As we enter the spring season we also head towards end of year exams for students, with a huge workload from the schools.

The majority of children are enrolled in to and participate in multiple programs, creating a scheduling nightmare, and a conflict of what to put the most effort into. Sadly the ‘Fear of Missing Out’, has lead to organizations and programs expecting greater commitment to their cause, and children are now finding it harder than ever before to balance everything.

When you have youths put all their focus in to one discipline they will burn out, suffer with stress, and will find themselves not developing holistically as a well rounded individual. Participation in sport helps youths as a stress relief (if in the correct program and with good support around them), as sports should be fun no matter what the long term goal is. Sports will also help with much needed life skills, and having these skills practiced in real time through sports. Leadership, integrity, resilience, and communication are all vital to getting ahead in life, and are all key parts of playing sports.

When school work increases, it’s important for players to manage their time and find balance, being able to work to schedules and timelines, being efficient in how they spend their time, and finding a way to relieve stress. The following graphic should help with the busy exam time while playing sports.

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend the Positive Coaching Alliance coach education session.

Parents focusing on how they can best support their youth soccer player.

We would also like to thank Danielle Slaton (@daniellevslaton) for presenting an incredibly informative workshop which was a great interactive experience for the parents.

Parents got to work in groups to discuss what they felt was most important for their child when participating in sports. To follow up the parents are to do the same task with their child at home to see how their answers compare, we look forward to hearing from the parents what the results were.

A great introduction to the workshop was emphasizing the need for us as adults (that includes coaches) to see ‘the bigger picture’. We are far too focused on the youth game to only look at the scoreboard (that’s the adults game), and not look at the process and the individual ‘wins’ involved in youth sports. It’s important that we define what winning is, and it should be the day to day improvement of players as they follow the long term development pathway. Winning a game is not bad, it’s great, but if we are to do what is best by the youth player, it needs to be through the correct process and doing it the right way. Winning also needs to involve the life skills that can be learned and how we are making great individuals of the future and not just excellent soccer players. Leadership, resilience, teamwork, and integrity, are all vital life skills we needs as we get older and enter the adult world of careers and family.

PCA is supporting youth sports bu having a positive influence on the environment and culture of youth sports, and nothing outlines the issue we have in youth sports as this paragraph from the “Second Goal” parent workbook,

‘Professional sports is a business whose goal is making a profit by entertaining fans. That usually requires a winning team, which leads to a win at all cost mentality. Unfortunately, professional sports and the media surrounding it have become powerful to the point that youth sports too often mimics professional sports.’

Sadly and all too often occurrence at youth sports events are adults (parents and coaches) throwing hats, knocking over chairs, and screaming at officials (often teenagers who are officiating). Not only does this make for an environment where players are now dropping out at a rate of 70% by age 14, but a huge problem with having enough officials for games (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/sports/referee-parents-abuse-videos.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share).

Danielle emphasizing the importance of honoring the game.

During the 2019/20 season we will also be hosting player and coach education through PCA, and we look forward to having PCA back with us for those events. In the meantime, throughout the season we will be publishing posts on some of the key elements of being a ‘second-goal parent’.

For more educational information and useful resources make sure to visit our article page, https://www.fremontyouthsoccer.com/interesting-articles/

This Monday is Presidents Day, therefore no practice due to the observed holiday.

Learn more about President’s Day at the following link – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington’s_Birthday