Best of the Best Series – Parent
Raising an athlete is a unique journey filled with triumphs, challenges, and countless sacrifices. While every parent wants their child to succeed in sports, the role of a parent extends far beyond the sidelines. Great parents of athletes understand that their support plays a crucial role in shaping their child's athletic experience and overall well-being. It's not about pushing for perfection or living vicariously through their child's achievements. Instead, it's about fostering a love for the sport, instilling values, and providing unwavering support through the highs and lows. In this blog post, we'll explore the essential qualities that make a parent truly great and how they can positively impact their child's athletic journey.
First, let’s acknowledge a few things:
Being a parent is hard.
Being a parent to a high-level athlete can be even harder.
Parents are human and not perfect.
Parents are trying their best to make well-informed decisions.
What might be right for one family or child, may not be best for another.
While there is no such thing as a perfect parent, there are some traits, behaviors, and actions that are consistent with a successful parent of an elite athlete. Remember, success is more holistic than being the “best.” Being successful focuses on achieving a balance between personal growth, well-being, and performance, while consistently working towards improvement and effectively balancing all aspects of life.
Successful parents support the WHOLE athlete
While sport is important and often takes up large amounts of time and money, a successful parent continues to see their child as more than an athlete. Being an athlete is part of who they are but it is not what defines them. Parents hold tight to their values outside of sport, whether that is family, academics, spirituality, or another aspect of life that they deem critical.
By staying grounded within these other vital life components, parents help their children develop in a more well-rounded way. Their identity is not solely as an athlete, but also as a member of the family, part of a community, and as capable as a learner. This enables them to counteract the pitfalls of becoming too consumed within the world of sports.
Successful parents balance celebrating their athlete’s accomplishments with reminding them that their worth is not in what they achieve
The main objective of sports is to win and it feels amazing when it happens. Successful parents celebrate with their children when they achieve greatness and accomplish their goals. Parents are often one of the few that know and understand how much work was put in to accomplish those feats. Appropriate celebration of achieving a hard thing is necessary.
At the same time, successful parents constantly remind their children that their value is not placed in what they accomplish in their sport. They give love when their child is doing well AND when they are struggling. They constantly acknowledge and highlight their values – good sportsmanship, working hard, encouraging others, perseverance, etc. Successful parents also have several conversations in which they explicitly state to their children that they are loved whether they play a sport or not and whether they win the game or not.
Successful parents scaffold their support
When the parent takes all of the responsibility of showing up to lessons, completing the optional workouts, and doing the extra things they see as necessary to reach the next level, children often become resentful and lose their love for their sport. However, most children have lapses in motivation and can struggle to do hard things now for a potential reward later. To avoid this trap, successful parents use a scaffolding approach to their support.
Scaffolding provides a balance between pushing a child forward to help them achieve their goals and allowing them to pull themselves in the correct direction. Successful parents alternate between pushing their children towards a self-identified goal and handing the responsibility over to the child to make their dreams a reality. Successful parents are often quick to say yes when a child asks for assistance, but will also put stipulations to ensure that there is an equal balance of the effort put in by both the child and the parent. This balancing act of supporting their pursuit of athletic excellence and putting the child in the driver’s seat to make it happen is a hallmark of successful parents.
In conclusion, being a great parent of an athlete requires a unique blend of support, understanding, and guidance. By focusing on the whole athlete, celebrating their accomplishments while reminding them of their intrinsic worth, and scaffolding support, parents can positively impact their child's athletic journey. Remember, the goal is not to raise a perfect athlete but to raise a well-rounded, successful, and happy individual who happens to be an athlete. If you're a parent of an athlete, I encourage you to share this blog with other parents in your network. Together, we can create a supportive environment that allows our children to thrive both on and off the field or court.
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