‘Gordon – what do I say to my child when they have had a bad game or competition?’
‘What you mean – be honest with them? Would your parents have been honest with you?’
‘Yes they would.’
‘Why are we ripping up everything previous generations of parents have done before to overly protect this generation of children from normal experiences? Perhaps on occasions we may need to be honest and have the difficult conversations with them?’
This is just part of a conversation that we had with a group of parents at a recent workshop and it got me really thinking about the challenges we face today as parents in society and how actually on occasions perhaps we are not really helping ourselves or our children.
It also led me to challenge this particular group and generation of parents to stand together, be better and lead as there are times where we seem to be ripping up the rulebook of any parenting that has gone before, some of this for the better but certainly not all of it.
Whilst we do not have a crystal ball we need to ask the question, ‘Is our approach to our sports parenting creating a quick fix solution or are we just creating problems for our children in the future?’
Sport still remains one of the safest vehicles to equip our children with a wide range of character and life skills that will allow them to thrive in whatever walk of life they go into. However, it only does this if we value the journey, embrace the reality of it and the learnings that come with it.
We need to use the scenarios that sport throws up to help develop these character and life skills in our children and be explicit in talking about these on a regular basis so that our children can see that we value these just as much as any performance outcomes that they may achieve.
Skills such as determination, commitment, resilience, creativity, adaptability, self-organisation, good communication skills to name but a few, can all be developed healthily through the sporting experience.
Having a bad game or competition and suffering some form of disappointment(e.g injuries) will be a normal part of the sporting experience, hopefully not too often, but it is certainly going to happen and we need to use these opportunities to help our children through it. Not by being dishonest, rushing to make them feel better by righting the wrongs or even falling into the trap of what has been labeled the ‘S*@t Sandwich.’
For those of you who have not come across this term it is a process of feedback where we dress up our feedback with positive points before and after(the bread) before delivering the disgusting filling(the negative feedback) somewhere in the middle.
We may want to do this to make our feedback more palatable for our young people but the reality is that they are not stupid and start getting used to the fact that any positive feedback that we give them is likely to be preceded by a very large, ‘BUT.’
We also know from different pieces of research that this method is useless for feedback particularly if our children leave the conversation perhaps only talking about the bread or knowing that despite our attempts to praise that actually we were more bothered about criticising.
Positive and productive feedback requires some degree of honesty, empathy, purpose and understanding.
However, can we go too far the other way in being unrealistically positive?
Many parents that we have spoken to report other parents going over the top with lavish amounts of praise whether it is deserved or not.
Coaches report it being a real challenge coaching children who perhaps have a very different opinion of what they are actually achieving than the reality.
We also know that one of the key psychological characteristics for developing excellence is realistic performance evaluation and we can be helping support our children with this if we take an honest and realistic approach.
Toxic positivity is the belief that we should only focus on positive emotions and avoid or suppress any negative emotions, thoughts, or experiences.
It’s the idea that in every situation, no matter how difficult or challenging, we should always try to be happy, grateful, and optimistic. Susan David, Ph.D. describes this as a form of denial.
Applying positive mindsets or affirmations to bypass uncomfortable emotional states involves rejecting, avoiding, negating and dismissing unwanted emotions in favour of a fake positive version of reality.
This prevents the person experiencing the disappointment from being taken seriously and from being able to make sense of their experience to move forward positively with.
When things go wrong in sport for our children it can be easy for us to fall into this trap without potentially even realising that we are doing it.
Statements may include:
“You’ll be alright.”
“It doesn’t matter, it is not that important.”
“I know it’s bad but It could be worse.”
We can also seek to blame or make excuses for our children at this point which can be equally as damaging particularly if these are the only types of dialogues we ever have with our children when things don’t go according to plan.
So what can we do as sports parents when our child has had a bad game or competition, the very place that we started this blog?
We can be ready and prepared to listen and ask open-ended questions that allow our young people to discuss what has happened to them, how they have seen and feel about it and help to support them to make sense of it.
We may have our own thoughts and opinions but our ability to try and sit with our children, not make it about us, show empathy and try to see things from their perspective is incredibly powerful.
We can potentially use our own experiences/stories in a positive way but only after we have let them get it all out there and ask them if they would like to hear about it rather than perhaps impose it upon them.
Reflecting and summarising what our children have said to us is also a great skill that shows that we have understood accurately the message they were conveying to us. It also helps them to further clarify their own thoughts around what has just happened.
The benefit of supporting our children to gain insight and meaning that can help them move forward, should never be underestimated. This will In help them to develop a toolbox of strategies that allow them to manage similar situations in the future thus leading to higher levels of resilience and this far outweighs any well-intended toxic positivity.
On a personal level I have tried so hard to get better at this but still even last week could not resist the urge to say how I saw the world, what needed to be done to solve the problem (the exact opposite to what we are discussing here) and whilst it made me feel better, I am not sure it really helped my children.
I never said it was going to be easy, but there is certainly plenty for us to reflect on and consider.
