Information for Player’s Parents

To the Parent:

Parents bring an interesting perspective to the relationship. Parents often refer back to their childhood, when things were less complicated. Children could walk to school, go to the movies and go outside at night without fear. This is a different time. Your family value may be the same and to what your parents expected of you, but the world around you is more dangerous and unpredictable. You must listen to your kids more, spend more time with them and attempt to have open no-hold barred conversations.

Put yourself in their place and try to remain open to their feelings about the sport. They are brighter and more aware of their surroundings than kids were 30years ago & they have to be. When you select a coach, make sure that you do a serious research on that individual. Be sure that the coach’s background includes notable accomplishments. Once you have chosen your child’s coach wisely, step back and enjoy the experience. Demand only that the child perform up to his or her ability everyday. Remember that you are creating the way in which your child will deal with your Grand children. Your children need you more that they realize. In a few years they will be off managing their own lives with the fundamentals you have provided.

Relationship between Parents and Coach:

Parents and coach must forge a working relationship to benefit the child. If they can’t come together, the child will suffer. This is often complex and burden with unusual conflicts. Parents often stubbornly think that their child can do a lot more. Many are unwilling to admit that their child is limited in a particular sport. To accomplish what is best for the child over the long term, the relationship between coach and parents must be honest and forthright. The coach must be willing to provide an honest evaluation of pupil’s likelihood of success. A parent will appreciate hearing that a coach believes the student will likely make the high school team. A coach also must be able to say that with a lot of hard work, the student might be able to play college tennis but that the possibility of a college scholarship or a professional career is remote.A full college scholarship or a professional career is possible with a lot of hard work, dedication, discipling and a positive attitude.

Along with honest communication, parental noninterference is an important ingredient to a flourishing relationship. Parents who have selected a coach to guide their child, even if only through a one hour lesson each week, should show trust and confidence by giving the coach a chance to succeed. Parents must allow the coach time to produce the proper technique, footwork or whatever it takes to make the child a player.

Parental Guidance:

The greatest error parents can make is to voice expectations for their child beyond having a good time. As soon as a child begins to play for a parent’s approval or to maintain harmony in the family, his or her motivation and fun will diminish instantly, no matter how talented the player is.Many young players with potential have been turned off tennis by their parents. Some great talents have been destroyed in the process. Unfortunately, in tournament circles one often hears that “This player has super talent, but his parents put too much pressure on him. He just gets too upright to win.”

Parental pressure can take many forms. Parents may force a child to practice, take lessons, or compete in a match. An insidious by-product of parental expectations can be excessive criticism of a child’s effort. A child shouldn’t be made to feel that every mistake will be thrown back at him or her. It’s hard enough to go through the agony of playing badly.

Psychologically, human beings learn just as well, if not better, from positive support as they do from negative reinforcement. It is more helpful to tell a child what he or she did well and suggests what to try in the future that to belabor what went wrong and what not to do. Even after the most disastrous days, parents can say something positive, such as, “I guess you didn’t play well today, but I liked the way you kept trying, “ rather than, “ You really played badly today.” A child’s coach is responsible for the tennis technique, but parents can help create mental well being. Making unflattering comparations between child and his or her peers can damage a child’s motivation. Remember, every child is unique and learns at their own pace; each child’s progress is unrelated to anybody else’s and should be gauged only against itself.

More important that the establishment of work patterns is how the child feels about himself or herself. Whether a child feels like a winner has little to do with the scores. Rather, the approval the child wins from parents for the effort has everything to do with feelings of self-worth. It is difficult for a child to differentiate between having a bad tennis day and being a bad person. So when a parent criticizes a child for being a bad player, that child may feel that the parent thinks he or she is bad. Tennis in childhood can help form later work habits, and more important, it can help develop the quality of self esteem. A great deal of that responsibility lies with the parents.

My message to parents and coaches is to consider these issues and make sure that the long term well being of the child is your driving motive. Recognize that the coach becomes part of the family. Tennis provides countless benefits. Those disagreements about stroke technique are insignificant in the long run.