The story is told of a coach who called one of his Colts players aside during a match and asked him, "Do you understand what cooperation is? What a team is?" The boy replied, "Yes, coach".
The coach went on: “Do you understand that, whether we win or lose, what matters is that we do it together as a team?" Again, the little boy nodded in the affirmative.
"So," the coach continued, "I'm sure you know, when a foul is blown, you shouldn't argue, curse the referee, or call him a rude name. Do you understand all that?"
Again, the little boy nodded in agreement. The coach continued, "And you understand that when I take you off the pitch so that another boy gets a chance to play, it's not a dumb-ass decision or that the coach is a ****?" "Yes, coach," the youngster replied. "Good", said the coach. "Now go over there and explain all that to your father.”
Most sports fans will know that cricket is divided up into two innings comprising of a certain number of overs – in T20 Limited Overs cricket, each bowler can only bowl four overs.
With regard to their children’s sporting endeavours, parents also tend to bowl four ‘overs’ each.
They over-protect, over-compete, over-celebrate, over-emphasise. In each area, they go over the top – as any student of World War will remember, going over the top, climbing out of the trenches to charge at the enemy, is somewhat dangerous, even foolhardy.
It may seem obvious and natural, that parents should want to protect their child (the image of soldiers comes to mind again) but the problem is when we over-protect children.
- School of sport: Go and tell your father
Keep Reading
We do everything for them; we fight their battles, with their coach, the referee, the school. The reality is that we must enable them to take responsibility for their own actions; we must not complain on their behalf or make excuses for them.
They must learn to face the consequences of their actions. We must give our child agency to know what they can control and what they cannot control. We must coach rather than soothe.
The sad fact is that while we over-protect them in the physical (and especially sporting) world, we under-protect them online, leaving them entirely exposed to the many dangers lurking online.
In such a scenario, it will be over and out; they will be out of the game.
Secondly, parents tend to be over-competitive, which in one video online can be demonstrated by a father standing by his son in the goal and literally pushing him to stop the ball from going into the net.
Parents abuse referees of children’s matches for ruling a decision against their precious child; parents bribe or blackmail coaches to include their child in the team. It is over — they must get out.
Thirdly, all too often parents over-celebrate what is just a game, a fixture, a wicket, a try or an examination of what the child has learned.
They make a huge noise to make sure everyone knows they won (yes, “they won” – the parents claim to have played a part by bringing the child into the world).
When they shout loudly “You’re out!” it is actually all over, finished – the purpose is lost.
Fourthly, we regularly discover parents, as in the scenario described at the top of this article, who over-emphasise the importance of individuals (and of course, one individual in particular) in a team, and of winning (by questioning decisions and substitutions). Neither approach will assist their child.
The longest over in cricket history, albeit a contrived one to try to force a result, was one that had twenty-two balls, instead of the standard six.
It was made up of many illegal deliveries, commonly known, of course, as ‘extras’. Many parents are ‘bowling’ long “overs” on account of the extras they are producing – they bowl ‘Wides’ (being wide of the mark in their comments), No Balls (over-stepping the mark by their language), and Byes (waving Bye Bye to common sense by their irrational shouts).
Someone has said that “In 100 years’ time it won’t matter what car I drove, how big my house was or how much money I had in the bank; but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child”.
We might equally add it will not matter what team our child played for, how many games he won, who he beat – even in ten years’ time. We need to be important in our child’s life for the right reason. We must get over our ego and make the world better – do not overdo things. Now go over there and explain it to all the fathers and mothers.
