Originally posted by Unregistered
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A 25-30 year old club coach who has no kids of their own, and no child psych training, is simply not someone who is going to jump in and help solve tween/teen problems. And, if they tried, they likely would make things worse. What a parent can do though is give their kid simple strategies to defuse and avoid obviously adverse situations, while, at the same time, helping their kid to get better sport wise, and emotionally. Again -- the really nice thing about sports at this age is that there really is no need at all for any continuing interaction off the field. You show up 15-30 minutes before practice. You work warming up -- maybe with some kid or kids you get along with, but if not, by yourself. You practice hard for 90-120 minutes working to blow the doors off in everything (your kid may well be surprised on how that gets noticed by the coach and, eventually, by the other kids). Then you pick up your bag and go home. Rinse, wash, repeat. Do the same at games. Show up -- warm up -- play super hard -- go home. Coaches love, love, love that attitude.
What do parents of the kid do while their kid is doing this? Help them with advice/strategies on dealing with others without expending any, or very little, emotional effort. And, at the same time, help them with getting appropriate additional training to keep getting better. It is very, very important to keep in mind that 75% of all training, and 100% of all conditioning, is done outside of team practices and games. We hired a good local high school player to help our daughter at age 11 with general skills improvement. We shared the cost and with another kid's family who was pretty close in talent/ability. The girls were friendly but did not go to the same school until high school. They worked for 90 minutes twice a week on a school field when the weather was warm enough to be outside. They worked once week in a school gym during the winter. (Must have worked out as both our daughter and her friend ended up playing 4 years in college, and both are still friends with each other, and with their then instructor.)
I would note -- this is something we learned with our oldest when he decided at 14 that he really wanted to focus on pitching. I fished around and found a place where he could take pitching lessons from a retired major league pitching coach. What I learned there was that pretty much every kid in the area who wanted to be a good high school pitcher was already working with that place, or somewhere like it. So -- that was a wake up call, and we got his younger sister involved with instruction at an earlier age.
Mind you -- sports was not everything, but kids have a lot of time. They can do all that and still have time to goof around and do well in school. I would note though: A very important parent thing here is to NOT get wedded to any particular sport or activity. As a parent you really need to be logical here. If your kid is not physically cut out for a particular sport, or obviously wants to focus on other things -- let them. Soccer is a sport for fast kids. I swear that my daughter made top level club teams more because she was flat out fast than for her soccer skills. We kid, but with some justification, that the tryouts for the top 2 teams in the area could have consisted of a 50 yard dash where the first 18 kids across the line made the team. The best players at 9 are not the best players at 12. And, the best players at 12 are not the best players at 16 -- but at each age the best players are always fast for their age.
That does not mean that your kid cannot enjoy playing soccer if they are not fast, or any sport if they are not one of the best. Of course they can. But, it also means that you, as a parent, should be working to help them identify and develop other interests and talents where your kid can excel -- and one of the big things to develop is an interest in trying new things, and the knowledge that excelling takes time and effort.
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