What's Ahead
Parents:
   Helping from the sidelines
Coaches:
   Practices Fun
Players:
   Is your stomach ready for the game?

Maine Youth Sports
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P.O. Box 442
Cumberland, ME 04021
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(207) 415-6321

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Five Things Not to Ask Your Child

It is well understood that youth sports is a team effort, but that team isn’t just limited just to the players and the coach. Parents have much to offer their young athlete no matter the amount of their prior experience. The team works best when it works together to solve problems and has reasonable expectations. One way to help the team work together is to avoid five questions that parents sometimes ask of their child:

1. Don’t ask your child to play on a team without their friends, if they don't want too. - For kids, being around their friends is an important part of youth sports. Kids routinely make their sports decisions based on where their friends are playing. The more friends a child has on a team, the more likely they are to try hard. Alternatively, if a child has few friends on the team, a parent can often help by hosting or sponsoring a team party to enable their child to get to know the other players better.
2. Don’t ask your child to play the same sport year round. - Just like kids need to play different positions to develop their mental understanding of the game, they also need to play multiple sports to develop their overall physical capabilities. Encouraging a variety of sports over different seasons keeps things interesting for the child and helps them develop physically to their fullest potential.
3. Don’t ask your child to feel grateful for your taking them to practice. - Youth sports works best when it is a family effort rather than just a child effort. Practice and game times are opportunities to share as well as opportunities for play. Watching and supporting practice time is just as valuable to a child as watching and supporting a game and should be mutually rewarding for both parent and child.
4. Don’t ask your child to exercise if you won’t. - At any age, a healthy lifestyle involves regular physical exercise. While playing sports, kids (especially older kids) often need to exercise away from practice to develop stamina, quickness or strength. If parents want to encourage this exercise, the best way is by sharing the experience rather than just measuring the experience.
5. Don’t ask your child to understand the game if you don’t. - Young players getting started in a sport often get discouraged early because they don’t have a clear understanding of their role. Parents can help their child tremendously by helping them understand the basics of the game and working with them on drills. There are numerous books in every sport designed to educate new players and spectators. Parents should utilize these resources to improve the chances of a youth sports success.

Just like adults, kids desire time with their friends, seek a variety of experiences, appreciate the interest of others, like sharing difficult tasks and want someone to share conversation. Parents and kids have more in common than they think but have different ways of expressing it. By coming together as a team, parents and children can improve the experience for everyone.

Assigning Positions

Just like kids need to improve physical skills, they also need a better understanding of how a team works together. In their initial efforts, kids often attempt to imitate what they see in a professional game, such as a dodging move to the basket, a breakaway or an open field run. What kids often fail to understand is how the pros work together as a team to create those memorable moments.

When kids imitate the pros, their play often looks like “hot-dogging” or selfish play to coaches and moments of brilliance to parents. Coaches have to help young kids (and parents) see the bigger picture of how teams work together to score or defend and this comes from helping them understand positioning.

Each position has different requirements and just as it is okay to use practice time for drills, it is also okay to use practice time to explain. For younger kids, these explanation sessions are best kept short and intermixed with physical activity. But as kids get older and can sit still longer, a practice conducted in front of a white board can also make sense.

With a little pre-game planning, coaches should look at assigning positions in advance of a game and give the players a chance to anticipate the responsibilities. Advance assignment also gives the players time to talk these responsibilities over with their parents for a better understanding. If some parents don’t have a good understanding of the sport, coaches can recommend books and websites to help them better help their child.

A team that is positionally solid is hard to beat and coaches should not worry about “wasting” field, court or ice time with conversations.

Leadership

Team leaders are not just those designated as team captain. All players can provide leadership by what they say and what they do. These players not only want to see their own play improve but that of their teammates as well. Leadership is shown in different ways including:

• Reaching out and making friends on the team
• Complimenting other players when they play well
• Encouraging other players when they make mistakes
• Encouraging teammates even when the team is behind on the scoreboard
• Demonstrating hard work Never throwing a fit when things don’t go right
• Listening to coaches Helping other players on the team to play better

Coaches need players to help provide leadership to the team and set a positive example for other players.

You can do supersets on your muscles to failure and eat only the most nutritious foods, but you can still be cheating yourself out of any performance gains because you don't get enough sleep.

American High School Students surveyed slept 6.7 hrs per night. In contrast, High school students surveyed in Europe slept 8.5 hrs per night. With practice demands and homework consuming much of their free time, the average American athlete is subject to sizeable sleep debt.

Exactly how much sleep should you be getting?
Sleep researchers suggest that the optimal sleep length for young athletes is actually about 9.2 hrs per night. Sleeping less than this and trying to make up for it by sleeping in on Saturdays and Sundays doesn't count. Your body's rhythm is thrown off, and by afternoon, you feel tired and irritable. Your recovery metabolism is hampered.

Do yourself a favor, and get enough sleep. Your body will reward you with the gains you want out of your workout program.

Human Kinetics
(Strength & Conditioning Journal Vol 24, No. 4 p18-19)

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