The Difference Between Moms and Dads as Sports Parents
In the 1960s, youth football coach R. “Bob” Benjamin Jordan was upset by the way the dads behaved on the sidelines.
“Dads had strong opinions that were different from the coaches,” he recalls. They were vocal and critical of the coaches.
“I devised a plan to win the dads over through the moms. The moms were the glue that held the team together. They brought snacks to the practices and cooked late dinners after practices.”
His plan: to teach moms how to play football so they could better understand what the kids were experiencing and could use that understanding to influence the fathers.
“We had the first session in my basement. I showed the moms how to put on equipment. Then we moved to the field. We ran plays, ran defense and worked on kicking. The moms did everything their kids would do.”
Of course, all along Jordan’s aim was to build the confidence of the kids on his team. He thought that the players’ confidence was undermined by the way the dads behaved.
“Every kid has something he does well, but the dads wanted it to happen too fast. The kids would get discouraged and feel as if they couldn’t live up to their fathers’ expectations,” he said.
As a result of Jordan’s experiment, the moms served as assistant coaches because they understood the game and what the kids were going through. The moms were better able to communicate to the fathers how they should behave on the sidelines.
As for the kids, they loved the fact that their mothers played football and understood the game.
Jordan, who is working on a series of books for moms about sports, gives some other great ideas for boosting kids’ confidence in our interview with him.
At Kids’ Sports Psychology, you’ll find loads of other resources: additional audio interviews, e-books, videos, Questions-and-Answers and much more!
Related Articles on Youth Sports:
- Communication to Build kids’ Confidence [Podcast]
- How This Sport Builds Confidence and Focus in Kids
- Helping Sports Kids Build Stable Confidence
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