Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 194 | don't do this to your kids

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

In today’s episode we talked allllll about Youth Sports. There are so many kids in youth sports these days and while we love to see kids outside trying new things, learning responsibility and making friends, we can’t help but notice how much more intense sports have gotten for kids. Not to mention how stressful the games have gotten for the parents! This topic led to some good conversation on how to be a good parent in youth sports and how to make sure your kids are out there having a good time. It makes us thankful we got to enjoy sports for fun in our childhood and we hope our kids one day can do the same. Let us know your thoughts on this in the comments below, we would love to hear from you! Love you guys! Shawn and Andrew  Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Sources quoted https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2023/05/01/In-Depth/youth-sports.aspx https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db441.htm#:~:text=Key%20findings-,Data%20from%20the%20National%20Health%20Interview%20Survey,were%20to%20participate%20in%20sports. https://ymcagbw.org/blog/10-ways-be-great-youth-sports-parent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wait, I didn't get charged for my donut. It was free with this Tim's Rewards points. I think I just stole it. I'm a donut stealer. Oof. Earn points so fast, it'll seem too good to be true. Plus, join Tim's Rewards today and get enough points for a free donut, drink, or timbits. With 800 points after registration, activation, and first purchase of a dollar or more.

See the Tim's app for details at participating in restaurants in Canada for a limited time. What's up, everybody? couple things with Sean and Andrew podcast all about couples and the things they go through I don't mind this awkward situation I just don't know how to sit comfortably anymore what's awkward situation I don't know I feel like I'm just I feel like you always sit weird of everybody I know you sit the weirdest I can never reach the ground so I got to put my feet somewhere you're always like one leg up on the countertop the other leg down the floor yeah leaning over all right we've done several interviews this past week with people asking us about our perspective on youth sports and so we wanted to actually

just do an episode here on this show. Yes. Sharing all of our thoughts. Yes. And kind of unpacked that issue because I feel like we're a couple years away from having to confront this head on ourselves with our kids. Yes. There are a lot of people interested in the athletic journey of our kids. Yes. And we have a bit of experience in this realm as well. So for those that don't know, Sean was a youth herself at one point. That's a way to put it. I was a child.

You started gymnastics when you were... So my sports journey to summarize before we get into like our opinions on a lot of things. My parents put me in gymnastics when I was, I think like two. it depends on the gym you go to but there's like mommy and me classes that you can put kids into so fun fact the very first

sport I was ever put into is ballet my parents put me in it because I was a wild kid at home and I had all this extra energy and they wanted an outlet for me to go socialize and get energy out

I did not know that yes so the very first thing that I did was ballet The teacher kept complaining to my parents that I wouldn't listen. I wouldn't stand in line. And I was just doing like somersaults and cartwheels everywhere. And that sounds like... Our son.

That's right. Yes. I was like, what are you trying to say here? So then my parents pulled me out of ballet and they found a mommy and me class at gymnastics that I could do. I went into the gymnastics class. I found the trampoline. I fell in love, I came home tired, and my parents were very happy.

Fast forward, I did so many other sports. I ran track, I swam, I played soccer, I did softball, I danced, did gymnastics, did the flag football team. Yeah, I think that was about it. So it was a pretty well-rounded involvement in many different sports. I did a lot of sports, yes. I also, outside of that, did, like, violin and oboe. Yes, I chose the oboe. And your parents didn't really come from that background, which is interesting.

They just kind of saw that in you and said... My parents both kind of came from rougher upbringings. And I think their mission in raising me was to give me as much opportunity as possible, but to also keep me busy. and their kind of philosophy was like you just can't come home and watch TV and do nothing so we got to find something and I was free to like quit things as long as it was for the right reason

I just had to always be doing something what about you so my background my parents were both athletes they were actually high school sweethearts my mom was a cheerleader my dad was a football ball player and my dad started athletics in our family himself my grandpa was like very much an academic who was a professor went to stanford like took that very seriously and saw athletics as a distraction i should also add my parents were both athletes so this was second nature but like extreme sports your dad did like motorcycles my dad did motocross he was a hockey player he wrestled hockey

and wrestling were like his biggest things my mom um did cross country and she did gymnastics oh i did not know that either here we are learning about each other how about it okay keep going sorry uh so but my dad was a like physically fit guy who's six foot four 240 pounds and played college football at peru where my mom was also a cheerleader there and then after that he started uh he actually started team clidesdale for those of you that do endurance sports um you'll know that if you weigh over 200 pounds there's like a whole different division that you can Roland called the Clydesdale division my dad started team Clydesdale which is though founded that so he did a full iron man like always was involved in athletics so us as kids

we were surrounded by this watching my dad train also it was just something that we were interested in we would go to like the Indianapolis Colts football practices and it was all like it was a lot centered around sports but not in an not in an obsessive way it was more like a passion way it wasn't like hey my dad's taking us the Colts practice and we have to be there I was like, no, we, our idols were football players. My oldest brother ended up being a professional cyclist. My second oldest brother played college football at Wheaton College. And I played at Vanderbilt.

Anyway, growing up, we all did a bunch of different sports. So we were doing swimming. We did cycling. We were like doing, we would just enroll in kind of tournaments. We did football, baseball, basketball. Your sister did softball. Softball, rugby. So.

the process that I feel like my parents took was let's just get them involved in a smorgasbord of activities see what sticks and then slowly do more of that not like all in all at once not like hey he's really good at this so we're going to force him to do this it was same trying to find the thing that we were good at and for trying to find a thing that we love doing and then slowly continuing to increase the amount of time we experimented with that it's like a treasure hunt yes same with me and that's exactly what my parents were doing they're always trying to like find the thing that I was in love with and I did the same thing of like the smorgas board where I was like trying all of these different things and I would be really busy

and I would love it I would love going from practice to practice and I would love going from violin to debate to track and then gymnastics and all these things i loved it i i thrived the busier that i was and the way the process always worked for us was with every season of a sport that you like graduate through the time commitment becomes larger yes and we had a role in our family we never did any practice on sunday um we always had that as like home time we could do a small practice on Saturday but 99% of the time we would always spend after 12 o'clock at home as a family and then nothing could conflict with school so those were kind of like our boundaries in our household but with the time commitments

every time something would start interfering with each other so like if track practice interfered with soccer my parents would be like okay you have to choose it's like time to choose which one you like better and it ended up dance track and gymnastics were my three favorites i loved track loved it i don't know why i was not good at it um but i loved it i loved dance and i loved gymnastics but when those started merging i think the first thing to go was i think it was dance. I think track and gymnastics for the last man standing and then... Foreshadow, Sean

ended up getting back into dance later on in life. Yeah. And then gymnastics was the last man standing. I love that. Now we have a little insight into our experience as you sports. Let me just fast forward. Sean

ended up winning an Olympic gold medal. For those that don't know who we are, Sean was an Olympic gymnast. I I ended up playing. In the NFL. Yes. So I just feel like we have an interesting perspective on this. But let's zoom out and share some stats on this.

Just to kind of get an understanding of where society lies today with this. So according to a study by the CDC, 54.1% of children aged 6 to 17 years participated in sports during the past year. The higher the level of parents' education, the more likely children in adolescents were to participate in sports, That's an interesting stat. And as family income increased, the more likely children and adolescents were to participate in sports. That, I understand, but also makes me really sad because... Well, and we talk about some problems related to that later on. You want to hit the next one?

Youth sports is a $30 billion industry. Remember that when we talk about this later. Man, I'm so passionate about this. This is going to be really hard for someone to edit, because we're going to be really hard for someone to edit, because we're going to talk for four hours. Also, most kids stop playing sports by the age of 11 because, quote, it's not fun anymore. Those two stats were from the Sports Business Journal, just to cite sources. So, according to Dionne Kohler, there are two main problems with youth sports, and Diane is an expert on youth and amateur sports.

She says that the first problem is exclusion and barriers to entry because youth sports are expensive, and hard to access for lots of kids. Amen. If you think about traveling and if you have both parents working jobs and maybe they cost a couple hundred bucks to be on the team, there's a lot of barriers there. The second problem is that for those who do play youth sports, the problem is professionalization of sports.

It's often a win at all cost and profit at all cost mentality, which makes it not fun. First of all, the average family pays $883 annually for one child's primary sport. Okay, so just to put a dollar figure on that first barrier entry, which is the expensiveness and access. I mean, we've already experienced this. Our kids have done two-year-old soccer. And it costs a couple hundred dollars.

Right. Which is wild. For two-year-old soccer. And Jet paid attention to the coach for, you know. Maybe five minutes the whole year. Okay. Continue. Summer's here, and you can now get almost.

anything you need for your sunny days, delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by, almost? Well, you can't get a well-groom lawn delivered, but you can get a chicken parmesan delivered. A cabana? That's a no, but a banana, that's a yes. A nice tan, sorry, nope. But a box fan, happily, yes. A day of sunshine? No.

A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. bank more oncores when you switch to a scotia bank banking package learn more at scotia bank.com slash banking packages conditions apply scotia bank you're richer than you think we're going to reflect on these statements real quick the billion dollar 30 billion dollar industry professionalization so gonna put an asterisk if you don't agree with our opinions totally fine totally fine but I also

want to give an asterisk and say Andrew and I have experienced a lot and we have seen a lot we have worked with children we have coached we have been at the highest level and I think there are some massive trends

that lend themselves towards success or towards massive failure and to clarify we are both pro sports absolutely or kids we will likely get our kids involved in sports should they show an interest I think sports contributed so much to forming me

who I am same however there is a flip side and so if you have kids in sports that's great we're pumped for you but I think it's always important to be thoughtful with how you're doing something because how you do something really does affect the outcome it's not just what you're doing it's how you're doing it okay now yes I jump on a pedestal please okay to all the parents out there, I want you to listen very carefully. I would say 75%, I'm throwing out a, it's not a statistic, this is just a guesstimate. 75% of recreational sports programs out there. So under the age of 16, pretty much is what I would consider a recreational sport. Unless you're representing the United States on like a professional team, it is recreational. 75% of the programs out there are

ripping you off. They are literally all they want is your money. And I have experienced this firsthand with countless friends and acquaintances of ours who will call me and say, what is the best gymnastics gym to send my kid to at the age of five? I'm paying thousands of dollars a year for private lessons and to get to the next level. I am being told if I go down this pathway with my child they will succeed and go to the major leagues i am told if i do x y and z my kid will succeed it is all a load of BS that that's not how it works how does it work a kid needs to fall in love with a sport needs to be self-driven to continue learning not do well but continue learning and they need to be surrounded by a community that

supports their passion. Everything else is luck. Now, I'm not saying that you don't need a good coach. You do, but you don't need a good coach at the age of five. You need foundational basics. You need to be a kid. You need to have fun. You need to play.

You need to learn that sport is playing. And if you professionalize it too early, if you try to put them on a path to succeed, too early they will quit they will fail and they will be completely dejected from the sport like for the rest of their life let's take gymnastics as the extreme example for the early side of being a professional in that sport so you were 16 when you went to the Olympics yes at the age of five parents in that sport it seems are already stressed out about what trajectory their kid is going But still, if your child's five and Olympics are at 16,

you still have 11 years. That is a lot of time and a lot of gymnastic practices that you have to get through as a child before you reach that point. What I'm trying to say is it's a long game, even if you're turning pro at 16. So you don't want to ruin it by trying to just front load all of this pressure to say, hey, you're going to be an Olympian.

That's our goal. Dude, there's so many steps that you need to cross. many milestones that you need to pass before you get to that point don't spoil it don't spoil oh my gosh and also gymnastics if i could just go on a tangent here is i i don't really saw this in football because it's just a different demographic and it's it's different because there is a lot of feedback that you get along the process you know you have to go play middle school and then maybe you make the freshman team at high school then you jv team varsity then you'll get recruited by a you won two or three program and then maybe you get scouted and you kind of have an idea of where

your talents lie. Gymnastics is unique in a lot of different ways. Obviously there's levels in gymnastics, but one thing that was so jarring for me to see from an outsider's perspective is the fact that you'll have a young gymnast, let's say they're eight years old, who maybe has some talent. Very exciting. That's a very exciting place to be. but that gymnast also has three or four siblings and the parents uproot the entire family and move across the country so that that one child can be coached by

a coach who has had Olympians in the past that is so unhealthy on so many different levels one think about the siblings of that gymnast and wow they probably feel like a secondary like a second class citizen of that family two it's a lot of pressure on on that one talented gymnast if you look at if you look at sport at the elite level a lot of it is psychological and mental yeah and you have to be in this really pure space mentally that you can focus on the thing and that thing alone and when you add dynamics of hey you know my parents moved across they're they're banking on me my siblings are banking on me that adds a lot of complications to that psychology that I think ultimately will undermine the success that you're trying to force so that's it's a long game well and let's just throw this out there we're not making

the argument that if you put a kid into ice hockey whatever whatever sport it is at the age of three and you put them with the best coach in the world and you just beat it at horse for years and years and years and years like the 10,000 hours lock that like I'm not saying that doesn't work but you might be stripping a child

of the joy of being a child if you do that and I have had you know the opportunity pleasure of working with thousands of children over the years and I have been able to witness firsthand and I've gotten to coach these kids I've gotten to witness firsthand the difference between a kid who is naturally talented and either burns out or doesn't like it and a kid who is not naturally

talented at their sport but loves it so much that they end up being the ones who succeed and the only way to foster passion is to give space for it not like force it to drown it in to drown the person in that thing yeah so my perspective is that you should keep the main thing the main thing and in use sports the main thing should be the lessons that can be taught through sports And I think sports are so beautiful because they are a very unique delivery system, a very unique vehicle through which to the deliver things like self-discipline, mental toughness, teamwork, working through failure, goal-setting, resilience, commitment. A lot of these beautiful things. That should be the primary focus, not the performance side of things. Not the fact that you could get a Division I scholarship or you could go professional.

And it's like, honestly, this is a big responsibility for parents. And it can be a very gray line. And so that's why I feel like having a strong marriage with open communication is important so that you can have a feedback loop with each other talking about, are we doing this in a healthy way? I think it's important to have a close community of friends who are also. in the similar stage of life that have kids there and can say hey Andrew you seem to be putting a lot of pressure

on you're a little too excited with how your son is involved in this sport right now if only I could say this to I need I need to grow the nads

to say this to some people say what say it you're putting way too much pressure on your child and you're going to quit their sport I would put money on it in the next year or two if you don't let up.

Okay. Hold on. Because the gray line is, for me, instilling qualities like commitment and self-discipline and keeping that the main thing while not forcing it.

So it's like, you know, Sean and I's perspective is not this, you know, fru-frew participation award. Hey,

you're doing a great job and you could quit and start whenever because that that also does not teach the beauty that sports can it is hey let's sit down with our five-year-old and say Drew there's a six-week program for ballet do you want to try ballet for a little bit yet if she says yes and you talk about it it's like that is a form of commitment and we're going to we're going to go and we're not going to force her to do the spins and do the dances. This is what we did with Jet.

Like, he was not paying attention at practice, but we would go to practice. He would run around to the playground. But it's like... He doesn't do. Yeah, he's too, obviously. But like, it's keeping the commitment

and not saying, hey, you didn't do anything at soccer practice today. Why can't you get this straight and debriefing in the car like that? It's, okay, hey, let's evaluate next time the soccer becomes a possibility.

Do we actually want to do that or not, you know? Yes, but there is so, Oh my gosh, there's so many fine lines here. So I've been doing a lot of reading around childhood development, behavioral science. I follow a lot of, like, child psychologists who have been a very common thread that people have been talking about lately. I'm about to enroll in my first psychology class for my PhD in psychology today. I'm excited for you. Anyway, carry on.

Can you study children? I do want to look into sports. Oh, sports. Okay. but a very common theme and trend right now that people are studying and proving is this concept of like debunking performance based praise so there have been all these studies that have come out where you do like a concentrated whatever study mindset by carol duke talks about this is really helpful where if all these if 20 kids take a test and and you praise them for like the number or the grade that they get at the end.

And they retake it. They'll actually do worse because they're so worried about keeping your praise and your pride and your acceptance and all of this stuff. So they want to like outdo that number instead of, okay, just hang on there for a second. The other 20 kids, they take the test and instead of being praised for the number or the grade, they get praised for their effort. what happens they retake the test and they all do better and i think it's really fascinating because i was a very very very lucky and blessed professional child athlete in the sense that my coach and my parents never put praise or put weight on the performance like the actual score outcome metal color they could have cared less like my coach actually could have cared less at the end of the day

he was like, this is a subjective sport. I don't care what score you get. I do not care what place in the podium you stand on. The only thing I care about is at the end of your performance, your competition, your practice, I want to know how hard you tried. And he learned me so well over the years that he could tell, but he would always ask me that question. Like, how did you do today?

And I'd be like, oh, it wasn't quite my best. Like, I would be able to be honest with him. He'd be like, you know what? I agree. Let's go back and work on it. But he was always still so proud. Or if I came in the last place and I fell a million times, but I was like, coach, I tried really, really hard. Like, I gave it my all.

He would giggle. He'd be like, I am so proud of you. I agree. There's nothing more that I could want. Will you tell the story of winning a gold medal? Well, you tell a story. Yeah. So the Olympic at the Olympics.

I go into the all-around, which is like what my specialty was. I lay it out on, lay it out, lay it all out on the floor. The competition's over. My coach asked me my question that he always asked me, how do you feel you did today? I was like, I left every ounce of my soul out there. And I remember he started crying. I started crying.

He was so proud. He gave me a hug. And this is before the medal ceremony. And he's like, that was the most perfect performance. we could have ever asked for you know and I felt that way I felt so proud fast forward I get the silver medal but in that moment getting the silver medal I still felt like I was on top of the world because I was proud my coach was proud I knew I had given it all I fast forward I go into like the media interviews and they're like how does it feel to lose what do you regret what would you

change which is like this it shows the societal flaws of we value way too much the score and the medal and people could care less about the effort which is wild to me and i was like i did the best i could i don't regret anything fast forward the very last competition the olympics is the balance beam i go up i do my routine i come down by the time i get off the podium the score is already in and my coach and i are looking at the um like placements and it says number one and we literally both start giggling. We start giggling to each other, my adult coach. And he looks at me and he goes, well, how do you feel you did?

As there's a number one next to my name at the Olympics. And I was like, you and I both know, it wasn't my best. And it was just being able to like remove all of that pressure that us as parents and as coaches tried to project onto our children that they should succeed above anything else. It doesn't matter the effort. It just matters if you win.

It is so toxic. And for me to have been able to have been at the Olympics, knowing that I just won a gold medal and been able to laugh with my coach and say, it wasn't our best. I still, to this day, feel more proud of the silver medal. And I think that story is important

because your identity, It's not about outcomes don't matter at all. It's separating outcomes from your identity, and your identity is more based in the effort. We're talking from a parent's perspective. It is super important to have your kid's identity be in what they actually can control, which is way more empowering because you can't control

you show up on game day and you're sick, but you can't control, hey, you show up on game day and you couldn't play because you were sick, but you were still a great teammate. But that's important to instill in your kids. Put it at like a kid's age in a soccer match where they go out onto the soccer field and they're against an opponent that is a lot better than them. And they pour their heart and soul out onto the field.

But in the, you get in the car with them afterwards and you're like, what could you have done better? You know, how did, like, you lost today. I feel like if we just go to practice and we work on like, you know, your position, all that tells a kid is they didn't do enough to earn your love and your praise that day, which is wild. And we as parents, we get so consumed with this idea that my kid can be better. They can be the best in the world if I just push them a little bit. What you need to push them in is instilling confidence in them to want to go back out there and try harder next time. Which they have control over. Yes. And the way you do that is when

your kid gets in the car after a match or a competition or a race you say i'm so proud of you for trying today or you could even do what my coach did how do you feel you did and then once they answer that be like what burger joint do you want to go to i'd love to take you to dairy queen what sounds so good to do right now like show them that their worth is not in their sport but yet you're proud of the effort that they put in and I promise you that kid's going to turn around and be like I actually want to go do that again yeah so you're actually like in the long game

you are you're still you know playing this it's not strategically saying hey I'm going to go ask my kid what he wants to eat after the match so that ultimately he loves baseball more and ultimately he'll become it's just like as a parent I think it's important to do to be with kid and do what they love and not try to superimpose or project your uh your desires on them i also want to clarify sean and i are not participation award uh supporters no because the honest feedback of

hey if you gave your best effort and you had your best performance and you finished 10th it's important to know that you don't want to live in this delusional world where as a parent you're saying oh well they deserved first and you know it's like it's important to have honesty and say okay well maybe maybe there is a cap right and it's anyway i think awards are properly placed at first second third four fifth six seven eighth nine two however far you go out right but if you're in a competition with 400 kids and you come in 300th no you should not be giving your kid an award you should be asking them that question of how do you feel you did if they tried that hard and they gave it their all that day be so proud of them

but say if they're like but mama i want a trophy or whatever it's like okay let's go back into the gym let's go back to practice and let's keep trying but like like andrew said painting this delusion that no matter what level of effort you give you should be rewarded I think is setting a false precedence for the rest of their life

of you don't really have to try that hard to be rewarded. It prevents you from having insight into the things you need to work on, right? Yes. So, and to which you can apply the best effort that you can give. I think that's important.

Um, I'm thinking about this chair. It's a fire quote that if you haven't seen the movie, it's like a old movie about an Olympic runner. And in it, he says, I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel God's pleasure. I think mission is successful as a parent if what you get your child involved with

makes them feel that form of joy, makes them feel that form of worship, which again is super hard to, because you have to have an open line of communication. And I am so thankful looking back on my experience on youth sports because when I think of my youth, obviously it gets complicated like in the NFL,

it's just not the pure, I don't feel like it's the purest form of sport. it's more about the paycheck and it's more about the work but when I look back on my youth sports career it's like I loved it dude I had posters on the wall all I wanted to do was throw the ball with my cousins that's what our conversations were about that's what we collected and I feel like when I was doing sports I felt God's pleasure I felt like I felt like when I was doing sports I felt the presence of my father there both physically because he was at the majority the majority the vast majority of our games. He would film them all from the media box. I felt his presence

and support emotionally from my father. That is what I'm hoping to do with our children as well, is to create a sense of joy, gratitude, of purpose, which does relate to their being hard times in the sport right like it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows like middle school football you're out there grinding you had a tough game it's like persevering it's like there's and that's where the purpose is from it's it's taking the difficulties and taking the joy and embracing that with gratitude and seeing that there is more to it than the outcome there's more to it than how good i am or how anyway how would you say parents can encourage

their kids to try different sports? So I think there's phases kind of and it's like at a young age it's trying a bunch of different things and then probably at I don't know age eight is the number it comes in mind it's trying less things for a little longer period of time and again you're increasing

dad experience with that sport based off of the previous smorgas board of hey I like this I didn't like this I like this I didn't like this I think a very easy thing parents you can do is

at every phase in life do a Google search around you what's offered at your kid's age write it all down or like save the websites or whatever what's offered at your kids school what's offered just like

compile a list and talk through it with your children. Show them YouTube videos of every sport. Show them highlight reels. And let's say we can only pick two or we can only pick one or we can only pick four or whatever. And make it this like exciting thing to try. You're not saying you need to commit to this for five years.

You're saying what do you want to try new? And see how that starts. and make that list based off stuff that also doesn't undermine your long-term goals of the family right so like hey we're not traveling every weekend just Sean and our daughter and while Jet and I stay at home not every weekend I'm saying sometimes that's yes I think I would put an asterisk there because that's assuming your kid falls in love with it is good at it and that's a requirement yeah but Yeah. Hypothetically speaking, our kids, your kids are in a sport they don't like and they want to quit. What are your parameters based off of your childhood and how you would raise our kids now? Evaluate the context that that situation is being brought up in. Ask why several times.

Maybe they got bullied by a kid on the team or maybe maybe what? whatever happened. So I'm asking why. And then, like we've talked about, finishing the commitment that's been made, and then filling that with some different activity. Okay. I will say almost identical to that.

I'll give you real-life examples of me in gymnastics. So gymnastics, the fulfilling a commitment thing was really hard because gymnastics is year long. There's no start to a season. There's no end to a season. It just continues forever. um there's no end um every time there are multiple times that i would get this feeling of like i think

i'm done with this sport i think i'm done i would go to my parents i'd say i want to quit they would do exactly what andrew said they would say okay i will say that was always the most shocking thing to hear from like as a kid from a parent was saying i want to quit and my parents saying okay it was almost like a reality slap in the face of like, wow, I kind of expected pushback or I expected you to say I couldn't. But after okay, they would always say, why? What's going on? What's the reason? Is it a hard day, a hard week, a hard month, a hard phase?

Are you not getting along with someone? Are you uncomfortable? Like, what are the reasons? We get through that conversation, and my parents and my coach would always do this thing where they'd be like, okay. If we got far enough down the road where my reasons made sense, where it was like my passion's not there, it's not just a hard day, it's not a hard phase, I'm not mad at my coach, whatever it is, it'd be like, let's take a week off. You can take next week off from gymnastics. And then after the week, we're going to have this conversation again. And the rule was if you went a month without your sport, you would basically erase it.

get rid of it, and you would have to replace it. So within that month time frame, you had to do your research as a kid and present to your parents and your coach. Like, what am I so excited to go try? Yeah. And my personal experience was I never made it the month. I never made it past a week, honestly, where I'd be like, oh, it must, it was actually just a hard phase. I want to go back. That's good.

It makes me want to, like, give a script to hand the parents and say, hey. follow this when your kid says this I think it's harder though like you were saying because if there's a season it'd be like okay let's finish the season let's figure out what we're doing whatever but um you personally Andrew did you ever feel immense pressure playing sports or was it always fun

um not playing sports my dad has doing boy scouts and there was there was always uh rebellion that me and my brothers would try to inject whereas like We did not want to go to Boy Scots. Piano lessons was the same thing. And, yeah, not with sports though. No.

I would say the only times that I felt, quote, immense pressure playing, doing gymnastics was when I would lose sight as a kid as to why I was in it. And the only thing I want to try to say there is I've witnessed this as a coach. When kids forget that it's their choice to be there, they stop having fun. Does that make sense? So when kids start thinking they are there to earn your praise or earn your love or they're there to give you some sort of respect or whatever it is, to earn something

they stop having fun and I think that's why every time I said I wanted to quit and my parents said okay it was like this immediate realization of oh they actually still love me if I don't do this or they actually

still you know this isn't for them so I think the only time I felt immense pressure was when I forgot that it was my choice to be there let me answer that question in a different way too did I feel immense pressure playing sport to myself? Yes, but it was internal from me

because I took it so seriously. Like even in middle school, it was like I got to play NFL football so I want to, like it was my goal. Yeah, which is amazing. It's amazing that you put that pressure on yourself. That's great, I think. Because that means you personally care about your sport.

Yeah. But toxic pressure is when you're doing it for something. someone else yeah um i also want to add to this this is something i've seen a lot this is a reality check and a tip for us as well but for all you parents out there i need you guys to be very very careful how you speak about your kids in front of them and to other people in front of them if you say my kid is going to the major leagues in baseball and he's eight years old and that is your pride and joy. You're so excited to brag to everybody around you that my kid is so good they're going to do X, Y, and Z, or they're going to make it here, or they're going to win.

Understand that your kid is digesting all of that, and they're setting that as their expectation for your approval. That's like they're standard. And I've seen this countless times where parents will walk around and say, my kid's going to the Olympics. And what you're basically telling your kid is if they don't reach the Olympics, they have not earned your respect or your approval. And that is very damaging to a kid. Meet them where they're at.

Celebrate their dreams, but do not put the cart before the horse and put standards on your kid, like, unknowingly. I think it's also important to have the self-awareness as a parent we had this happen this weekend where maybe one of your kids has an interest that is more in line with your personal interests it's probably going to be easier

and more exciting for you as a parent to praise that than if another child has a completely different interest that you don't necessarily share to praise that in the same way so it's like but you need to praise both right and that can be really difficult So just always reflect and have the self-awareness on that.

What do you think are some of the benefits that youth sports give children? Oh my gosh. One, they're a blast. They're fun. They're going to be so much fun. Discipline. The teamwork that we talked about. Yeah.

The commitment. The body awareness. Yeah, you're learning so much. Activity. Mental health. Physical health. Yeah. argue with all those things

how to listen to a coach how to goal set incremental progress deal with failure perseverance yeah it's great

it's the best it's the best okay and last thing Andrew when will we sign our kids up for sports and how we decide which ones to try I'm excited to listen to this in like 10 years and see how true to this we were

we already have our kids and some sports right yeah and they're trying out I guess they've each tried out like three or so sports before they were four and it's pretty apparent what sports they're drawn to and what they're not already yeah our two year old

is really interested in biking you okay I don't know and not that interested in soccer necessarily he seems to be super interested in physical type of stuff so like football seems like he might get excited about because he likes to tackle and run he likes baseball drew like soccer she likes to throw she likes to catch I think how we will how we decide what we'll sign our kids up for especially at this age where we can't really have like open dialogue they don't understand all the different opportunities out there is I think it's our job as parents to really like

take notes on the things that they love and make sure we're not projecting our own hobbies and our own interests on to our children. So it would be so easy for me to be like, yeah, our kids are going to do gymnastics. But that's my interest. That might not be theirs. We've picked up with our daughter. She's obsessed with science.

like obsessed and she loves a trampoline so I found a gymnastics class because it made sense for her interest that she was showing and then we're looking at like stem programs that she can go do where she can go be in a science lab and see if that sparked something our son is terrifyingly in love with bikes way more than soccer balls so now it's our job to go research are there motocross or this is a new world for me so I don't know what we do with bikes here

but it's now our job as parents to go research that and see if there's something that we can offer him and that can either feel like a drag and like a lot of work or we could reframe it and be like oh wow this is a fun adventure we get to learn about this too

which I'm pumped about all right did you have to so Sean also is the only child I'm the middle of five kids which I think is also different when it comes to, like, travel sports. You traveled for sports growing up quite a lot, right? I did.

We didn't really have rules around it. When you travel for gymnastics, especially at a recreational level, you're probably traveling five times a year. So it wasn't a lot. You weren't going to, like, travel, you know, games every weekend. In gymnastics, you compete, like, seven times a year. That's it.

but we always traveled as a family we always stayed together as a family and that was kind of like our thing but yeah that was our boundaries what about you we i'm so glad for this that indiana was not like a fall football a spring football type of state travel baseball was a big thing in indiana travel basketball was a big thing in Indiana but we I guess maybe it's because we weren't as good in those sports as we were in football we never did that so it was always one season

each season has a different sport and the summers we were just kids so it was like spring we played baseball fall we played football winter we played basketball summer we were kids and I feel like that's super healthy and it wasn't like undermining or

or fractionalizing our family where we'd all be everywhere each week in the summer or we'd get too overwhelmed with doing one sport too often over the course of 12 months. It was like a high degree of variety and a high degree of unity. We were often all on similar teams like practicing at the same facility area or literally on the same team. And so it was like it was a unifying. thing i think there are so many questions around this topic of like is are we going to allow our kids to be in travel sports what what are the boundaries you set i honestly don't think there's anything

black and white here i think you have to make decisions as a family in the moment if a travel sport is going to take your kids, one of your kids of four or all your kids in separate directions over a holiday, that needs to be a family conversation. But I think you need to make sure that my parents and my coach were always very aware of balance of making sure we balanced being a kid with being an athlete. And I would say the only kind of transferable parallel here in gymnastics is in the summer I was given the opportunity or not me personally there is an opportunity for gymnast to go travel the country to gymnastics camps and you could do like overnight camps and you could do all these things and my coach's rule was you get enough

gymnastics in the gym your summer should be spent being a kid so you can come in for practice But you're not going to go now to a summer camp and go do more gymnastics because you're obsessing over something too small. Like you need to go with your friends and go to the lake and go to the mall and go like, be a kid. And also cross training is good. Cross training is amazing. The more I hand coordination I learn in baseball, the more I can apply that hand coordination in football. And the more footwork I learn in basketball, the better football player I will be. And it's also like distance makes the heart grow fonder.

like keeping it always at a level where your kid wants more is a good thing especially at a young age your kid shouldn't be burnt out yes on the issue of holidays on there i mean i'm super thankful that even when i was playing division one cc football at vanderbilt even my senior year when we had to stay there for thanksgiving as opposed to being at home with my family and thanksgiving i was sad because my norm was family was a priority and not sport. And I can't imagine that flipped. Like if, oh, yeah, just another Thanksgiving away from family, that was not the status quo. The last question I want to talk about is, how do you think traveling for youth sports or youth sports has changed over the years?

And I think it's this. When I was, I'm so thankful for the time in which we were being raised to and playing sports because online recruiting and like highlight tapes online and exposure was just becoming a thing. We had like Rivals.com and that was like my sophomore year. Now it's, you hear stories about people getting offered Division I scholarships as a freshman or, you know, getting letters in middle school. And I think the effect of that has been trickled down where people are like, all right, we need more travel sports. We need to do more sports in general.

we need to have more exposure, more of these big tournaments. And I think that has, it's all kind of hit earlier in people's lives. And then you got, you know, these prodigy six-year-olds that are Instagram famous. And the bottom line is, like, there are a lot of people making a lot of money off of this. So the new travel baseball team that just started, you're probably going to pay, what was the average, $883 for? and I'm not saying it's a massive profit for that coach or that league but be aware of that

and know that hey if your kid was good enough to get that invitation to play on the travel sports that's not going to really go away they're going to be good enough to be scouted somewhere else where they're having fun yeah they have that talent it's not and they're going to play this card of well

you know if you don't if you don't join this league then maybe they don't join this car maybe you won't be exposed to that league or the Little League World Championships here and it's like that's not the most important thing it's not it's not I think adding to what Andrew's saying

it's becoming more and more this toxic culture at younger and younger ages with these programs where they're like oh your kid just turned five he's way behind no he's not it's that that's not how it works

that's not how talent works that's not how effort works It's not how passions work. Your kid can start at any age and still have just as good a shot as anybody. Now, if you're looking for good programs, if you're looking for good coaches, my best advice I can give you is, yeah, you can probably Google the most successful coaches in any sport in the country, but those aren't necessary at a young age. They're not.

and the way that we find coaches for our kids is who's going to foster fun in an activity while still teaching. That's all we care about. Check this out. Your kid will either be talented enough that you'll know that they have Olympic capability and they will be that genetic and that...

That's very scary to say. babe, because I've encountered so many people who think they know and they don't. And I think that's just from our professions. So take that with a grain of salt. Or your kid will have a degree of talent,

but need to supplement that talent with hard work. And just know that that hard work needs to come from the kid and not from you. It can't come elsewhere. So either way, this is where my parenting philosophy of do less.

applies where it's like don't you as a parent you're not going to be able to force an Olympic career on your child you're not because either they don't have the talent or you're going to make that hard work obligation instead of a passion or in a very wild change events you might force the like follow me on this you might actually succeed and force your child into a professional career where they find themselves at the Olympics but you know what's going to happen is they're either going to, they're like going to finish the Olympics and hate it. They're going to hate their career. They're going to resent you. And they're not going to be healthy individuals, which nothing good comes from, comes from that.

Sean and I's goal of parents are, is to have really healthy, good, close relationships with our children when they are adults. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track side. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca.com. This episode is brought to you by Defender. With its 626 horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine, the Defender Octa is taking on the Dakar rally.

The ultimate off-road challenge. Learn more at land rover.ca. In closing, the YMCA had a few ways to be healthy when it comes to youth sports parents that I wanted to go over and then we'll close. The first is, realize that winning isn't the only goal. We talked about that. The second is keep your comments positive. Don't bad mouth coaches, players, or game officials.

We're talking about youth sports. Third is, don't dwell on who won or lost. Instead of asking your child, how did you feel during the game? offer to work on that thing together before the next game. And if they say no, deal with it. Next, be knowledgeable about the game. Get involved with what your kid is involved with.

This is what you're saying. Make sure it's not your passion. Make sure it's your kid's passion. And whatever your kid is, learn about it. That's right. Celebrate it for them. Next is have good sportsmanship. Show courteous behavior towards the parents

of kids on the other team those are some of my least favorite clips online when you see parents at youth sports events just losing it or are you kidding me? That is immature. I'm adding something here. Your role

if your role is to be a parent at a game whatever sport it is where you are not the coach on the field then stay within your boundaries and your your box and make sure you are nothing but a parent do not coach from the sidelines do not scream at other kids do not yell at the ref don't do that be a supportive cheerleader to everybody shame on you parents stay in your lane next is find good role models for your kids

in whatever area they are involved with that they're in the rock climbing find the best example of a good role model and rock climbing there. And last, remember that it's your kids and not you who are playing. No matter how much resentment you carry in your life,

don't expose your kids to that. What a topic, babe. I have one more question. I've been reading through all these questions that you guys submitted on Instagram. We've basically covered all of it, but there is one. When or if to put your kids into a sport you think they'd be good at, but they don't want to play.

Answer on three, ready? One, two, three. Never. That's, again, you have to check yourself at the door as a parent and be like, is this for me or is this for them? If they don't want to play the sport that you think they're, be good at that has nothing to do with them and everything to do with you i mean my only caveat would maybe be like oh if it's baseball don't sign them up for a baseball team take them in the

backyard and like expose them to that in the lightest form possible or turn on a baseball game and like practice you know air swinging a baseball bat and if they're like oh that's fun then maybe you take the next step but it goes in increments i think but it also comes down to this it's not important for your kid to do something that they're good at it's not it's important

that they do something that they love if there are two things on the table if they're doing two sports one they're miserable at but they love and one they're really good at naturally but they don't like let them do what they love I actually disagree with you on this

I think you need to find good to great the author Jim Collins talks about this hedgehog concept. The overlap of the thing that they love, I agree with you on that. But it also needs to be something that they're good at. And also something that, like, you know, can help others, whether that's in the team situation or you're creating, you know, as an adult, like a product. What is the overlap there?

I think it's important to not live in a delusion where it's like, oh, I love it, but you're trash at it. No, I know what I'm saying? I know, but if a kid walks, into a sport say they walk into a baseball practice and they're just naturally good on their first day but they're like me i don't love that but they walk into a basketball practice and they're not good on their first day but they're like dang that was fun a hundred percent foster basketball because if they have if they have a drive to overcome a difference

in ability that is going to take them farther in life than any i'm just naturally good at it we'll take them yeah i guess we could splice hair splice hairs about this all day but it's like if they're great at baseball then there's a correlation of maybe an indication of some athletic well they might come around but i i really think finding something at a young age a kid loves is far more important. Yes. You need to find what your kid loves. What a topic.

What a topic. Let us know if you have any questions, if you have any feedback. Our kids are young, so we're just navigating this for ourselves for the first time. And maybe you have a different experience, but...

I want to answer one more question. Okay. Sorry. The most common question we receive is are we going to put our kids into football or gymnastics? You ask this daily to us. And I'll answer with this. I was fortunate enough to win an Olympic gold medal.

Highest level. I reached the highest level of my sport. With everything that I have learned about sport, when it comes to putting my kids into gymnastics, I won't go searching the country for the, best coach. We're not going to move back to Iowa when our kids start gymnastics just to be coached by Chow. Maybe 15 years down the road, if our daughter is so invested in gymnastics and is showing some sort of talent that like we could take it to that step, it might, might be a conversation.

but I say that because we aren't sourcing coaches. So there's no need for you to. I'm excited for the feedback on this. Let us know. Also, if you made it this far, follow the show, subscribe to it on whatever platform. Give it a rating. And we love your feedback.

So we love honest feedback, just like we talked about. Give it to us. That's all we have. I'm Andrew. I'm Sean. And we're the East Fam. Out.