Book Excerpt
Parents support an abusive coach who was removed from a major university and blames me and my kid. Don’t be a... Crazy Ass Parents
This line is a short but very powerful line in the book because it represents everything from coach abuse, rules violation, sexual harassment, transactional coaching versus transformational coaching and so much more. I can’t share the details of this real life situation because I am bound by the nondisclosure agreement, I signed… But I often wonder how parents whose kids have made it to the highest level of their sport could allow their daughter to be “pimped” by the system, by the coach.
Then I see parents of an 11 or 12-year-old kid sit back and allow their daughter to be mistreated by their coach, talked down to, called out in front of everyone to cause embarrassment, heck, even the parents are “reprimanded” and when asked why they don’t step up to protect their child they say they don’t want to mess up her opportunity to play or start. I can only imagine that some of the parents and players who didn’t get it, who were willing to “pimp” their kids for play time at the highest level must have gotten their start in 12 and 14 under. Because I am witness to parents again playing their kids’ pimp so they can play more, play on a “good team”. It saddens me that parents keep their kids on teams with coaches that don’t treat their kids with the dignity and respect they deserve or worse, the kid plays for a coach they don’t like because of how they are treated by the coach. Parents be a champion for your child.
Sometimes I think parents don’t recognize the subtle abuse. However, verbal abuse is the most common type, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation, founded in 1974 by Billie Jean King. Such emotional abuse includes name-calling, hurtful comments regarding performance, swearing at players and comments meant to demean a person’s integrity. Every one of these abuses I have known a kid who has experienced this treatment just recently. This type of treatment “impairs the child’s concept of self,” according to the National Youth Sports Safety Foundation.
“Emotional abuse is, perhaps, the most difficult abuse to identify and the most common form of maltreatment in youth sports,” the foundation concludes. Its website lists examples as rejecting, ignoring, isolating, terrorizing, name-calling, making fun of someone, putting someone down, saying things that hurt feelings and yelling. This behavior goes on way too much at the college level with the coach having the power to break a kids will and making it seem like it is all the kids fault. Either the kid was not a fit and should have never been recruited, which is also the coach’s responsibility or the coach is responsible for coaching a kid up, not out.
At the same time, experts say, coaches can be immensely important to the development of a teen’s self-esteem. The mirror coaches hold up during these formative years is crucial to their development. “If an important adult treats them badly, that has a profound impact on their emerging identities,” said one expert. They go on to add that shame and humiliation tend to silence athletes who are emotionally attacked and create painful feelings of isolation, “You’re not entitled to how you feel, that is the message.”
I remind parents you get one time with your kid through this thing we call competitive, high level sports. One time to be their champion, one time to be an example of how they need to stand up for what is right, one time to teach them about defending others, one time to show them how to make a decision on principle and one time to demonstrate to them how they are supposed to be treated.
See sports is meant to teach all that and more. Transformational coaches understand this is our responsibility to our players and their parents. We don’t worry about our won-loss record, even though we want to win a bad as the transactional coaches, we see it bigger than the game.
Here is another truth, if you won’t be your kids champion I will, I did.
http://rightchoicecoaching.com/prelaunch/
www.rightchoicecoaching.com
I am excited to share with you that my second book will drop on September 1, 2016. Over the next month in my blogs I will be sharing excerpts from the book.
I will also be asking for your help; my goal is to be an Amazon bestselling author. I need everyone to go on Kindle on Friday, September 2nd between 11am and noon Pacific Standard Time and purchase the book. If I out sale my category for that one-hour Amazon will name me a best seller. The book will be priced at $3.99. You can also be part of the pre-launch wait list by going to http://rightchoicecoaching.com/prelaunch/ . Ten free eBooks of my first title, The 7 Principles of Faith-Based Parenting will be raffled to people who purchase the book on September 2 between 11am and Noon.