children as young as ten years and under in highly competitively structured leagues where the ONLY objective for EACH team is to finish the season as CHAMPIONS. If there are twelve teams in the league, then in the eyes of many parents and coaches ELEVEN teams are failures!!!!!
Back in England, I ran a soccer development program for children and the following are just two examples of the tremendous damage this obsession with winning caused.
EXAMPLE ONE:
There was a lad who was never going to be a top player, but he loved soccer. He was always the first to arrive and the last to leave after assisting me in collecting the equipment, etc.
On a bitterly cold and wet Sunday morning I stopped to observe a U9 game and noticed the lad in question huddled up on the substitutes bench looking blue with the cold. I approached his coach and asked him the score. *We are winning 9—0”. I then asked him if the lad in question was going to get a run out to which he replied “There is still ten minutes to go and we need all the goals we can get to win the league. So no chance”.
Later I learned that the coach had been appointed as Head Club Coach with a responsibility to more than three hundred children and numerous coaches. The lad stopped playing soccer, became very withdrawn and even his school work suffered.
EXAMPLE TWO:
On the same program was an eight year old lad, who very tiny in stature, but had to be potential to be one of the very best players I had ever seen.
Just one year into the program, his father moved him to a U10 team. I pointed out the lad would be playing against lads not only one year older and a lot bigger, but to no avail.
Later in the year, I stopped to watch him playing. In terms of skills etc, he was head a shoulders above every other player, but physically he was getting kicked all over the pitch.
Once again, I later learned he was no longer playing soccer, the game he had loved, because he had a ’COACH’ who only measured success by the number of games that his team won.
These examples are just TWO of literally hundreds where young children are simply giving up playing soccer the game they love for no other reason than they are unable to cope with the tremendous pressure placed upon them by parents and coaches. At times I think they are living out their own ego’s through the kids that they are supposed to be responsible for.
THE SOLUTION:
In fairness to the various soccer authorities, they have made their various RECOMMENDATIONS for all games for kids aged ten years and younger to play NON competitive soccer in order to address this matter. However the problem is that they are RECOMMENDATIONS and not MANDATOY rulings.
If it were to be a MANDATORY ruling then there WOULD be objections, but NOT from the kids.
I propose we keep the format exactly as before, with games played on a HOME and AWAY basis, EXCEPT there would be no records kept of wins, losses and draws. At the end of each season, EVERY team is deemed a WINNER and EVERY child is provided with a certificate or trophy as a memento of their EFFORTS and ENJOYMENT.
My sincere wish is that EVERY reader of this article will lend their support to address what I believe to be, the most destructive element that afflicts our great game. Please share your beliefs with your fellow coaches and parents and most importantly make your concerns known to both, your Local and State soccer authorities. If change is to happen, then it MUST come from the top.
I would love to hear if in the comments below if you agree with my concerns. Feel free to contact me at any time. Dennis Hillyard dcoach442@aol.com