PURPOSE, PATIENCE, PERSEVERANACE

This week I’m sharing with you one of the most powerful sports parenting videos I’ve seen in some time. It’s only a minute long, but it speaks directly to the important responsibility and the great opportunity so many of us have been afforded as the parents of young athletes. If you’re someone doing this meaningful but often difficult work, I think it might challenge and encourage you today, too. You can watch it here:

What a powerful example this sports parent provides for each one of us. He demonstrates three qualities we'd all be wise to emulate as we work to raise and develop champions of our own - three requirements for great sports parenting: purpose, patience, and perseverance.

Purpose

I get the sense from this video that this is a dad who's shown up on this day for some boxing practice, but who's really here for more than just the boxing practice. This is a dad who’s committed to a bigger purpose. He’s using his boy’s experience in sports to build and develop a mindset and a skillset that will make his son a winner, in the boxing ring and beyond. It seems obvious he’s made a daily commitment to teaching and training his son. Is he helping his boy learn how to box? Absolutely. But more importantly, he’s helping his son learn how to practice. How to improve. How to stick with problems and how to find solutions. He’s helping him learn how to persevere. These are abilities this dad seems to recognize will be important to his son’s success in any area of life. He’s intentional in recognizing the opportunity that’s been presented to him on this day to help his son learn a valuable lesson, and in turn helping him take another small step forward on the path to his very best.

Patience

Of all the things that stand out to me about this video, nothing impressed me more than this dad’s patience. I envy his patience. I want so badly to exhibit this kind of patience in the lives of my kids, both as athletes and as people. His son was trying hard, but he just wasn’t executing correctly, and when dad stepped in to correct him, the boy fell apart. Haven’t we all found ourselves in that same position, where our kid’s frustration has reached a breaking point? Sadly, usually, this pushes us as parents past our breaking point, too. We get mad. We criticize. We berate. But this dad handles it differently. In this challenging moment, he isn’t driven by his anger or his frustration. Instead, he does what champion sports parents do. He stays patient.

All too often, when our kids fall short of our hopes or expectations, we allow our anger or our frustration to drive our response. We can easily end up saying or doing something we regret. In an emotional moment, we may even offer some unfair or unhealthy judgment about who our kids are and what we've determined they are or aren't capable of. “You just don’t get it,” we say, implying that they never will. But when we understand and embrace the process that real development requires - like this dad does - it encourages us to be patient, too. We readjust our thinking and, in turn, usually our response. We move away from the emotion that leads us to believing our kids just don't get it, and instead patiently embrace a new reality, that they just don’t get it...yet. That what they need is time to learn, to practice, and to improve. And that with our help, they can and will get there.

Perseverance

Understanding and embracing the process that real development requires really means recognizing that building and developing champion young people is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a roller coaster ride filled with ups and downs, highs and lows, celebrations and frustrations. And while our culture has a tendency to celebrate the end product - like that elite-level boxer we see in the last few seconds of that video clip - we don’t usually see or celebrate the long, hard road it took to get there.

So today, I want to challenge and encourage you to do what this champion sports parent chose to do. Persevere. Stay in the fight for your child’s growth and development. Show up today and every day with purpose, and take advantage of all this day has to offer. Keep teaching and training your kids to the best of your ability. Stay patient and trust the process. If you do, you might find that someday you’ve helped build something great, like the father in that video did - an elite-level performer who’s worthy of winning, in sports and beyond. And while most people will celebrate the finished product, you’ll appreciate most where it is they started...and just how far you’ve helped them come.