My friend Randy and I were talking about our kids yesterday and how much of a blessing they are. It’s amazing that God would trust us with raising something so precious. We also talked about how we so often see parents living vicariously through their kids, always pushing them to become something the parents can never be. After coaching my three year old for the past year in soccer, I’ve seen this sad fact rear its ugly head a few times and I have to say I am disgusted by it.
The last episode occurred a few weeks ago when we played a team that had obviously played together for sometime and took it very seriously (I remind you that we are talking about Under-6 soccer). During the match, the coaches roam the field and give instruction to our players. Since I am a purist of the game, I love to help instruct the kids as far as setting up defense, passing, and turning the ball. What I saw when we played this particular team was a Coach that yelled (I should say SCREAMED) at his. And if that were not enough, many of this team’s parents were also screaming words like: “Get him”, “Take him out”, and my personal favorite “Kill him!”. I’m not joking! These are the actual words I heard coming from the parents of the opposing team, that is comprised of 3, 4, 5 and 6 year old boys and girls.
It is a sad fact that within the sports culture of North America, many parents are finding their identity through the on the field exploits of their children. Parents that do this are obviously using their child’s achievement to fill the voids in their life and give them an identity. You know who they are, they use phrase like, “I taught him everything he knows”, or better yet, “He’s a chip off the old block”. Don’t get me wrong, I really do want my child to succeed in whatever he plays and does, but I will be the first to admit that my competitive days are over. Also, I was only a mediocre athlete at best. But that’s ok and I can accept it because I am Christian and my identity is in Christ, not in my child.
Lord, I need more of you every day to fill in the voids of my life. Fill me to running over!
Friday, October 20, 2006
Living Vicariously Through Our Kids: Sports
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When I coached T-ball this past spring, every coach was required to attend a Positive Coaching Alliance meeting about positive coaching techniques and how to manage parents with the sort of attitudes you describe. We also were encouraged to get most of our parents to attend a similar meeting geared towards them.
Fortunately, the parents in T-ball were generally pretty positive, although I'd heard some horror stories at higher levels of Little League - and the coaches were not afraid to call out those parents.
Youth sports needs to be a positive experience for the kids, because no matter what the sport, we want them to learn the game properly, enjoy the game, and have fun.
We seem to forget that.
Not only do we seem to forget it, we also model the competitiveness in our adult roles.
This deacon at church got picked instead of me. This woman was asked to do music and not me........
Many times, it seems, our children are just role playing their parents' competitiveness in their own little world.
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