On the Same Team,
Anyone who has parented teenagers (and sometimes younger kids too) knows that life can sometimes feel like WAR.
That precious little toddler who cried when separated from you, can, after puberty hits, seem like the enemy, someone you are at war with.
This is a horrible, dangerous and destructive place to be.
Over the next few blogs I will be sharing a few thoughts aimed at keeping you and your teenager on the same side of the tug of war rope.
A much nicer place to be!!
Let's look at the model of a Sporting coach for inspiration.
Here’s a few thoughts that might apply.
A Coach draws on past experience, but doesn’t expect the same season repeated each year.
Some parents, having been through their own turbulent teenage years, and bring their own fears, unresolved issues, ideas of how it should be done, to the game.
Remember things have changed since you were a teenager.
The desired result of the players and the coach is constant, it’s to WIN, but there are new rules, new standards, new methods, and new techniques, as the years go by.
A Coach needs to keep up with these developments, or he is out of a job. It’s no good saying, ‘We did it this way in my day’ he has to let go of that and pursue his desired result in the situation and the environment he finds himself in. In other words, it wasn’t good enough to get to the end of his career, and declare, ‘Well I am glad I survived that. I’m never going to look at another strategic play diagram, or watch another game rerun to look for mistakes.’
A good coach has to stay immersed in his game if he is to be any good to anyone as a coach.
Coaches apply what they learnt for the benefit of future players. They transition from one role to another. They use the understanding of the game and apply it from a new perspective, remembering it’s a new generation of players now.
The objective stays the same, the methods, the obstacles, the pressures change,
Parents, don’t be uninformed.
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