A good sport's season experience for your child begins with you: the youth athlete's parent. It is up to each of you to make being a youth athlete enjoyable, and to make the season a greater learning experience for your child.  No matter how much you enjoy it, this is for your child.

I would like to share my top 7 thoughts on how to make this a better learning experience for your child and you. These ideas will help to make the next season more fun for your child, more enjoyable for you, and easier on those people who volunteer their time and skills.

1. Work with your child and their teammates during practice and at home. There really is little more satisfying than going out at least a few evenings a week and playing ball with your child. This gives them quality time and helps your child improve their skills.  Trust me, the better your child can play, the more they will enjoy the experience. Someday, your child will look back fondly on these evenings and weekends spent practicing with mom and/or dad.   

   Most coaches of elementary school youth sports want and encourage parent involvement in practices.  They appreciate the extra hands helping keep the kids focused during the skill stations.  They definitely like the fact that an involved parent takes their child home and practices the skill development drills outside of practice time.  From your child's perspective, they are the cool kid on the team because their mom and/or dad is around and helping out.

   Ask the coach if you can help, do not assume they want your help.  Above, I said "most coaches" because I have met a few coaches that do not want parent involvement.  Typically, these coaches, have in the past had a parent get involved and try to take over the team or only focus on their child.  As a parent volunteer in practice, your roll is to support the coach's teachings, work with ALL the kids, and learn to teach the skills.  Outside of practice time is where you reinforce the drills with your child.

2. Show up for the practices and the games. If you cannot make the time to help in the practices or the coach does not want your involvement, still show up for the practices and games.  We have seen many parents who never tried to excel in sports drop there kids off at practices and picked up afterwards, without ever watching a single practice or game. It is only a couple of times a week for a couple of months out of the year. The most irritating are the parents who do not watch practice, never get to know the coach and his philosophy, but will question a coaches decision during the game. Most people would not dare only occasionally go to work and then when they do show up tell the boss what is wrong with the company, but they will turn around and do that with their child’s’ coach.

   If your child is not getting the game time minutes you believe they deserve, then approach the coach with two goals in mind:  1)  understand his play time philosophy, and 2) ask what your child needs to work on to improve their game.  When you approach a coach in this manner, you set the conversation's tone as one of learning and understanding.  Help you child improve at that skill and then wait for the coach to notice.  It might take a little longer than either you or your child would like, but the coach will notice the improvement and adjust the play time accordingly.  Every coach wants a player who shows an interest in improving their skills.

3. Don't create pressure. Many father dream of their son becoming a professional athlete, but they are only children and deserve to enjoy the game as children. Do not expect more than they can deliver. Give lots and lots positive encouragement, and be there when they need you. Have a personal rule to describe three positive aspects of his play during a practice or game for every one opportunity to improve. Often a child in early years will lack coordination, be missing skills, and then blossom later on. In the early years, a parents objective is to get their child to fall in love with the game so they will continue to work hard at skill development and play for many years.

4. Respect the game and its rules. This is one of the most important things the kids should be learning. If you do not the game's rules, buy a rule book.  If you do not agree with an umpires call, keep it to yourself. If there is a team rule that bothers you, it is their team...not yours. If you think there is a serious team problem, take it up with the coach or an association official on your own time away from the practice or game.

5. Get involved. Youth Sport Associations (or Clubs) are run on a volunteer basis and can always use additional help. All type of help is needed to run these organizations:  registration, tryouts, scorekeeping, field preparation, umpiring, equipment and uniform management, snack bar operations, and fund raising.  If your child sees the organization is important to you, they will learn that it is important to them.  Everyone can find a place to help.

   Get involved with running the youth organization by attending their monthly meetings and taking a leadership role.  Every association needs organized leaders to make the season run smoothly.  In return for donating a few nights a month, you will get to know the leaders in your community and your child will get better opportunities and an occasional benefit of the doubt.  The people on the outside will call it politics, but I choose to think of this as more opportunity identification, key decision maker relationship building, and personal influence.

   Let me provide a clear example of the benefit parental involvement in leading a local community association.  The president of local association has a benefit of the doubt child.  In the role of president of one association, he supports the other youth associations in their time of need.  A local lacrosse team was without uniforms for their first game of the season, he let them borrow extra practice jerseys for a few days.  Another time, a local softball team needed a field for a make up game and he found an unused field for the evening.  He has arranged special events for his youth organization to play during the half-time breaks of the high school games.   In return, his child gets access to the best coaches and instructors in the area, and plays on all the local travel, tournament, and school teams.  These privileges do not come through intimidation, but come because coaches within his organization and those of us who run peer organizations see his passion in supporting and developing the community youth, so we look out for his child.

6. Losing is a normal result of competition. Every game has a winning team and a losing team.  Perfect season are extremely rare so losing is inevitable.   Teach your child that they did not lose, the team lost. And they lost to a team that just happened to play better that day. Ask your child what they could have done better to improve the team's chances of winning.  Do not allow your child to finger point, the question was:  what they could have done better.  There is always next time, and the important thing is to learn from the defeats. Winner's win or accept responsibility for the loss and identify opportunities for improvement.  One of life’s most interesting truisms is that we learn more in failure than in success. It is never okay to place blame on a teammate or coach.

7. Different coaches have different philosophies. Some coaches believe in having players play all the positions, others want players to master one position, and some coaches place more emphasis on winning. It is important to remember that your child’s coach is not being paid, he is volunteering for the love of the game and the kids. Let him be the coach. Do not argue in front of the kids and criticize in the background if you think your child is being treated unfairly. If you think there is a problem, discuss it with the coach away from the field; chances are that you will see his point of view or the coach will provide you with specific skills your child needs to develop to be a strong competitor. The important thing is not to make an issue in front of the players, they are learning to work as a team and to respect authority.

Have Fun! This should be a positive experience for everyone: kids, coaches, support staff, and parents. Winning is nice, but losing is inevitable. One of the most rewarding experiences possible as a coach or a parent is to take a player with little skill, no confidence in himself, and help him develop over the course of the season to the point he looks forward to game time because he knows he can succeed. That player who came to practice with his head hanging, now stands tall with pride and a big smile on his face. Take the opportunity to enjoy your child’s childhood, and to teach some important life lessons!

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