The Sport-Parent quiz on our web site provides you with a score for your most common reactions and behaviors to your child's athletic performance. The higher your Hero score the easier it is to have a healthy, long-lasting, and loving relationship with your child, and the easier it will be for your child to perform well. Your score was derived from your answers to questions that reflect your behaviors regarding two variables: 1) How much emphasis you place on performance achievement (pressure applied); and 2) How much emphasis you place on character development (life-lessons taught). We believe sport mastery reached at the expense of self-mastery has only short-term benefits for athletes in our society, and can have disastrous long-term effects. There are many athletes in the world who win at sports and lose at life for this reason.
This article addresses the specific tendencies that keep you from a higher Hero score. It will provide you with practical suggestions for becoming a Hero-Parent to your child.
The Agent
The Agent-Parent acts as though a child is a commodity to be developed and promoted. This parent tends to over-emphasize the destination (scholarship or pro contract) more than the journey. Therefore most performances get evaluated and compared to some standard that must be met to stay on track to reach a goal. Life lessons and the value of the experience are over-looked. A sub-par performance produces a mood swing for the Agent-Parent because he/she identifies with it personally.
Here are some suggestions:
- Focus on your child's experience rather than the outcome.
- Avoid making performance comparisons about other children and talking about it.
- Remember, the game and your child's performance belongs to him.
- Before a game say, "I love you" or "Enjoy the game" rather than "Play your best" or "Don't let me down".
- Separate your emotions from your child's performance so your mood is supportive no matter what happens.
- Listen more and talk less after a competition to hear about feelings.
- Talk more about lessons learned than rankings and percentages.
Agent Vulnerabilities:
When:
- Right after a game or practice is when you're most likely to show too much concern for performance excellence and winning.
- At mealtime you are most likely to be the one to initiate conversations about technique or work ethic issues and push for agreement.
- Car rides - your obsession with your child's sport and performance means you're likely to bring it up too often, as if your child is one dimensional.
- Agents tend to see their child as a commodity to be developed rather than a child to be loved and accepted. Agents fear things won't work out according to their plan if they don't push it along.
Players often fire their Agents! Play the role of Hero to your child. No one ever fires their Hero.
