Sportsmanship: And The Game Of Life

My daughter who is twelve participates in a variety of different sports, and activities. She is attending middle school right now and is involved with cheerleading both at the school and community level. What never ceases to amaze me is that every sport hands every participant a book on sportsmanship. In other words how should we treat members of the other team and our fellow teammates? What is even more interesting is that you get the feeling that the behaviors like respect, and responsibility, kindness, caring, and other character qualities are only deemed important when the individual is on public display because they don’t want to make the team look bad. As an example one handbook reads:

All students who represent ___________ School on an athletic team are expected to conduct themselves in such a manner as to reflect credit upon ________School.

I think what is a concern here are the words; on an athletic team. Suppose you are not on an athletic team? Student’s need to work on reflecting credit upon themselves, that will in tern help credit the school for  contributing to the student’s life.

Let me make an important point here, if certain behaviors were worked on consistently and if individuals were measured by behaviors like respect and responsibility a handbook on sportsmanship would not be necessary. When there is a norm in place you don’t need rules. The problem is that society doesn’t have a norm any longer and wants to create a new norm that’s more situational and leaves people floating around in a gray abyss instead of understanding the benefits of a black and white mentality. If our norms were based on character many things would be understood and behaviors like disrespect, and unkindness would be the anomaly and those that displayed those behaviors would be on the outside looking in.

Sadly the problem that society faces is parents and the intergenerational tendencies. Sportsmanship handbooks weren’t necessary 40 years ago because parents understood the meaning of respect and wouldn’t dare question a coach or an official. On a personal note if I complained about a coach or a teacher to my father he would say the coach wasn’t tough enough on me. Today if a child goes home and complains about a coach the parents come right in in defense of their child berating the coach and their abilities. As the decades passed and complaining became the norm what one generation did in moderation the next one did in excess. Now coaches and teachers are always looking over their shoulder waiting for the other shoe to drop because they corrected a student or an athlete. They knew that it is only going to be a matter of time before mom or dad came in to put them on the defensive.

The problem with parental over involvement comes at times from the lofty expectations that parents have for their children and at times they can vicariously try and live their life through their children which can create stress and tension for the child potentially impacting them throughout life. I started doing the math many years ago and finally worked out the numbers. There are about three thousand professional baseball players in the United States and that includes minor league teams. I am not including Japan or other countries that play in the World Baseball Classic every four years. There are eight billion people living on the planet. The chances are greater that a kid will be hit by lightning than becoming a professional baseball player. Professional baseball players are the cream, cream, and cream of the crop and have certain physical abilities that are innate to them and only them. When scouts talk about a five tool player they refer to a player’s ability to run with speed, has a strong throwing arm, can hit for average and hit with power, and can field their position well. These are all God given abilities that improve with practice but really it’s all about natural talent.

I am not too concerned about teenagers understanding those numbers, I think they do, but I don’t think that parents have a clear understanding of those statistics and further more believe that their kid is going to be the next Bryce Harper. It’s not the belief that’s troubling it’s what parent’s do with those beliefs that can make life miserable for a lot of people. Let’s be clear, coach’s coach, parent’s parent, player’s play, and officials officiate anytime these three things get co-mingled and they start stepping on each other’s toes it is a recipe for disaster with the player losing and I don’t mean the game.

As adults we have created this culture in a very innocent and unwitting way, and now we have to dismantle the Frankenstein Monster. We have to stop telling parents and children what they want to hear and be truthful about their academic and sports related ability regardless of any unrealistic parental expectations. Billy Beane of Moneyball fame was drafted in the first round by the New York Mets right out of high school. He was identified by scouts as that five tool player we spoke about earlier. He played for a short time in the major leagues and then went into scouting. He never made it as a player but became a successful general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He was successful, but not as the player that everyone thought he would be.

When Bryce Harper made it to the pros as an outfielder for the Washington Nationals Davey Johnson the then manager of the team asked him how he felt, Harper responded; “This is the most relaxed I have ever been in my entire life.” Harper knew that he was hit by lightning and that he was the one in eight billion who became a professional baseball player. He truly did make it. Everyone else will have to just keep on trying but in reality all kids have the potential to be great people but not all professional athletes. Even if a kid gets a scholarship and is all state in his sport he will always be a big fish in a small pond so let the kids have fun, let the coaches coach, and help parents understand how unrealistic expectations can do more harm than good.

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There Are Circumstances – But Not Excuses

There Are Circumstances – But Not Excuses

Children can’t pick their parents, when and where they were born, their physical condition when they were born, their siblings, or even their intelligence. They are influenced by many of these things, not determined, but influenced. They have choices and can always change their response to the influence. As adults because of our own philosophy we can make excuses for children based upon their circumstance, and begin to argue for the child’s weakness. Don’t: accountability is the key regardless of circumstance. A child’s problems might be organic, behavioral, environmental, or psychological. The problems may be clinical or conduct, the circumstances don’t determine accountability. They merely help us understand the reason for the behavior. After a consequence is imposed we can then look at the child’s behavior objectively and offer alternatives to help avoid future problems.

Bench Notice

We are falling further and further into the gray abyss. Too many things are relative and nothing is definite. In years past it wasn’t a matter of if someone was going to get in trouble for lying, stealing, fighting or even just be tardy to school; it was when. Parents can talk their kids out of anything today, and they have done a pretty good job of teaching this to their children. Oh, it helps avoid the immediate consequences, but what they don’t realize is that by default they are agreeing with their child’s behavior when they argue for their weaknesses. Behaviors that will escalate causing the child to believe that it is okay to lie, steal, fight, and be disrespectful; sometime. 

Parents Need Parenting

Parents Need Parenting

The young parents of today need parenting. Parents who have left home as young adults with a rebellious attitude may not even be speaking with their own parents. They have lost their perception of right and wrong behaviors and sometimes even simple decisions are tough. It’s these parents that will try to bully you as the teacher and the school. They don’t have the ability to cooperate when they disagree and can wreak havoc on the school and your classroom. These parents need to be agreed with immediately. You heard right; agreed with. But, agree in principal, not with the content. Let them know that you can see things from their perspective, but work with them to see things from the same perspective. Instead of a tug of war, move to their side of the rope. Or better yet, let go of the rope. Ease into conversations with these parents and begin to lose your fear of being yelled at. Be an empathic listener, and don’t argue. They need to be taught, and you are going to do it.

Bench Notice

Since the writing of this tip things have gotten worse. My wife went to drop off a forgotten pair of glasses for our eight year old daughter a few weeks ago and wasn’t allowed in the school building. She was told to leave them on the table between the school entrance and the main office. It was like a bunker was set up. All visitors entering my daughter’s school are escorted through the school, including the parents who are known by school administration and teachers, like classroom mothers and the president of the PTA.  School shootings have prompted this and I agree that every precaution should be taken for the safety of our children.

I do believe though that the schools are fed up with angry and irate parents and will do what they can to keep them out of the school building. In doing so they are keeping everyone out and with the same brush tarring even the most cooperative parents. Do parents need parenting? Yes, some do. The ones that need it should get it. Until they get it place the restrictions where it needs to be; squarely on the parents who think they own the school and want to wreak havoc because of a poor test grade.

Kids Can Intimidate Their Parents

Kids Can Intimidate Their Parents

When kids are unhappy about something that happens in school and they believe that the teacher was the culprit, they will usually go home and complain to mom or dad. If the parents are weak, and are always in a position of being intimidated by their own children, they will usually come into school and argue for their child, defending his/her actions. Why, because they can win the argument with the school, but they will always loss the argument with their own kid at home.

I experienced this once as an administrator; a 17 year old student was  bullying his mother in my office. My response to the kid was, “don’t bully your mother in my office.” When this was said the mom felt she now had an ally, and became more assertive with her son. Husbands and wives may disrespect each other in the home in front of the children. Sometimes children will become one of the parents’ confidants and have to listen to complaints about one parent or the other. Anytime you have an opportunity to stick up for or defend a parent when they are being bullied by their own children in your presence do it, you will make a new friend and your discipline of that child will be easier going forward.

Bench Notice

Parents without boundaries usually allow to much freedom and often don’t hold their kids responsible at a young age. This permissiveness can create an environment where kids believe they can say and do what they want, when they want. This starts to become a problem when children become ten years of age and can become progressively worse moving forward.

Parents need parenting,and they need to be taught how to set healthy boundaries with their children. It’s not so much about teaching compliance but more about teaching character. Help parents to understand the importance of respect, and responsibility and how to demand these qualities from their children. 

 

 

The Closed House

The Closed House

How a child is treated in the home can play a role in whether or not the child will become a bully or not. Often if the child is victimized in the home, there is a good chance they could become a bully in school. You read that right, children who are victimized in the home could get the message that the way I get what I want is through fear and intimidation. I know this is something that is usually done by the social worker, but a conversation with the parents and a little intuition can usually be pretty revealing. So be a detective, and ask some questions that may reveal more about the child’s home life then the parents wanted you to know. Sometimes mom’s can let the cat out of the bag about dad’s anger issues, or maybe visa-versa. How ever you get the info, take notes.

Bench Notice

The closed house; a term that years ago was used to refer to a home where there might be abuse, addiction, or neglect. No child wants to be the one who spills the beans about what is going on between mom and dad or some addictive problem that is plaguing the family. They see it as disloyal and can fear the reaction of a parent if in fact he or she discovers that their child ratted them out.

Parents who have anger issues, are neglectful or who are suffering from addiction have grown physically, but not emotionally. Often the abused children of these parents can suffer from the overly responsible syndrome, with the roles reversing and the child actually parenting the parent. Don’t let these children be robbed of their childhood. Step in and help this child realize that the behavior of their parents is not their fault and help them begin to enjoy the wonders of being a kid. By doing so you will help them become more balanced adults.