YOUR KID’S GETTING CHEATED

You don’t have to look far today to find the sports parent who's convinced his or her kid's getting cheated. It’s the harsh reality for sports parents: way too many of us spend way too much time playing the victim. Some parents just handle it better than others. For some, the fight stays inside. We bite our lip and control our behavior, but the radar in our brain is constantly searching to identify some unfairness – from the coach, from the umpire, from his teammates or opponents, or from the game itself.

For others, the fight spills outward. You can’t contain yourself any longer – you have to act. That’s when you become the parent who yells out…or storms out…or gets so mad, you think maybe you're gonna pass out, right there at your child’s game.

This happens in part because too many athletes and too many parents are unprepared for the inevitable adversity that comes with playing the game, especially at a high level. They don’t anticipate that it’s coming and then feel offended when it does. The truth, though, is that adversity is part of the experience for every athlete. It will be a part of your child's experience, too. What part in the story adversity plays will be up to you. Eric Greitens is a former Navy Seal who wrote a great book, Resilience. In it, he makes an important distinction between the champion’s mindset and everyone else. Which one best describes your perspective, and the one you're working to instill in your young athlete?  

“Hardship is unavoidable. Resilient people recognize this reality. Then they prepare themselves for it, seeking to meet it as best they can,

on their own terms... The naive mind imagines effortless success. The cowardly mind imagines hardship and freezes.

The resilient mind imagines hardship and prepares.”

      - From Resilience by Eric Greitens

Today I’m challenging you to accept the fact that adversity will be a part of your young athlete's story. If you’re serious about raising a champion - in sports and in life - it’s time to put away some naive picture of effortless success. It’s time to stop blaming people you’ve determined are responsible for your child’s misfortune. It’s time to shelf the victim mentality. 

Instead, it’s time to focus on helping your child become his or her very best. Champion parents believe they can use whatever happens in the life of their child today to help move them closer to their full potential, including – and maybe especially – experiences involving hardship or adversity. They've come to accept some realities of life for anyone who wants to be great at anything, realities they’re determined to help their child come to accept, too:

*They've accepted that sports, like life, isn’t always fair. What we think we deserve or are entitled to is not always what we get.

*They've accepted that life will be filled with events and decisions that exist beyond our control. How we respond to those events and decisions is actually what matters most. The preacher and author Charles Swindoll said it best: “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.”

*They've accepted that just because circumstances are hard doesn’t mean we have to fall to pieces. Success can still be found in the face of our challenges, and we can still treat people well even in the midst of our struggle. 

If you’re a champion parent, you understand that only through adversity can these important lessons be taught and confirmed. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re excited for your kid to struggle – you love them. But if you’ve accepted that adversity is a part of their story, then you’re excited about what this struggle can teach. You’ve decided that loving him or her means preparing them for the realities of a successful life more than it means knitting for them some security blanket of naivety, safety, and protection. You see that the safety blanket may make both of you feel better today, but that’s not all you see. In the big picture, you also see how a victim mentality cripples your child for tomorrow.  

The victim sports parent, unfortunately, doesn’t usually see how their actions today will impact the person their child is becoming. This parent is determined to stand up and defend their kid, shelter and protect them from the unfairness of their situation, or – at the very least – find someone or something to blame for it. Why? Because they love their child. Unlike the champion parent, though, this parent shows that love by knitting that blanket and cushioning the fall. Intentionally or not, they've decided that feeling good today is more important than preparing their child for the realities of life. They can’t see the big picture. “Tomorrow?” the weak-minded sports parent naively thinks, “Who cares about tomorrow? My child feels safe, and protected, and happy today.”

Unfortunately, for the victim sports parent, tomorrow will be here soon. If this is you, then you’ve probably spent too much time feeling anxious, angry, or victimized and too little time focused on helping your child prepare. In time, your kid will follow suit. He or she will fall down plenty in life – like we all do –  but they won’t be able to pick themselves up. Instead of getting better, they’ll get bitter. They’ll feel safe, and protected, and maybe even convince themselves they're happy there in their blanket. But they won’t be a champion.

If this is you, then you’re making it harder – not easier –  for your child to reach their full potential, on the athletic field and in life. They won’t become their best, and you’re part of the reason why. Now, does your child need to experience every hardship in life? No, probably not. But if they don't experience any hardship, ever? If they're always the victim? Then you’re helping to shape their understanding of the “truth:” that they deserve to get everything they think they're entitled to, that events and decisions existing outside their control are more important than his or her response to them, and that challenging circumstances give them the right to fall to pieces.

Are you convinced that your kid's getting cheated? If so, then I’ll agree with you. They are getting cheated…by you! There’s a champion in your child that needs built up, strengthened, and developed. Instead, you’re weakening and crippling them. Don’t spend your sports parent experience playing the role of the victim. Instead, see the opportunity that exists today to model for your child what a champion looks like, and help them become someone worthy of winning for themselves.