9 Keys for Success when Coaching Your Child’s Team

When you register your child to play hockey, you always run the risk of being asked to coach. In the younger ages, most of the coaches are parents. Some times you have a choice — coach or your child doesn’t get to play.

How should you coach your child’s team? Here are 9 keys for success that can help you when coaching your child’s hockey team:

1. Know the game – So, you think your son or daughter will be delighted to have you for a coach just because it means you can spend some “quality time” together? Wrong! If you don’t know what you’re talking about on the ice — and you don’t make the effort to learn — they would rather you just stay home.

2. Listen to your players – Kids like to feel respected. Yes, you need to establish your authority — to keep both kids and parents in line — but players are people too. Kids can often see more about what is going on on the ice than can parents in the stands. Ask them, listen to them and value their input.

3. Don’t play favorites – For most kids, being the coach’s pet is bad enough; being one just because of bloodlines is unbearable. On the other hand, no child wants to be singled out for extra harsh treatment because Dad’s the coach. As hard as it may be at times, treat your child like any other player.

4. Get everyone in the game – All kids like play more than to win. Sure winning is fun but kids like to play and be a part of the team and the game. Make sure all of your players get plenty of playing time and opportunities to try different positions.

5. Make it FUN – The No. 1 reason kids play sports is to have fun. You can help. Avoid repetitive drills, instead use good-humored small sided games. Make games exciting, not terrifying. Treat the team to pizza or ice cream after a game now and then – not as a reward but as a group activity. Enjoy yourself. Kids don’t want to feel like a burden.

6. Don’t baby them – No kid wants be told everything to do and pay attention all the time, but players expect the coach to make them do whatever they need to do to be ready for the game. Once on the ice, allow them to make their own decisions if if they make mistakes. They will learn more from the mistakes than doing what they are told to do from the bench.

7. Be a teacher – Kids play sports for fun, but if they don’t improve, they’ll eventually get bored or frustrated, and perhaps quit. Help them learn skills, rules, and strategy so that they can maximize their abilities. If you are not sure what to do, watch games by more experienced or older teams and see what they are doing or better yet, watch them practice.

8. Act your age – It’s embarrassing for kids when their parents argue with officials and yell obscenities. It’s even worse when the parent is the coach. Keep your anger in check and your language decent. The old adage “an apple does not fall far from the tree” is true in sports, set a good example of sportsmanship and good will and your team will as well.

9. Care — but not too much – Care about the kids and not the results of games. Kids want their activities to be taken seriously, but not too seriously. “She did not care if I won or lost” and “He’s not too emotional” were the most common reasons kids gave for why their mom or dad was a great coach.

Special thanks to Kentucky Youth Soccer for the above article.

13 Tips for Parents Considering Coaching

Gail Gross, a Houston radio talk-show host who has worked as an educator and is an authority on child development, says the best thing she ever did as coach of her daughter’s basketball team was to walk away when asked. “I was the worst coach who ever lived,” Dr. Gross says cheerfully. “I’m right-side dominant and have poor vision. I dreaded every game because I was such a failure.”

But her memories of that time are happy because of the good communication she had with her daughter. She took the job at her daughter’s request when no one else wanted it. She left it to a replacement when her daughter told her, halfway through the season: “Mom, you’re right. This isn’t your sport. Thank you for your support, but you don’t have to do this anymore.”

Dr. Gross and other experts offer these 13 coaching tips for parents:

* Ask permission: The first question to ask is whether your child wants you to coach, says Jim Thompson, the author of The Double-Goal Coach: (Quill, $13.95). Mr. Thompson founded the Positive Coaching Alliance (www.positivecoach.org), a nonprofit organization based at Stanford University. He says you need to know if your child wants to come on board as your partner in the experience. If not, there’s very little chance it will work out.

* Set up cues: Anticipate moments of conflict, such as how your child will feel when you praise a teammate, or she doesn’t get the position she wants, advises Dr. Gross. Ask your child to help you come up with signals, such as a hand sign, to remind her of your agreement not to get upset or act out about disappointments or frustrations.

* Help kids see you as coach: It can be confusing to distinguish between the roles of parent and coach. For younger children, it may even help if you literally put on a different hat for coaching to help the child with the transition, says Dr. Ken Christian, a New York-based psychologist, author and organizational consultant.

* Get your head together: You have to get your own feelings about your child in order before you take on a coaching job, says Dr. Christian. “It’s like being therapist to your own child,” he says. “Sometimes you are looking in your child to find the thing you like in yourself. When you don’t see it, you have to let go and let them be who they are. You have to be Buddha-like.”

* Teach life lessons: John Bates’ son, Nehemiah, complained when his father pulled him off the field to give equal time to a player who didn’t perform as well as he did. Quietly, at home, his father would talk to the 5-year-old about how all team members get an equal chance to play even if they have different talents. “He finally got it toward the end.”

* Ask lots of questions: Telling children what to do never works as well as asking them, says Mr. Thompson. For example, a coach can say, “I have a suggestion for making you a better hitter. Would you like to hear it?” Most of the time a kid will say yes. Then you can make the criticism into an “if and then” statement, as in “If you bend your knees more, then you may get more power.” And if the kid is not open to hearing your suggestion, then say, “OK, no problem” and walk away. Chances are he will come back the next day and ask what you were going to tell him.

* Listen: When your child complains, don’t defend yourself or your position, says Dr. Gross. Let him say what he feels. Then say what you feel.

* Be fair: The biggest complaint coaches’ kids have is that their parents favor them or are too hard on them. One dad, Tim O’Brien of Pittsburgh, calls the All-Star games “Dad-ball” because the teams are always stacked with the coaches’ kids, whether they are deserving or not. Frank Martin, founder and director of Kids Sports Network, says he can always tell the coach’s kid because the coach is paying the most attention to him – often by yelling.

* Reward good behavior: Ignore bad behavior whenever possible, says Mr. Thompson. Instead of lashing out at the one kid who is not paying attention, Mr. Thompson suggests focusing on one who is, as in saying, “Hey, Ryan, I really appreciate how you’re in the ready position.”

* Model good behavior: If you want your child to keep his temper, keep your temper. Be generous with praise and use mistakes as teaching opportunities, says Mr. Thompson.

* Try not to embarrass: Coaching is a very public form of parenting. And it’s hard, at times, not to worry about how the behavior of your child reflects on you. Remind yourself that your child is not you, says Dr. Gross. Try to either ignore bad behavior or pull the child aside. Defer as much discussion as you can to the ride home. If problems persist, you may want to enlist assistant coaches or other parents to help and ask them to take over more of the interaction with your child.

* Busy work is good: It doesn’t hurt to give them an alternative to (literally) climbing the walls while they’re waiting for their turn. Pastor Bates entertained the kids on the bench by giving them clipboards and having them take notes on the game for him.

* Know when to fold ‘em: Youth sports couldn’t exist without the parents who generously donate their time. But if it just isn’t working for you and your child, find a replacement and find another way to contribute.

Printed in the Dallas Morning News Tuesday, August 26, 2003. By Nancy Churnin / Reprinted with Permission of the Dallas Morning News

How to Increase Practice Time by 10%

Here’s a tip for coaches that will help improve practice time by at least 10%! At the beginning of the season, name each of your practice drills. The first time your team does the drill, do a demonstration of it. Every practice time after, just simply call out the name of the drill and spend your extra time coaching and working on skill development.

Do You Criticize the Performance or the Player?

Coaches are an important influence in a kid’s life. Their words always carry more significance to the child hearing them than they do to the coach who is saying them. As such, it is easy for coaches to phrase things in ways that are heard as much harsher than was intended. When helping kids develop new skills or when dealing with team selections, coaches should be careful to focus player discussions on tangible behaviors and away from things that have broader personal or family meaning. For example:

Personally Focused and Confusing
What’s wrong with you today?
We don’t want you on our team.
Why can’t you play as well as Tommy?
How long have you been playing this sport?
We are looking for better kids.
Why can’t you play more like your brother?
Did your dad teach you that?
Are you this way in school too?
Would your mom be proud of this behavior?
Don’t let this team down.
Why can’t you be better?

Performance Focused and Better
Your effort is not up to your usual level.
There were other players who in our judgment made better effort.
You will need to move more quickly if you are to have an impact during the play.
Let me show you where you need to be when these events happen.
We need players with more advanced skills.
If you are not feeling well, take a break and try again in a few minutes.
We are counting on a good performance from you today.

When coaches are careful to keep discussions focused on behaviors, they are also keeping their players focused on things they can change. When conversations become more personal, it makes it harder for players to equate a simple change of behavior with improved performance. Giving players a clear set of expectations and measurements is the easiest way to get the most from a team.

Thank you to Sports Esteem for sharing the above article.

What is the Difference Between Sports and Energy Drinks?

Sports drinks and energy drinks, is there really a difference? You bet there is, and it’s time athletes distinguish between the two. Below is a special article by Dave Ellis about the role sports and energy drinks are playing in today’s youth.

When we talk about helping hard-working athletes have more energy, we think about supplying them with the sources of fuel they primarily use during training and competition.

So, for example, hockey athletes burn a pretty even mix of carbohydrate and fat during training, and probably a bit more carbohydrate than fat during a game where the rest intervals are based on a three to four line bench. Thus most sports drink focus on supplying carbohydrates in a fast digesting form to supply energy to hard-working muscles so that you have something in the tank until that last drill or shift.

Sports drinks also supply some of the components we lose in sweat (fluids, sodium, and potassium) and intentionally avoid ingredients that could speed the rate of fluid loss, like caffeine.

On the other hand, energy drinks primarily depend on the consumer to feel energy from caffeine more so than carbohydrate, and more and more of these beverages don’t even contain carbohydrate (diet versions). While carbs supply a source of energy that muscles can use, caffeine makes you feel like you have energy by stimulating your nervous systems. This is entirely different than actually supplying energy that will keep you on the ice.

Caffeine might make someone feel amped up early in the game, but it’s not going to give you legs period after period. In fact, caffeine will make you feel up right until the minute you crash and burn. The reason is that caffeine will temporarily blunt the feeling of exertion and fatigue, but when it wears off you will feel like a refrigerator jumped on your back.

Another problem with caffeine is that it makes you go to the restroom more often and that is just the opposite of what we want for athletes when they are sweating. We want to retain as much fluid as we can when we’re sweating, not speed up the fluid loss process.

Athletes who lose fluids quickly during activity can’t cool themselves as quickly, and inevitably this will lead to more rapid fatigue. Dehydrated muscles are hot muscles that struggle to neutralize the metabolic by-products you feel in your legs after a hard shift. And a tired muscle not only is a poor performer, it is also vulnerable to a cramp or pull.

The evidence that caffeine can help aging minds stay a bit sharper is offset by the recent research that shows the inflammatory out-comes of caffeine use that can lead to a compromised immune system. And just this past month some new evidence has emerged that older athletes who don’t exercise much and who don’t use a lot of caffeine might set themselves up for a heart attack by breaking out an energy drink before an adult game.

This is not a joke and when you look at the labels on these energy drinks you might see several sources of caffeine. All of these ingredients supply caffeine; cola nut, guarana, mate leaves, espresso, tea extracts and coco.

It’s not uncommon for many energy beverages to have more than one source of caffeine and in some cases the manufacturers are not even sure how much caffeine is in their products.

A strong cup of coffee will come in around 100-120 milligrams of caffeine per 8 ounce (cup). Most of these energy drinks are going to come in at 85 milligrams of caffeine or higher per 8 ounces, and because they are often sweet tasting, consumers are drinking 16 ounces or more at a time. That’s a pretty good jolt for any adult and enough to cause a young athlete a positive doping test by previous Olympic standards.

While caffeine was removed from the Olympic banned substances list in January 2004, it is still under review by the World Anti-Doping Association, and with mounting performance and health concerns, caffeine could once again revert back to a banned substance when elevated in the blood in high concentrations.

It’s also worth noting that the concentration of caffeine required to create the feeling of being amped up changes over time. Athletes who use to feel one 8-ounce serving of caffeine suddenly don’t get the same feeling and begin to drink additional servings.

This is a very slippery slope that often leads athletes to try stronger and stronger stimulants, including sources that are currently banned substances (ephedra, synephrine or amphamines).

And if an athlete can’t get to sleep because of the amount of caffeine or stimulants used before activity, they often resort to use of alcohol as a way to wind down. This is known as the amphetamine-alcohol cycle and always results in trouble.

College and pro athletes with promising careers inevitably crash and burn long before their real playing days were over. It’s very predictable and very sad, and it all started with the idea they needed a caffeinated energy drink to compete.

So don’t get confused between a sports drink and an energy drink when it comes to fueling your hard work. And adults please realize that even at the collegiate level we are not allowed to supply caffeine to athletes. Please think twice about supplying any source of caffeine to your child, or someone else’s child on the team.

No other generation of young athletes has ever witnessed such cavalier attitude about using stimulants as the youth we are working with right now.

Dave Ellis is celebrating his 25th year of practice in sports as a registered dietitian, certified strength and conditioning specialist and as a Level V USA Hockey coach. This year USA Hockey gave its top 1,500 athletes a copy of Dave’s Fundamental Fueling Tactics nutrition education DVD. Go to fuelingtactics.com for more information

Discover 7 Ways to Help Build Confidence in Your Child

Early on, children learn how sports-oriented the culture is around them. As the headlines frequently tell us, some parents, and even star professional athletes, seem never to have learned the fundamentals of good sportsmanship.

As early as age 3 and 4, children are introduced to basic sports skills such as throwing and catching. By 6 or 7, those who haven’t mastered these and others may already feel left behind. Because the mainstream culture values competition, first-graders will know who’s the best and who’s the worst at sports in their class.

Catching up can already seem like a hopeless task. This is the time for practice with a parent or a friend — but make sure it’s fun! Parents will need to take care that their own eagerness doesn’t backfire and become pressure for the child.

Some parents, eager for their children to succeed in sports as well as with friends, start them off early and give them hours of deliberate practice that risk taking the fun out of the game. Parents often take winning more seriously than their children, who just like to play the game.

Whether a child is a gifted athlete or always the last one picked, sports bring out differences that we can help our children accept. Rather than smooth them over, why not be honest about such differences? Our job is to help our children accept themselves. This will be easier for our children if they can be sure that their self-acceptance is more important to us as parents than their performance in sports.

That means we parents should encourage our children to play games for fun, not for winning.

Here are 7 ways you can help build confidence in your child:

1. Firm expectations: Lying and cheating are no way to deal with losing a game. Being a good sport, even when you lose, is tough. But congratulating the winners is a sign of real strength. A child who can do this can feel proud. Being a good loser is one of the most difficult things in life. Sports are a way to learn how, in childhood. Parents and coaches must help teach that skill.

2. No pat reassurances: “You were great!” or “Don’t worry, next time you can win!” — are liable to backfire. Help children face their disappointment and even the anger they feel toward themselves. “How do you think you did?” If the child blurts out: “I stunk!” parents may be alarmed. But the child is pulling himself out of his dejection by sharing such feelings with them.

3. Empathy: Acknowledge and accept the child’s feelings of anger, frustration and self-doubt. But reserve your right to draw different conclusions from his (“You may think you’re no good, but that’s your opinion, not mine”), and to prohibit unacceptable actions that might arise from these feelings.

4. Face-saving: Help your child look for ways to understand the failures that do not devastate his self-esteem. For example, “It’s not just up to you as the goalie to protect the goal. The whole team is responsible for that.”

5. Honest appraisal: To a child who insists “I’m no good,” a parent might reply, “You have skills, and maybe you are ready to think about some that you would like to improve.”

6. A balanced approach: A child may need some help in stepping back, taking perspective: “Do you think that you’ll be able to have another try when you play again?” The child may be ready to value how hard he tried, even if he didn’t win. But perhaps most important is the clear message that winning or losing is the child’s issue, not that parents’. If you’ve been too involved, your child will know and will feel even more disheartened. You’ll need to admit it if you’ve added to the pressure, and to apologize.

7. Encouragement: Reassure your child that he can get back on track. Let him know that he needn’t be so hard on himself: “It’s hard to keep trying when you feel so discouraged. But if you keep on trying, you’ll feel better.”

Whether your child wins or loses, the point of the game is to have fun.

Learning to play as a team: A special challenge of team sports is learning to share the glory and the blame. It’s a struggle for children of any age to keep from venting frustration against teammates and instead to focus on encouraging one another. When the team loses, it’s tempting to protect one’s own self-esteem by singling out others to hold responsible. Children’s abilities are bound to vary enough for everyone to see when one or two of the children really couldn’t live up to the demands. Then, even children who don’t want to hurt others’ feelings are caught in the dilemma. “Do we tell the truth, or pretend that we all stunk?”

Young “stars” may also need help with their shortcomings — for example, hogging the ball or poor teamwork. The best athletes may also need to work on calming themselves down after making a mistake so that they can learn from it. Coaches and parents can privately offer individual children (the stragglers and the stars) a chance to practice needed skills.

Learning to lose is one of the hardest things a child has to do — but the child must learn how.

Parents can help children handle their frustration without hurting the other kids. After a soccer defeat, for example, some children may want to kick the ball — as hard as they can — at the goal, over and over, until they’re spent. Others will collapse into silliness, chasing after each other, tumbling on the ground. Let them. But if they gang up on a teammate, let them know that they are exhibiting poor sportsmanship: “Sure everyone’s upset about losing. But we’re a team and we’ve got to stick together. That’s part of playing the game.” Sadly, many coaches and parents make such lessons take a back seat to winning — for younger and younger children.

Teammates may be helped to see that tearing down a player’s self-confidence will only hurt their game. Coaches and parents can model the importance of focusing on the positives, on hopes for the next time.

Special thanks to the Contra Costa Times for the above article.

Do You Know Why Kids Quit Youth Sports?

Too Many Kids Quit Sports – According to a Michigan State University study, over 70% of kids quit sports by age 13. For professional sports, that is the equivalent of losing one potential Michael Jordan or Mike Modano a week. In addition, there is no way of knowing the impact on the talent pool of business leaders and other professions where continued sports participation helps develop critical life skills.

Parents Have the Biggest Influence Over the Sports Experience – Parents are the key to youth sports. Parents are involved in numerous activities in support of their child’s activities. Though parents often mean well, their lack of previous involvement with youth sports can cause them to emphasize incorrect behaviors and attitudes that, over time, lead to a child’s lack of continued interest in team sports. Although a good parent can overcome a negative coach, a good coach cannot overcome a negative parent,

Improving Parent Involvement Requires Weekly Effort – Changing parent behavior requires continuing education. Just like a child can’t learn to play at a high level in just a few hours, a parent cannot master the issues involved with youth sports in one meeting. Only a continued and sustained education effort can achieve significant improvement in parent behavior and in parent child sports interactions.

Childhood sports success comes when technical skills build confidence and motivation and then confidence and motivation make kids more receptive to building skills. Getting this cycle started and keeping it going are key roles for parents. However too much criticism or pressure too soon disrupts the cycle and turns kids to less parentally involved activities such as Playstation.

Sports Can be Positive – Sports activity can be a positive in kids lives and in the lives of families. The life lessons learned through playing can serve a lifetime and the closeness that comes from a family working together can overcome other life issues as well.

How Can Parents Make Youth Sports More Positive?

Sports can be a fun and engaging way for children and youth to learn some important lessons about life. Studies suggest that participation in sports can be very beneficial, fostering responsible social behaviors, greater academic success, and an appreciation of personal health and fitness. Participating on a team also can give children or youth an important sense of belonging.

The atmosphere set by organizations, parents, and coaches is a major factor in determining whether or not youth will have a positive experience in a sports program. A “win-at-all-costs” atmosphere can be harmful to a developing youth.

This bulletin is the first in a two-part series written to assist parents in fostering a positive climate that enables children and youth involved in sports to enjoy themselves and reach their full potential. It focuses on the benefits and risks of youth sports, discusses parents as role models, and provides practical tips for parents.  To read the bulletin, click here (pdf).

Do You Make These Mistakes During The Ride Home?

The youngsters are a captive audience in the back seat on the way home, but they deserve to ride in peace without being unwilling victims of their parents’ “station wagon syndrome.”

The Ride Home

1. Never reward what you perceive as success.
2. Never punish what you perceive as failure.
3. Don’t evaluate your child’s performance, he or she is playing to have fun, not to earn a grade! If your child had fun, the day was a success.
4. Meet your child’s needs by remembering the questions you asked and the answers you got as to why your child is playing hockey.

Good Questions for the Ride Home

Parents need to understand that the period following practice and competition is a crucial time for a young athlete. It’s important your child be given the freedom to process the game on their own. – Dr. Caroline Silby from “Games Girls Play”, 2000

1. Did you have fun today?
2. What did you think you did well today?
3. Did you learn any new moves?

If you are greeted with the sound of silence, give off the gentle sounds of approval and be sure your child knows you are there for him.

“If parents receive one-word answers or silence, they can be sure that their child feels trapped with no way out.” – Silby, 2000

Youth Spotlight – Bradley Smith

Bradley Smith is 10 years old and plays for the Dallas Stars Selects Squirt ’97 Major hockey team under coach Jon Staples. Bradley has been with the Dallas Stars Selects organization since he began playing as a mite. This year, Bradley’s team traveled to Ostersund, Sweden to play in the Ulf Dahlen Cup Tournament. The team went undefeated in the tournament until a loss in the championship game. Bradley would like to someday play in the NHL.

Dallas Stars Care: What do you like most about hockey?
Bradley: “Playing with my friends.”

Dallas Stars Care: Who is your favorite professional hockey player and why?
Bradley: “Wayne Gretzky because he was the greatest hockey player, and I want to be like him.”

Dallas Stars Care: What is your usual pre-game meal?
Bradley: “Spaghetti and chicken.”

Dallas Stars Care: What do like most about hockey practice? Least?
Bradley: “Having fun and just skating drills the least.”

Dallas Stars Care: What do you like most about playing in hockey games? Least?
Bradley: “Making a good play, but I do not enjoy getting hit.”

Dallas Stars Care: What is something about you that most people don’t know?
Bradley: “That I played hockey in Sweden this year.”

Dallas Stars Care: What advice do you have for youth hockey parents?
Bradley: “Help your kids stay healthy.”

Dallas Stars Care: What advice do you have for youth hockey coaches?
Bradley: “Help me to get better at hockey.”
To nominate your player to be featured in the Youth Spotlight, please send an email to news(at)dallasstarscare.com

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