Sport Parenting – Page 5

Joan’s visually impaired (VI) and is a Goalball player from TeamSG. Over the weekend, she was invited by IC2, a prep school for low vision kids, to share about the critical development role of sport participation, and the obstacles preventing kids from being active.

Joan went to a mainstream school, and shared that she was lucky to have parents (both visually impaired) who would call up the school to complain whenever she was excluded from PE lessons or sports. This was in contrast to most of her peers whose parents would call the school to excuse them from “dangerous” physical activities. Joan shared that many of her peers were physically awkward, and were sometimes even mistaken to be both visually and physically impaired! She feels that overprotective parents and a risk adverse environment are to be blame for their lack of co-ordination and balance.

Some of my players have also shared with me that they have never learnt a sport (but they learnt how to play several types of musical instruments) during their school years at schools for the visually impaired. They were also not allowed to run around even in schools due to “safety reasons”.

Just in case that you reckon Joan’s experience is simply anecdotal evidence, there has been rigorous studies to suggest that kids who are deprived of play during critical periods of development will miss out on important milestones, and will never fully realize their genetic potential – physically, affectively and cognitively. Consequently, they are less likely to be active and will more likely suffer from obesity and other health related issues. As they get older, their risk of falling and suffering from a physical impairments is also higher. They end up with more than one impairment!

I hope overprotective aka Kiasu parents realize that if their kids grow up to be “psychomotor idiots”, they are largely to blame. Also, I don’t reckon this relates only to kids with VI. Increasingly, able-bodied kids have also been found to miss out on important developmental milestones due to the lack of play.

Coach Hansen

It happened again! Almost every time I am watching the game from the stands, I’ll hear parents questioning the coach while talking among themselves. I’ve been on the receiving end too – from spouses, officials and even volunteers. In some rare cases, they not only question my methods and/or tactics, but also advise the players to go against them.

Before people criticize coaches (or anyone), they should first ponder over these questions (or perhaps they should themselves go try coaching for a season first)…

Am I criticizing so that I can have an excuse to say “I’m better than you”?
Am I blaming the coach so that I’ll have an excuse to defend my kid or spouse when comparing them with the better athletes?
Is the coach really doing something incorrectly OR, I just have a preference for how a coach should be like? (Some parents may unknowingly prefer coaches who are like themselves, i.e., biased towards their own kids just like themselves).
Do I have the whole picture? A coach may seem to be overly harsh on a player, or be deemed unfair in his handling of the team. Perhaps she has good reasons for doing so and I should clarify with her instead?

Of course, some criticism are well-meaning and since we can’t afford to stop learning and listening, we should be open to suggestions on how we can get better. On our part, we can also be more proactive by having meetings with partners to establish certain communication guidelines, and to also share our training plan with them whenever possible.

“Learn to take criticism seriously but not personally.” Hillary Clinton

Anyways, as coaches, I reckon criticism is to be expected…that’s the nature of our job isn’t it? In fact some of the most critical people are coaches themselves – often of other coaches! Sometimes we just have to close our ears and let these fellas say what they want to say lah…it’s their problem, not mine.

Coach Hansen