In Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA convention.
While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name, in particular, kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — “John Scolinos is here? Oh man, worth every penny of my airfare.”
Who the hell is John Scolinos, I wondered. No matter, I was just happy to be there.
In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate.
Seriously, I wondered, who in the hell is this guy?
After speaking for twenty five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage.
Then, finally …
“You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck. Or maybe you think I escaped from Camarillo State Hospital,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. “No,” he continued, “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.”
Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?”
After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches?” more of a question than answer.
“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth’s day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?”
Another long pause.
“Seventeen inches?” came a guess from another reluctant coach.
“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear.
“How wide is home plate in high school baseball?”
“Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding more confident.
“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”
“Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.
“Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?”
“Seventeen inches!”
“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide is home plate in the Major Leagues?”
“Seventeen inches!”
“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello !” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter.
“What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches, or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.'”
Pause.
“Coaches …”
Pause.
” … what do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him. Do we widen home plate?
The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We simply, widen the plate!”
Pause.
Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag.
“This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”
Silence.
He replaced the flag with a Cross.
“And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate for themselves! And we allow it.”
“And the same is true with our government. Our so called representatives make rules for us that don’t apply to themselves. They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign countries. They no longer serve us. And we allow them to widen home plate and we see our country falling into a dark abyss while we watch.”
I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curveballs and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable. From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that, which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.
“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: if we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools and churches and our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to …”
With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside. “… dark days ahead.”
Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach.
His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players—no matter how good they are—your own children, your churches, your government, and most of all, keep yourself, ALL, at seventeen inches.
Friday, August 5, 2016
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Making Deposits in People's Life
I wanted to share with you a philosophy around feedback through PCA.
Positive Coaching Alliance recommends the 5:1 ratio of specific, truthful praise to constructive criticism or correction. This often sounds daunting to coaches who rely on pointing out changes more often than positively reinforcing behaviors, but this has worked for countless coaches at every level. Here you can see a youth soccer coach putting the Magic Ration of 5:1 into action, and you can adopt some of her strategies for your athletes.
The reason I share this with you is because I heard this communicated in a different way yesterday that resonated with me. BANK DEPOSITS.
As we invest in somebody, we are placing deposits in the bank. The investment is our oral communications to this person. When we are around this person a lot, there will come a time in which we will critique them. Think of the critique as writing a check. What happens when we write a check, and there is no money in the bank. The check bounces…… what happens when the check bounces…. the bank punishes us and we get ticked. IT IS CRUCIAL THAT WE MAKE SURE WE HAVE ENOUGH MONEY IN THE BANK TO WRITE THE CHECK. Do not forget about the low-interest rate in the savings account. The interest on one deposit is not going to cover many checks.
Here is where it starts to get tricky……. We may not be the only person writing checks from the bank. The person is spending money; friends, family, coworkers, bosses, teachers, other coaches could also be writing checks. There may need to be a lot of money in the bank to cover the checks.
I learned this the hard way running a $10/month gym. Even though the withdraw was so little, the people who did not have $10 in the bank got MAD at us. I have been screamed at multiple times!! What I taught my employees is that this is not about US, the person has other stuff going on in their life that would cause them to snap over $10. Don’t take it personally.
Bottom line, It is not about us. Make deposits in the bank so at some point, you can write a check when it is needed. Maybe this is why our teenagers tune us out. You may just need to make deposits because there are a lot of other people writing checks out of the bank. This really can be applied to all our relationships…. ESPECIALLY TO THE ONES, WE LOVE THE MOST…..
The one disclaimer…. when depositing with kids we need to be careful what we deposit. Carol Dweck, wrote a phenomenal book that changed my view on this. Focus on process not results…….
MINDSET…http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCKPHG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1
Thanks
Positive Coaching Alliance recommends the 5:1 ratio of specific, truthful praise to constructive criticism or correction. This often sounds daunting to coaches who rely on pointing out changes more often than positively reinforcing behaviors, but this has worked for countless coaches at every level. Here you can see a youth soccer coach putting the Magic Ration of 5:1 into action, and you can adopt some of her strategies for your athletes.
The reason I share this with you is because I heard this communicated in a different way yesterday that resonated with me. BANK DEPOSITS.
As we invest in somebody, we are placing deposits in the bank. The investment is our oral communications to this person. When we are around this person a lot, there will come a time in which we will critique them. Think of the critique as writing a check. What happens when we write a check, and there is no money in the bank. The check bounces…… what happens when the check bounces…. the bank punishes us and we get ticked. IT IS CRUCIAL THAT WE MAKE SURE WE HAVE ENOUGH MONEY IN THE BANK TO WRITE THE CHECK. Do not forget about the low-interest rate in the savings account. The interest on one deposit is not going to cover many checks.
Here is where it starts to get tricky……. We may not be the only person writing checks from the bank. The person is spending money; friends, family, coworkers, bosses, teachers, other coaches could also be writing checks. There may need to be a lot of money in the bank to cover the checks.
I learned this the hard way running a $10/month gym. Even though the withdraw was so little, the people who did not have $10 in the bank got MAD at us. I have been screamed at multiple times!! What I taught my employees is that this is not about US, the person has other stuff going on in their life that would cause them to snap over $10. Don’t take it personally.
Bottom line, It is not about us. Make deposits in the bank so at some point, you can write a check when it is needed. Maybe this is why our teenagers tune us out. You may just need to make deposits because there are a lot of other people writing checks out of the bank. This really can be applied to all our relationships…. ESPECIALLY TO THE ONES, WE LOVE THE MOST…..
The one disclaimer…. when depositing with kids we need to be careful what we deposit. Carol Dweck, wrote a phenomenal book that changed my view on this. Focus on process not results…….
MINDSET…http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCKPHG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1
Thanks
Monday, March 28, 2016
STOP LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE
This article got me thinking, do we give more PRESENTS because we feel guilty about our PRESENCE? Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, IPHONE, ANDROID ETC; Why are we so fascinated with other people's lives that we let our's pass us by. As a parent who has a high schooler I've learned how quickly time flies. We have the luxury of scrolling back on Facebook; we don’t have that same luxury with spending time with our loved ones.
LET'S ENJOY OUR KIDS, BE PRESENT
This article can also be found at http://changingthegameproject.com/i-love-watching-you-play/
3 Words Every Athlete Needs to Hear
By James Leath
“STOP LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE!” yells Tasha, a point guard on the 6th grade YMCA basketball team I was coaching.
Immediately, I smile and start to explain to her that I forgot my watch and I needed to make sure we were on schedule. Tasha rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed with my response.
“No big deal,” I had thought to myself on the way to practice when I realized I forgot my watch, “I’ll use my phone.” Fifteen minutes into practice, I had pulled out my phone to make sure we were on schedule. Big mistake.
“Can you believe the nerve of that girl?” I thought. “Here I am, the volunteer head coach, staying up late watching videos on drills and strategy, planning practices on my lunch break, staying late for players who parents are delayed picking up their child…and now some kid is telling me to put my phone away when all I am doing is making sure practice is on schedule?”
Reflecting back on that practice later that night, though, I asked myself what did Tasha really want? What was she really asking for?
I realized that she was looking for the one thing kids crave more than anything else. She wanted me to be there, in that moment, in that drill, watching her and her teammates. She wanted my attention.
She didn’t simply want me to care for her, or love her, or teach her how to play the game. She wanted more.
She wanted me to see her!
Have you ever seen the movie Avatar? During the film, the Na’vi race express their affection for each other not by saying “I love you,” but by saying, “I see you.” Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that how we should coach our athletes? We can love someone and still be less than present at times. But to “see” someone requires us to be fully engaged and present.
When a child knows you see them, they want to impress you. Changing the Game Project Founder John O’Sullivan’s TED talk teaches parents to say five simple words to your child after a game or practice, “I love watching you play.”
The key word is watching.
Watching is being present and engaged. See the good. See the bad. And yes, it’s OK to even see the ugly. Just see all of it!
“I see you” does not mean coaching from the sideline. It does not mean constantly critiquing or second-guessing. It does not mean only pointing out mistakes. It means simply being present, engaged and watching.
“Were you watching when I made that goal?”
“Were you watching when the coach put me in?”
“Were you watching when I got fouled and the ref didn’t call it?”
“Did you see all my good passes or only the bad ones?”
We live in a world filled with distractions. We are always connected to email, to text, to social media, and have a phone on our hip 24/7. We have all been out to a nice restaurant and have seen a family at dinner, each on their own cell phone, fully immersed in Facebook, or Twitter, or texting, and not at all present with each other. We go to our doctor’s office and they are not looking at us, but typing on their computer as we speak. Eye contact and full engagement seem to be a lost art.
Kids love presents, but what they need, and what they will remember, is presence. They need to know you notice them. They need to see an example of what it means to pay attention. We set that example with our actions.
When it comes to our kids sporting events I see many parents watching every practice, or attending every single game, yet rarely are they fully present. They are watching through the lens of a camera or a smartphone, or staring at their screen instead of their athlete. I see coaches sending texts, or on the side chatting with another coach instead of coaching their players.
Our kids notice when we are distracted. That’s what Tasha was telling me. Even though my use of the phone was legitimate, I forgot that we judge ourselves by our intentions, while others judge us by our actions. How our athletes perceive our engagement is not necessarily how good our intentions are. We are judged by our kids based upon what they see us do. The message I was sending to Tasha and her teammates was one that said “I expect 100% focus, effort and commitment from you, the athlete, yet I don’t expect that of myself.”
Coaches and parents must remember that our athletes thrive not simply on love, but on being noticed. “Do you see me?” and “Watch me do this,” is child-speak for, “I want to show you I’m worthy of your affection.”
Here are 5 ways coaches and parents can make sure your athletes know “I see you”:
1. Be present
Parents, you are not required to be at every single practice or game. Your kids won’t think less of you for not being there all the time. In fact, many of them will appreciate those moments away from a parent’s attention. It allows for freedom. It tells them the experience belongs to them. But when you do go and watch, shut off your phone. Be a fan (no coaching). When you are there, be fully present.
Coaches, I cannot stress enough how important it is to be fully engaged in practice. Far too many coaches:
Fail to arrive prepared, on time, or dressed properly for practice
Stop coaching and start talking to a parent or fellow coach about unrelated issues, thereby checking out of practice
Send texts or check social media during game or practice time
Default to more scrimmage time instead of preparing and teaching
What message do you think these above actions send? Great coaching is hard work and needs your full attention before, during and after training. Your actions speak louder than words. Stay engaged, and so will your players.
2. Catch them doing something right…
…and acknowledge it both verbally and non-verbally. I had a basketball player last season that was afraid to shoot because her previous coach would yell at her when she missed. She needed consistent reassurance it was okay to shoot on her new team. After every shot, she would look over to the bench hoping to catch my gaze. Whether she missed or made the shot, she got a thumbs up from me. By the end of the season, she was my leading scorer. Research demonstrates that people perform best when they get five pieces of positive reinforcement for every one correction or critique. As World Cup and Olympic winning soccer coach Tony DiCicco states, the secret to developing successful athletes is to “catch them being good.”
3. Make it safe to fail…
…especially when you catch them doing something wrong. Athletes know when they mess up. Mistakes are inevitable. An adult’s reaction to a mistake can either encourage or hinder risk-taking. When Lionel Messi was a young player at Barcelona, he would try and dribble past four defenders, often losing the ball. Do you think his coaches yelled at him to pass? Nope. They stopped the play, gave him the ball back, and said, “Try that again.”
Coaches, if your players make a mistake, especially when they are fully focused and giving full effort, acknowledge their effort and encourage them to try again. Instead of taking them out of the game, call them to the sideline, tell them to try again, then send them back out there. That shows you trust them, and trust from a player to a coach goes a long way.
4. Connect with them about things not related to sports
A wise coach once told me “sports will be over and your athletes will have at least 2/3 of their life ahead of them. If your entire relationship consists of talking about sports, what then?” This shook me and made me realize that it was imperative to connect about things away from the field. This connection not only forms lifelong friendships, but it helps athletes perform better in two ways. First, they realize their worth is not simply just a pair of feet or some good hands, but as a human being. And second, this connection allows for a stronger relationship, one that can bear the burden of the hard truths both parents and coaches are required to discuss with the young men and women in their care.
5. Give them ownership of the outcome
World-renowned sport psychologist Dr. Jerry Lynch speaks of the three questions a coach should ask at halftime of a game. (1) What is working? (2) What is not working? And (3) How can we fix it? Do you see how these questions help players take ownership of the good, the bad, and the solution? By allowing them to have some input your players will compete harder because you have acknowledged their ideas and their input, and they are trying to execute their solution. You have seen them.As a parent, you do this by accepting your child’s goals for playing and letting the experience belong to them. Push them toward their goals, not your own, and when they succeed, remind them it was their effort that brought success.
Kids are not mini-adults, and, therefore, do not possess adult emotions, values, or priorities. Yet one thing they do have in common with adults is they want to be acknowledged. They want to be noticed when they get it right and told its OK when they get it wrong. They do not need to be coddled, but they do need a safe place to fail. When you do these things, your athletes will compete harder, take ownership, and excel.
That is why we must be very intentional about the things we do when we are watching our kids play, and especially when we are coaching them.
That’s why we must remember that any parent or coach can tell a child “I love watching you play.”
Great parenting and coaching emphasizes the WATCHING, and letting the child know that yes, “I see you.” Seeing them makes all the difference.
LET'S ENJOY OUR KIDS, BE PRESENT
This article can also be found at http://changingthegameproject.com/i-love-watching-you-play/
3 Words Every Athlete Needs to Hear
By James Leath
“STOP LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE!” yells Tasha, a point guard on the 6th grade YMCA basketball team I was coaching.
Immediately, I smile and start to explain to her that I forgot my watch and I needed to make sure we were on schedule. Tasha rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed with my response.
“No big deal,” I had thought to myself on the way to practice when I realized I forgot my watch, “I’ll use my phone.” Fifteen minutes into practice, I had pulled out my phone to make sure we were on schedule. Big mistake.
“Can you believe the nerve of that girl?” I thought. “Here I am, the volunteer head coach, staying up late watching videos on drills and strategy, planning practices on my lunch break, staying late for players who parents are delayed picking up their child…and now some kid is telling me to put my phone away when all I am doing is making sure practice is on schedule?”
Reflecting back on that practice later that night, though, I asked myself what did Tasha really want? What was she really asking for?
I realized that she was looking for the one thing kids crave more than anything else. She wanted me to be there, in that moment, in that drill, watching her and her teammates. She wanted my attention.
She didn’t simply want me to care for her, or love her, or teach her how to play the game. She wanted more.
She wanted me to see her!
Have you ever seen the movie Avatar? During the film, the Na’vi race express their affection for each other not by saying “I love you,” but by saying, “I see you.” Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that how we should coach our athletes? We can love someone and still be less than present at times. But to “see” someone requires us to be fully engaged and present.
When a child knows you see them, they want to impress you. Changing the Game Project Founder John O’Sullivan’s TED talk teaches parents to say five simple words to your child after a game or practice, “I love watching you play.”
The key word is watching.
Watching is being present and engaged. See the good. See the bad. And yes, it’s OK to even see the ugly. Just see all of it!
“I see you” does not mean coaching from the sideline. It does not mean constantly critiquing or second-guessing. It does not mean only pointing out mistakes. It means simply being present, engaged and watching.
“Were you watching when I made that goal?”
“Were you watching when the coach put me in?”
“Were you watching when I got fouled and the ref didn’t call it?”
“Did you see all my good passes or only the bad ones?”
We live in a world filled with distractions. We are always connected to email, to text, to social media, and have a phone on our hip 24/7. We have all been out to a nice restaurant and have seen a family at dinner, each on their own cell phone, fully immersed in Facebook, or Twitter, or texting, and not at all present with each other. We go to our doctor’s office and they are not looking at us, but typing on their computer as we speak. Eye contact and full engagement seem to be a lost art.
Kids love presents, but what they need, and what they will remember, is presence. They need to know you notice them. They need to see an example of what it means to pay attention. We set that example with our actions.When it comes to our kids sporting events I see many parents watching every practice, or attending every single game, yet rarely are they fully present. They are watching through the lens of a camera or a smartphone, or staring at their screen instead of their athlete. I see coaches sending texts, or on the side chatting with another coach instead of coaching their players.
Our kids notice when we are distracted. That’s what Tasha was telling me. Even though my use of the phone was legitimate, I forgot that we judge ourselves by our intentions, while others judge us by our actions. How our athletes perceive our engagement is not necessarily how good our intentions are. We are judged by our kids based upon what they see us do. The message I was sending to Tasha and her teammates was one that said “I expect 100% focus, effort and commitment from you, the athlete, yet I don’t expect that of myself.”
Coaches and parents must remember that our athletes thrive not simply on love, but on being noticed. “Do you see me?” and “Watch me do this,” is child-speak for, “I want to show you I’m worthy of your affection.”
Here are 5 ways coaches and parents can make sure your athletes know “I see you”:
1. Be present
Parents, you are not required to be at every single practice or game. Your kids won’t think less of you for not being there all the time. In fact, many of them will appreciate those moments away from a parent’s attention. It allows for freedom. It tells them the experience belongs to them. But when you do go and watch, shut off your phone. Be a fan (no coaching). When you are there, be fully present.
Coaches, I cannot stress enough how important it is to be fully engaged in practice. Far too many coaches:
Fail to arrive prepared, on time, or dressed properly for practice
Stop coaching and start talking to a parent or fellow coach about unrelated issues, thereby checking out of practice
Send texts or check social media during game or practice time
Default to more scrimmage time instead of preparing and teaching
What message do you think these above actions send? Great coaching is hard work and needs your full attention before, during and after training. Your actions speak louder than words. Stay engaged, and so will your players.
2. Catch them doing something right…
…and acknowledge it both verbally and non-verbally. I had a basketball player last season that was afraid to shoot because her previous coach would yell at her when she missed. She needed consistent reassurance it was okay to shoot on her new team. After every shot, she would look over to the bench hoping to catch my gaze. Whether she missed or made the shot, she got a thumbs up from me. By the end of the season, she was my leading scorer. Research demonstrates that people perform best when they get five pieces of positive reinforcement for every one correction or critique. As World Cup and Olympic winning soccer coach Tony DiCicco states, the secret to developing successful athletes is to “catch them being good.”
3. Make it safe to fail…
…especially when you catch them doing something wrong. Athletes know when they mess up. Mistakes are inevitable. An adult’s reaction to a mistake can either encourage or hinder risk-taking. When Lionel Messi was a young player at Barcelona, he would try and dribble past four defenders, often losing the ball. Do you think his coaches yelled at him to pass? Nope. They stopped the play, gave him the ball back, and said, “Try that again.”
Coaches, if your players make a mistake, especially when they are fully focused and giving full effort, acknowledge their effort and encourage them to try again. Instead of taking them out of the game, call them to the sideline, tell them to try again, then send them back out there. That shows you trust them, and trust from a player to a coach goes a long way.
4. Connect with them about things not related to sports
A wise coach once told me “sports will be over and your athletes will have at least 2/3 of their life ahead of them. If your entire relationship consists of talking about sports, what then?” This shook me and made me realize that it was imperative to connect about things away from the field. This connection not only forms lifelong friendships, but it helps athletes perform better in two ways. First, they realize their worth is not simply just a pair of feet or some good hands, but as a human being. And second, this connection allows for a stronger relationship, one that can bear the burden of the hard truths both parents and coaches are required to discuss with the young men and women in their care.
5. Give them ownership of the outcome
World-renowned sport psychologist Dr. Jerry Lynch speaks of the three questions a coach should ask at halftime of a game. (1) What is working? (2) What is not working? And (3) How can we fix it? Do you see how these questions help players take ownership of the good, the bad, and the solution? By allowing them to have some input your players will compete harder because you have acknowledged their ideas and their input, and they are trying to execute their solution. You have seen them.As a parent, you do this by accepting your child’s goals for playing and letting the experience belong to them. Push them toward their goals, not your own, and when they succeed, remind them it was their effort that brought success.
Kids are not mini-adults, and, therefore, do not possess adult emotions, values, or priorities. Yet one thing they do have in common with adults is they want to be acknowledged. They want to be noticed when they get it right and told its OK when they get it wrong. They do not need to be coddled, but they do need a safe place to fail. When you do these things, your athletes will compete harder, take ownership, and excel.
That is why we must be very intentional about the things we do when we are watching our kids play, and especially when we are coaching them.
That’s why we must remember that any parent or coach can tell a child “I love watching you play.”
Great parenting and coaching emphasizes the WATCHING, and letting the child know that yes, “I see you.” Seeing them makes all the difference.
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