re: Youth sports fricking suck sometimes.

“Sobbing and searching for answers”?

Over recreation?

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And all I can think of is knocking back some hard liquor but I gave up alcohol for Lent.

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Well, since you broadcast your religious devotion here, you’ve already received your reward. Go ahead and get drunk, Josh.

Yes teach,
But also,
Professionals sob over losing a Super Bowl or World Series.
The highest prize on the highest stage; after 30 years of training.

BUT…8 year olds shouldn’t get too bent out of shape over the LLL Hammond Dixie-Youth; All-Star Invitational, Division-2; Spring Classic, Bronze-Bracket.

Spent 11 hours at Holy Cross yesterday for a wrestling tournament. Long arse day but both my boys did great and wrestled their asses off Letting them have a day off today to geek out on Fortnite.

Dealing with upset kids can be tough, but you gotta be straight with them. Crying solves nothing. And if they don't like that feeling of losing, they need to realize where they need to improve and put in work on their own time to get better. Babying the kids that are crying does nothing but let them continue to cry when shite doesn't go their way.

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Good. It means they care. It means they are competitive.

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Absolutely disagree. Crying doesn't mean you care or are competitive. It means you're a whiny kid when things don't go your way. That's life not just sports.

If my daughter has a bad day at the plate or the team loses, we talk about the good and the bad things that went down during the day or the game on the ride and after we get out the car its in the past. We move on. If she wants to get better, she works hard the next day or next practice or whatever it may be. If she doesn't want to work, im not going to force her but when she has another bad game, she knows she has no one to blame but herself. Sports are about teaching life lessons and crying is not the answer.

As the great Ted Lasso says, be a gold fish. Thats my kids motto now

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Sounds pretty ridiculous. 8 years old? I probably hadn't even touched a basketball until age 10 and only then because a friend's dad recruited me for a recreational basketball team. All throughout the elementary ages, parents sign kids up for many different reasons--to ascertain their interest in the sport, for social reasons, exercise, discipline, etc. and shouldn't be discouraged from doing so. The kids without the necessary skills, interests, etc will be filtered out by middle school.

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I’m not acting like they shouldn’t play, I’m saying they should play in the right leagues and join teams with similar intentions. You’d be amazed by the number of people out there playing in competitive leagues against kids who are highly skilled and very athletic when they are nowhere close to either. A lot of it is driven by their parents thinking the rising tide will lift their kids boat, instead of realizing it is mutually frustrating for all the kids.

This isn’t like it was 25+ years ago. If you live in Major cities, kids are involved very young, it is highly organized, and segmentation starts way before middle school. My kids both played the following before they were 6.

Basketball, soccer, flag football, lacrosse, volleyball, swimming. The place to learn for a kid who has never played isn’t by backing into a team of experience kids who are competitive through friends at school. Go do camps and clinics and join random teams at the YMCA and get a baseline

If your kids are under 16 years old, they, nor you, should care one bit about how things went for more than 3-5 minutes after the game.

Take them to Dairy Queen for a blizzard.

My daughter was a very good athlete and played AAU travel ball starting in the summer after the 6th grade. She was very good. But she had dad as her coach as a very young player. Once she got to 6th grade she was being coached in game by other more advanced coaches at school and in the summer. She had to adjust to being an athlete at an elite level. It was hard at first because she was used to things going her way all the time.

During a meltdown where we had a little back and forth, after an away 7th grade game, on the way home, I stopped the car on the side of the road and asked her,
"Do you want me to just be your cheerleader and just pump you up all the time and never point out mistakes? Or do you want me to continue to push you to be better and give you real feedback? Do you really want to put in the work to go be a high school basketball player? It's your call, I can do either. But not both. I'll be whatever you need me to be. I'm your dad, not your coach anymore." But I warned her, choosing option 1 meant this was the best it would ever be. I wasn't going to fight her battles for her. And I wasn't going to yell at her coach for her. Her coach is trying to win. I would just sit and cheer. But the meltdowns were over.

She picked the second option.

So one of the things we started was a tradition after every JH game and AAU game.

I would ask her, what was the one thing that she did the best in the game? What was her best attribute? She would answer. Then she would ask me what do you think I excelled at tonight? I would tell her. Sometimes the same, sometimes different. We would spend a few minutes relishing the good, even if it was just, I rebounded really good, or I made all my free throws.

Then I would ask her, what is the one thing you wish you could have done better tonight? And I would force her to be honest, don't just pick a nothingburger. She would answer and then I would ask, how can you get that done? Then she would ask me the same question, what is something I saw in her game that she needed to improve on, and I would tell her something she could work on. She would decide how she would do that.

It forced her to look at the game outside her emotions and outside of results. Helped her to focus on the process and understand her strengths and weaknesses. She could, by herself, reinforce the things done well and make a plan for getting better. It allowed her to address the negatives in a positive way.

By the time she was at the end of her freshman season, she was starting for a 5A school and she was doing these mental sessions on her own. She could process the good and bad and parley it into a plan for the future. Her coach saw it. She was her team captain for three years.

Be straight forward with your kid and help their mental game. You will learn one of two things, they don't really care about it and just want you to come and cheer, or you will learn they really do want to take on the challenge and be serious. If they don't take it as serious, cheer them on and don't ruin the fun they are having.
If they do, help them to learn to work on the process and internalize their own development. Too many parents worry about winning. And too many kids end up thinking they deserve a result. I tell my kids all the time, life is a ladder. All of the things you want are at the top. But you can't circumvent the process of climbing the ladder. Everyone wants to jump to the top. But the reality is you do it step by step. Help them learn to take on the steps and stop worrying about the top rung.