One of the hardest things to do as a parent during a heated game is to keep their cool.
But keeping your cool is also one of the most important things you can do, according to your player’s coach and probably your league’s code of conduct.
Your player is looking to you for approval, but needs to hear his or her coach’s instructions while on the field. If mom and dad are yelling louder than their coach, then they can’t hear the coach’s instructions.
“Don’t yell,” Connor has said. “I can’t hear my coach.” He doesn’t mean don’t cheer or be encouraging. He means, don’t yell over the coach’s directions.
This is a sensitive subject because we are passionate about seeing our team succeed, but we have to remember that the team is a group of children who are learning how to play together while also improving their skills. And having mom, dad or Auntie Lou yell at them is not going to help.
Let me rephrase: The coach is the expert while your child is on the field. The coach is the one person whose voice your child should be hearing.
We’ve all been at games where someone smack-talks the referee or umpire, right? Do we want to be that person? Do we want our kids to see us that way?
Note: Photo courtesy of Creative Commons/Flickr. Shared under their guidelines.