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PARENTS' CORNER: When it's time for your child to leave his/her sport ---
By
Dr. Alan Goldberg
When things look the darkest, open your eyes and look for a light.
The father painfully explained to me:
You see if he quits now, he'll just keep quitting in every situation that he
finds himself in. When things don't go his way, he'll just want to leave. I'm
really nervous about him learning that life lesson. I don't want him to be a
quitter the rest of his life.
Dad is referring here to his 8 year old son who wanted to stop playing baseball
because the coach yells and screams at us whenever we mess up and it makes me
cry. His little boy was miserable about playing baseball. He was now afraid to
go to practice and he hated games even more. It seemed that the coach became
more anxious and therefore even more out of control in game situations. Is Dad
right here? Should he really worry that if he lets his son quit in this
situation that it will start an unhealthy precedent where the boy will always
choose quitting as his primary method for coping?
First of all, understand that one of your primary jobs as a parent is to be able
to keep your children's sports in perspective. You need to remember that sports
are just an arena for your children to have fun and hopefully learn some healthy
and valuable life lessons. Sports should not be viewed as larger than life,
regardless of how talented your child may be. Part of keeping this perspective
is in being able to continually ask yourself, What do I really want my child to
learn in this situation? Because of this, it is useful for the father to be
concerned about the life lesson his son may or may not be learning by quitting
the team.
However, as a parent, it is also your primary job to be able to protect your
children, to keep them physically and emotionally as safe as possible while they
grow up. If you think that your child is in a physically or emotionally abusive
situation with a teacher, coach, priest or other adult who is supposedly in
charge of teaching, guiding or otherwise mentoring your offspring, then it is
your right and obligation to immediately step in and take active steps to remove
your child from the danger.
Having a coach who makes 8 year olds do wind sprints and pushups for punishment
whenever they commit errors in practice, who yells and screams at them in games,
who embarrasses them in front of their peers is having your child in a seriously
abusive situation. The fact that your child may want to quit this unhappy
environment is excellent reality testing on his/her part. Why should an 8 year
old or any aged child stay in this kind of abusive environment? This father
should not worry about his boy learning that quitting is the best way to handle
any kind of adversity because this isn't adversity. What this coach is doing is
called abuse. Not only should dad immediately pull his son from this team and
ideally find another one for him to participate on, but he should also directly
confront the coach in an attempt to get him to change his destructive, demeaning
behavior. If this doesn't work, then the father should immediately report this
coach to league officials. Children should never have to deal with out-of-
control, abusive adults who masquerade as coaches, teachers, priests, etc.
Please do not worry about the life lessons that quitting such an abusive
situation may teach your child. The more important lesson you want him to learn
here is that you will step in and protect him when he is at risk. This will then
teach the youngster that not only will his parents be there for him should he
need them, but he'll also learn that it is unhealthy for anyone to stay in any
kind of abusive situation. Telling your child that life is hard and that he
needs to learn to quit whining and just suck it up is a good way to teach him
that you have no understanding or compassion for his feelings, that you won't
protect him when he's in trouble and that remaining a victim in an abusive
situation is the strategy of choice. These are not valuable life lessons.
Furthermore, the argument
that life is not fair and that we should start early to learn how to deal with
mean, destructive people is lost on me when we're talking about kids. Sure there
are an overabundance of wickedly stupid, abusive people in the world. Naturally
many of these gems of humanity find themselves in positions of leadership and
power. However, it's one thing for an adult to have to deal with a weekly ration
of self-esteem bashing by a stupid, insecure boss or co-worker. It's a
completely different situation when the abuse is directed at a child. At least
as an adult you have additional resources, strengths and skills to be able to
understand and effectively handle bullies. Kids, on the other hand are helpless
and vulnerable. They do not understand the reason why an adult would be treating
them so badly. Instead of being able to see that their coach is an idiotic,
terrible jerk, they get into believing that the mistreatment is a direct product
of something that they have done wrong, (i.e. drop a ball, strike out, throw the
pass out of bounds, etc.) and so feel on some level that the abusive is their
fault. Please! I implore you. Help your child understand the difference between
appropriate coaching and abuse and do not let them remain unprotected in abusive
situations.
Remember also, when it is time for your child to quit you want to help him feel
good about his decision and not label quitting as a weak choice. In the
situations that we've been discussing here, quitting is a strong, healthy
choice.
www.COMPETITIVEDGE.COM FOR THE LATEST IN MENTAL TOUGHNESS
TRAINING AIDS AND PEAK PERFORMANCE COACHING FOR ATHLETES,
PARENTS & COACHES.
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When to Quit!