What is the hardest thing about running a junior sporting club? Answer? Parents. They start off wanting their kids to have fun, to socialise, to get fit and healthy. They end up thinking that their kid is a superstar, that coaches know less than them and that umpires are fair game for abuse.
Our Positive Parenting course helps parents see the greater purpose of sport which is to use sport as the training they need for life success. Instead of boasting, criticising, and abusing they learn to focus on encouraging, role modelling and supporting the wider community. Positive psychology talks about 24-character traits necessary for life success and 7 of them are absolute game changes. These are enthusiasm, determination, optimism, self-control, gratitude, social intelligence and curiosity or love of learning.
Every single one of these can be nurtured and developed through playing sport but we tend to focus instead on instant gratification, winning and talent. Imagine if we focussed instead on long term life skill building. We only get one chance to raise our kids and typically around 18 years of time. How will you use this limited time that you have?
