Parent Education
Sideline Behavior
In this edition of our Parent Education Series, we are going to be looking at parent sideline behavior and how if affects youth players. During any youth game you will see a parent sideline with a variety of different approaches on how to cheer on their young and developing athlete. While all parents want to see their player succeed, it can be very tricky to find a point where you are giving your player encouragement and support and not overstepping your role as a parent on the team.
Sideline Behavior and How It Affects Your Player
After a short time in youth sports, you will have experienced both the good and bad of parents and their sideline behavior. If you take special care, you can watch a player’s game play, attitude, and emotions change as they get feedback from the sidelines. All spectators, coaches, and parents have a responsibility to help build up players during games and practices.
As soccer is a very passionate sport and many times the passion of the moment can overtake sound logic, here are some tips that can help keep things in perspective in the moment are:
1. Allow coaches to coach, parents to parent, players to play. If everyone is sticking to their role then players don’t get confused. When coaching comes from parents in addition to a coach- players can get confused on who to listen to.
2. Coaching and cheering are separated by a fine line. Coaching takes place in the future “Pass the ball to Tommy” while cheering takes place in the past “Great pass!”. Try to cheer in the past tense rather than in the future.
3. If you know that you have difficulty controlling your emotions, make a point to bring a lawn chair with you and remain seated throughout the game or bring a lollipop or a sucker and focus on the candy rather than yelling at the players.
4.The most important thing to always remember is that the game is for the players. When coaches, parents or others try to put themselves in front of the players, it usually ends up ruining the game for the players.
Please try to keep these things in mind at your players next game. Lets continue to work together to make this beautiful game the best it can be for your player.