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Successful Parenting

Social Media: What A Student-Athlete Posts Online Matters, More Than You May Think

Social media is woven into the fabric and culture of American life, but one ill-advised "Tweet" or Facebook status update could result in a student-athlete's suspension from school or team or even the loss of a college athletic scholarship.  Here's what parents can do to help their child protect their online reputation.

Awarding Athletic Scholarship For Private School: Is It Wrong?

Every spring around this time, MomsTeam receives e-mails from parents asking for advice on how they can help their athletically gifted child get into and afford to pay for a private or parochial school with a top-flight athletic program.  The one I recently received was a bit different: a dad who was wondering whether I knew any schools who awarded financial aid based, not on need, but on athletic talent. 

Every spring around this time, MomsTeam receives e-mails from parents asking for advice on how they can help their athletically gifted child get into and afford to pay for a private or parochial school with a top-flight athletic program.  The one I recently received was a bit different: it was from a dad who was wondering whether I knew any schools who awarded financial aid based, not on need, but on athletic talent. 

A Warning to Sideline "Coaches": Just Let The Players Play

Australian tennis pro Bernard Tomic made an unusual request last weekend to the chair umpire during his quarter-final match at the Sony Ericsson Tennis Open in Miami. 

During a changeover he asked to have his dad "banished from the stands."  Seems his dad was, according to an article in USA Today, "noticeably upset with his son's performance", which the reader and fans might conclude, would impact Tomic's ability to focus. "He's annoying me. I know he's my father, but he's annoying me. I want him to leave as soon as possible," Tomic reportedly told the umpire.

As a sports parent and an official, I have witnessed first hand the effects of inappropriate sideline coaching from parents. Players rarely perform better when adults other than their coaches bark commands, make faces, gestures or statements intended to motivate.  While some would argue that such behavior is well meaning or overzealous, I respectfully disagree.  Such behavior is disrespectful and detrimental to the game, coaches, team, parents, and most of all, the players.

Sports Parents Asking Tough Questions: Are They Troublemakers?

This past weekend,  the Hey Coach Tony show on a local Connecticut radio station devoted an entire hour to discussing one of MomsTeam's most popular  articles: the one listing questions to ask youth sports coaches at the pre-season meeting with parents. 

In case you don't know about Coach Tony, he is what I would call a "guy's guy": a tough-talking "shock jock"-type of radio host who tends to shoot from the hip, and with a reputation for disdaining political correctness and for using outdated terms for people he doesn't like (I cringed while listening to an earlier show when he used the word "retarded" and "retard' more than a dozen times to describe a person he did not care for). 

This past weekend,  the Hey Coach Tony show on ESPN Radio devoted an entire hour to discussing one of MomsTeam's most popular  articles: the one listing questions for parents to ask at a pre-season meeting.  Particularly instructive was the way he chose to end his show: with an email from a listener saying that parents who ask questions will be labeled as troublemakers.

Controlling Your Inner Coach

So now that baseball is in "full swing" I have mixed emotions as a parent.  My younger two sons decided after a family meeting not to play as we agreed that football and basketball were enough for the year.  We would do some one-on-one instruction to help the 11-year- old pitch better, and for my 8-year-old, just playing catch in the backyard would have to do. 

A single mom realizes the need to control her inner coach when she finds herself caught in the age-old battle of the sexes with her son's baseball coach, feeling a need to compete with the coaches for no other reason than they are men and because she had a hard time resisting the thought that, in the back of their minds, they think she is clueless about how to teach her boys how to do the hard stuff like pitching and quarterbacking,

Development Academies: Elite or Elitist?

The United States Soccer Federation's (USSF) recent mandate that ‘elite' soccer players who play for Development Academy teams will not be allowed to play for their high school soccer teams after this season simply frosts me. I've read volumes in the last few weeks, from Soccer America's initial news article and the seemingly unending comments from readers and the soccer experati to The New York Times piece this past Sunday by Sam Borden, that really brought "Soccer's New Way" into the collective consciousness across America.

The United States Soccer Federation's (USSF) recent mandate that elite soccer players who play for Development Academy teams will not be allowed to play for their high school soccer teams after this season is wrong and misleading.

Soccer Development Academies: Elite or Elitist?

Over the weekend I posted a link in the @MomsTeam Twitter account to an article in the New York Times titled "High School Players Forced to Choose in Soccer's New Way."  My tweet generated a lot of buzz, and, as I had commented in the past on the way sports talent is developed in this country, I thought it would be a great topic for a blog.

The United States Soccer Federation's (USSF) recent mandate that elite soccer players who play for Development Academy teams will not be allowed to play for their high school soccer teams after this season is wrong and misleading, says MomsTeam guest blogger, Emily Cohen.

Parenting for the Game of Life

March is a busy time of year as winter sports wind down and spring/summer sports wind up. This is a time of year where the demands on parents to get kids to their in-season activities and the early sessions of the next season is daunting. Being a parent is hard with all of the pressures that your kids place on you and the pressure to participate non-stop all year-round in almost every sport. 

A longtime youth hockey coach advises sports parents to just say no, to place limits on excessive sports, and have their kids spend more time on things that matter more in life in the long run.

Teaching Life Lessons As a Coach: Be Careful What You Teach

There seems to be a phrase that every coach has embraced of late which I think needs a closer look, and it is "teaching life lessons." It's phrase you have probably heard a lot lately, so much so that it seems to have taken on a life of its own, particularly in the context of middle and high school sports.

"Teaching life lessons" seems to be a phrase that every coach has embraced of late, so much so that it seems to
have taken on a life of its own, particularly in the context of middle
and high school sports. But the life lessons a coach teaches can be negative or positive. It's up to the coach.

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