Parenting: A Competitive Sport

What is this all about?  It seems like there is a whole undercurrent to parenting that I was oblivious to when I was growing up. Maybe it is a new thing, but I doubt it.  The only glimpse that I had of this competitive world of parenting as a kid was the high-stress-chain-smoking-hockey-mom that I would meet in the arena, but I always thought that they were more of a curiosity, akin to a funny monkey in a zoo - mostly harmless but good entertainment.  I'm assuming that this coach is a parent (Don't coaches have to be parents at that age?). I guess some parents take this stuff pretty seriously.  Too bad.  It seems to me that the important thing that kids take away from sport at the age of 9 is fun, teamwork and sportsmanship - but also the ability to cope with loss.  I guess there is a tragedy in all of this, and that is that the spirit of youth sport has been lost for at least two generations; the coach must have missed it as a kid too.

The Blogfathers » Blog Archive » Youth Coaching Gone Horribly Wrong


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