The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - For Coaches and Parents in Youth Sports | Foundations Friday 68

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

I've been a parent for almost 16 years and spent ~10 of those on the sidelines or on the field as a Coach for Youth Soccer, Flag and Tackle Football and a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) kid's class. These are my tips for Parents and for Coaches to help build up the kids participating.Parents:Let kids be coachedKids carry their own equipmentIf you want to help, sign upYelling at kids, coaches and referees doesn't helpCoaches:Set the example"What you allow in your presence you promote"Building kids up is primary. Wins are secondary.Have a plan, stay informed and get involved,KevinKevin Pannell, PMP | Creator & Host ‘KEV Talks’ Podcast | Subscribe |  Instagram | Twitter | LinkedInWant to be on KEV Talks? Fill out the request hereGive feedback on the show and the website here

hey everybody happy friday this friday kev talks youth sports so i'm going to share my two cents from my standpoint as a parent and as a coach i have coached youth tackle football flag football and soccer and a coach actually kids jiu-j class. And so I want to share what I think can be helpful for you as the listener if you're a parent or if you're a coach. So let's jump into this. So as a parent, the first thing that I think about for my kids and for others or that I hope that parents do is to let your kids be coached. Let the coaches do their job.

Let them get instruction from the coaches without you giving your two cents every few minutes or hovering over the child when they're at practice. It's distracting for the kid. It's distracting for the coaches. And depending on whether or not you played the sport or just watched it on TV, it can actually not be helpful. So the first thing to me is to let them be coached, coachable kids, become good team members and productive members of teams down the road. The second thing is a practical thing, and that's let them carry their equipment and water. Unless or when my kids were small, I probably carried their stuff and very quickly said, no, you can carry your water bottle, you can carry your soccer ball, or you can carry your helmet

and your pads, or you put them on. I'll help you the first few times. It's just like tying their shoes. They don't tie my kid's shoes. I taught them how to do it a few times, help them a few times, and then they do it. So I think if you have the kids carry their stuff, it gives them responsibility for their equipment and really gets them ready for what they're going to have to do as they get older and play sports. So let them be coached. Let them carry their equipment and water. If you want to coach, sign up. That's my third thing. There's a lot of parents that yell things from the sidelines, yell things at the coaches, at the refs, at everybody all around. And here's something, here's my two cents. And again, my two cents on this podcast is always mine, not the organization I work for now that I used to

work for, that I coach for, that I used to coach for. But parents and people in general's true nature comes out when their team is losing, particularly when the parents of kids teams are losing. It comes out. Sometimes it can be really ugly, which is unfortunate, and it doesn't help. And oftentimes I've seen, or sometimes I guess I should say, the parent take it out on the coaches and on the kids. And that certainly doesn't help at all. So if you want to coach, this is my third tip, then sign up to coach, right? There's for most youth sports leagues, there are, there's always a statement that says, if you have experience or if you'd like to help, or if you'd like to sign up and then typically you get a background check, you fill out a form, and then you can help. If you've never played the

sport, listen to the coach that's played it before and learn. If you've played the sport, then it's a great opportunity to share what you know and the fundamentals and how the kids can get better. So if you want to help officially, then sign up. The fourth thing, and this kind of alludes to what I touched on, is that yelling at the kids, the coaches, and the refs does not help. It doesn't help your player. If you're screaming at them to hit harder or run faster or kick the ball more or whatever, it actually singles them out.

It can be embarrassing. And I've had kids that have been yelled at by their parents and singled out, and then they're crying, right? Now they feel bad. Now their parent put so much pressure on them that doesn't help it certainly doesn't help when you yell at the coaches most coaches of youth sports are doing it for free on their own time in addition to their full-time jobs their kids playing sports so doesn't help and the refs you know they don't make a ton of money and they're there to have kids and help kids learn the rules

of the game that's it so for me four things and there's a lot more stuff that I've learned and probably you all have learned or would suggest, but these are the big ones to me is let your kid be coached. Let them carry their own equipment and water. If you want to coach, sign up and please don't yell at the kids, the coaches or the refs. It does not help. As a coach, here's how I try and look at myself and have looked and learned from other coaches is one set the example in your words and actions, right? Set the example. Are you screaming at the kids?

Do you think tough love to like a 10 year old by screaming at him and you're a grown man is helpful? Are you completely out of shape and you're yelling at the kids to run faster and do push ups, right? Verse, I like I'm doing, I do conditioning with kids and so I'm in pretty good shape. So I do the push-ups with them sometimes and the squats and all that kind of stuff and show them. It makes a big difference.

Now, I get it. People are in different stages of life when they're coaching. They may not be able to do that. But in general, act like you want the kids to act. Pay attention. Look them in the eye. Shake their hand. Do all that kind of good stuff.

The second is a quote that a good buddy of mine, shout out Jackson, shared with me, and it's what you allow in your presence you promote, right? So if you allow the players to talk with bad language, to fight with each other, to throw their helmets, to have horrible attitudes to ignore you, then that's what you're going to get on the field and in practice, and you're promoting it. So you've got to nip that in the bud. This is where 100% you want to enlist the parents. I had a great example of a parent, you know, of someone that saw their child maybe not listening or being disrespectful, and they corrected it.

Pretty awesome. So remember, what you allow in your presence, you promote. If you let kids come off the sideline, throw their helmets, sit on the bench as if their whole teams let them down, well, then that doesn't help the whole team and it looks like crap. The third thing is build the kids. The wins are secondary. I've been proud to help build kids up and see other coaches build my kids up to where

at least the kids when they're exercising or when they're winning or losing, come together and lift each other up and help the slower person in the conditioning. And to me, if you can get kids to do that together, then you've really built up the team and you've built up the camaraderie and the leadership. And if you win games, that's awesome. If you don don't win games everybody wants to be a winner right but remember it's youth sports right this is developmental this is and this is to say under 13 roughly right but you want to build these kids up you want to get them to build each other up you want to get them to certainly learn fundamentals of kicking a ball or tackling or

catching and all that kind of stuff or you know arm, arm bars and things. But you don't do it at the expense of just going win, win, win, win, win constantly. That's the only thing. Sure, we like to win. But first, we like to be good teammates. So thank you so much for listening to this KevTalks about youth sports, parents and coaches in particular. I know I found this helpful to learn these lessons over the years. Some I did well, some I didn't.

And I hope that you find it helpful. So go to the KevTalksPod.com, check it out, doing some website updates, KevTalks Podcast. You can subscribe to this on every platform where podcasts are, or almost all of them. Please leave a rating and review on Apple.

If you found this helpful, share it. That really helps. So remember, have a plan, stay informed, get involved. Thanks so much for being here. But for now, I've got to fly.