No Woman Is an Island: Supporting the Girl Athlete

The spring sports leagues are starting up! Time to dig out those shin guards, make sure the cleats fit, that you have a water bottle that hasn’t grown mold and all the other equipment you need. Did I say “you”? I mean your child, of course!

As parents of kids who play sports, sometimes it is hard to remember precisely what our role is. Why is your child even playing sports? What do you hope they get out of it? Skills? Discipline? A college scholarship?

As I wrote , I never played sports as a child so I had no personal experience with the role of “parent of an athlete.” I became an athlete as an adult. No one “made” me play; I did it because it was fun. Certainly not every moment. But at every moment I participated because I chose to. Along the way I learned a lot about myself and developed skills and discipline from which I still benefit. But I didn’t devote my time and energy to sports in order to learn these life lessons. I did it because I enjoyed it.

That is the thing we forget as parents. At a course for parents given by the Positive Coaching Alliance, we were asked to list all the things we wanted our children to get from playing sports. I listed things like: self-confidence, athletic skills, teamwork, physical fitness. The instructor pointed out that the reasons our kids play sports are to have fun and be with friends.

So the thing to remember as a parent is that our kids are out there to have fun. When it stops being fun, most likely they will stop doing it. Of course “fun” doesn’t mean that you can’t take it seriously. It is fun to be good at something, to develop skills. It is fun to win. But developing skills and winning games should not be our goals as parents.

On the other hand, our job is not to make the experience perfect for our kids either. Many of us have experienced cases where coaches, other parents, or even other players did something that diminished the experience for our child. Certainly if someone does anything that is verbally or physically abusive or unethical we should speak up. And if a situation is so bad that it is draining the enjoyment from our child’s love of sports, then we should figure out a way to improve it. Depending on the age of our child, we may choose to talk to the coach or other adult, or we can encourage our child to speak up.

However, there are a lot of cases where your child’s coach, or an official, or another parent will do things that do not meet the standard for interference described above, but which are just “not right.” What should you do? The first thing to think about is how important is it? It may bother you a lot, but is it actually bothering your child? Is it something that affects her self-confidence or enjoyment of the sport? If yes, is there something you can do that will not actually make the situation worse? Confronting another parent or complaining to the coach may actually do more harm than good.

PCA has many great ideas for things parents can do to support our kids and help make their experiences good ones. I really recommend their resources. All I will say here is that no matter what kind of experience your child has, we can help them learn a positive life lesson. Even if that lesson is: Sometimes things are not at all fair, but you are strong enough to deal with it.

I think these lessons are especially important for girls. Some of the things I gained from sports, that I don’t think girls get anywhere else in our culture are:

• What your body can do is more important than how it looks.
• Whatever level of skill you have, you can improve with practice.
• Those who are the best at something are the ones who work the hardest at it.
• Competitors are not enemies.
• You are not made of glass. You will not shatter to pieces if you fall down or someone or something knocks into you. Sometimes it is worth risking minor injury.
• Other girls/women can be your teammates, support you, help you achieve your goal.

Our children may not have the perfect experience playing sports. In most cases, coaches are just parent volunteers with different skills and philosophies. Certainly leagues could provide more training and guidance. I believe that coaches should be judged by the number of their players who return the following season. I bet we’d see a lot more focus on having fun!