November 13, 2015

Teaching Parents How To Stay In Control On Youth Sports Sidelines

Combating performance anxiety experienced by parents

Sending The Wrong Message

The stories of parents acting out on the sidelines are all too familiar. The problems range from parents yelling at parents, parents verbally abusing referees, to incidents of physical violence between adults. The unfortunate part of this behavior is that not only does it teach children that abuse and violence are ways to solve disagreements, but it constitutes a form of emotional abuse.

I don't believe that most parents have a personal value system that includes violence and verbal abuse as proper behavior at youth sports events. If asked, most parents would say that they attend their child's sporting events to provide support, and that they want a positive and healthy environment for their children. Unfortunately, I believe a form of performance anxiety interferes with the ability of some parents to achieve these goals. When the competition on the field heats up, the parents on the sideline or in the stands begin to get energized as well. Because they do not know what to do with all of this excess energy, they sometimes act in inappropriate and negative ways.

Performance Anxiety: Parents Experience It Too!

Performance anxiety is a challenge for all athletes, including the youth athlete. Your child may not necessarily know what performance anxiety is by name, but she sure knows its symptoms. She knows when she gets that strange churning feeling in her stomach that makes her feel like throwing up. She is relieved when you tell her she just has "butterflies" in her stomach. She visualizes the butterflies and tries to get them to "fly in formation."

Parents experience a different kind of anxiety on the sidelines. The kind and intensity of the anxiety will depend on the sport. It may depend on the level of contact in the sport or the skill level of the participants, but, whatever the sport, most parents end up experiencing the game with their child in a very personal way. They see themselves out on the field. They can feel the muscles twitch in their body as they feel their child catches a pass and then fumbles, or swings and misses for strike three. And, they feel the elation when their child hits a home run or scores a goal.

The Intensity Web And Tunnel Vision

While it is natural for a parent to identify with her child to some extent while he is playing sports, the more a parent identifies with him the more the parent is getting tangled up in the "Intensity Web." The problem is that a mother can't release the building intensity the same way as her child. She can't go on to the field and block an opposing player. She can't dribble the basketball and focus her anxiety in that activity. Instead, she is stuck on the sideline, caught more and more in the "Intensity Web."

When the intensity level reaches a certain point, parents move into "Tunnel Vision." By that I mean they literally lose sight of what is important in youth sports and focus narrowly on their child, to the exclusion of everything else. Tunnel vision is often the reason parents act out at the game. While in tunnel vision parents often lose the ability to make good decisions. They find themselves saying things they normally would not say. They find themselves confronting other adults to the point of threats or violence. When a parent cannot stay out of tunnel vision during a youth sporting event he is far more likely to act inappropriately.

How Performance Principles Can Help Parents Avoid Tunnel Vision

Principles designed to help athletes perform better work for parents too! To avoid tunnel vision, you should:

1. Relax your body and mind. Athletes and parents alike perform better when they are relaxed. For the athlete this means modulating the intensity of the game so that they are close to the optimal level of intensity necessary to perform at their maximum skill level. Successful athletes learn how to relax under pressure. If you, as parent, can stay close to your optimal level of intensity you will not court disaster by entering into tunnel vision. Think twice about what is happening around you. Relax, count to ten (there was a reason why your mother told you to count to ten before reacting to a stressful situation: counting to ten allows you to begin to relax your body) and you can be a better role model for your child and have more fun on the sidelines.

2. Practice rhythmic breathing. It sounds so simple: breathe and stay relaxed. Yet, when most people are asked to breathe, they automatically think they need to take deep breaths, in other words, to inhale. This causes the chest to tighten and actually increases the level of anxiety. The key to relaxing your body and mind through breathing is to exhale. As you slowly let the air escape from your lungs, you can feel the muscles in your chest begin to relax. You can feel the tension leave. It feels so freeing to have the anxiety leave the chest. Remember, though, that it will take more than one exhale to bring you back from the brink of tunnel vision. It may take several minutes of relaxed rhythmic breathing to bring you back into focus. As you continue to focus on breathing, the "walls" of tunnel vision will start to disappear and you will be able to see and think more clearly. As your breathing and thinking becomes more relaxed, you are more likely to make good decisions, decisions consistent with, not destructive of, your values.

3. Help other parents avoid tunnel vision. When all the parents of players on a team or in a youth sports program have been through sport parent training to, you are likely to see a noticeable improvement in the atmosphere on the sidelines. That is because everyone will be working from a common value standard that has been agreed upon and documented by his or her signatures. Such pre-season training will also empower you to help keep other parents out of tunnel vision. You can be proactive by intervening with parents whose intensity levels are driving them toward tunnel vision.

Every parent on the sideline is vulnerable to tunnel vision. Situations in the game may push any parent closer to losing control. Because it is easier to keep a parent from ever going into the tunnel than it is to bring him back out, if you notice that another parent is beginning to become too intense, it is up to you and other parents to speak to that parent and help him or her regain focus and relax.

If other parents are not able to help the stressed-out parent get re-focused, then a coach may have to intervene, since it is in the best interest of the team on the field for parents not to enter into tunnel vision and lose control on the sidelines. However, because misbehaving parents are a distraction to the coach, and he or she shouldn't have to worry about the behavior of their parents, it should be up to you and the other parents to help each other stay focused and relaxed.

4. Don't yell; use a "quiet voice." When you need to help someone change their behavior, don't yell at them. People don't listen when they are yelled at. Yelling just prompts a "fight or flight" reaction. When your team's parents agree that its members will help everyone stay in control, a soft voice will help the person return to a fun level of intensity.

5. Keep things positive. You are at your child's competition to cheer for your child. Since you can't dribble the basketball, block a lineman or pass the soccer ball, you need to channel your intensity in positive ways. Cheering is a great way to do just that!

Make lots of noise as you encourage your child's team (remember to cheer, not just for your child, but for everyone on the team). Keep the comments positive. You can create a powerful sideline environment for your team when the cheering is focused, loud and positive. The players will feel inspired by the support and the parents will have a positive way to focus their intensity. As intensity is focused on positive cheering, parents will be less likely to stray into tunnel vision, lose focus and engage in negative, emotionally abusive behavior.

Working To Make Positive Changes

By working together to make positive changes in sideline behavior, you can make the youth sports experience much more enjoyable, not only for yourself, but for everyone else: players, coaches, and officials, even parents of the opposing players. As you and the other parents become more relaxed, your children will not only enjoy sports more, they will perform better.

As the "consumers" of a youth sports program, parents have the power to force positive changes in the way a program is run. By helping a youth sports program create a common positive value system through education, training and publicity, parents are more likely to live up to the expectations of the program, and themselves.

Good Sideline Behavior By Parents Sets Right Example for Children

By Brooke de Lench

Don't Criticize The Players

I remember standing with a group of parents after a middle school soccer game one beautiful, crisp New England fall afternoon. Our team had just suffered a heartbreaking loss when a player failed to connect on a pass to a wide open forward poised to score the tying goal on a breakaway. Bob, the father of the forward - who had scored both of our team's goals in the 3-2 loss - complained that it was "too bad we don't have any players who can score. My son had to play forward instead of shoring up the defense." As the mother of one of the forwards who "couldn't score" I was aghast at the insensitivity of Bob's comment.

Best to keep your critiquing to yourself. No one likes to hear the "know-it-all" parent providing a play-by-play commentary on the game loud enough for everyone in the stands to hear. It's usually parents like these who, if they could hear themselves make remarks like, "The guard opened a huge hole for the running back. Why didn't he get the first down? We need to try someone else at halfback!" would ask, "Why the heck did I say that?" If your child has been the target of insensitive comments like these, you know how important it is to keep your criticisms to yourself.

Don't Put Your Child On A Pedestal

In lamenting the lack of good forwards, Bob lost sight of why the other parents were at the game. He put his son on a pedestal, and, by bragging about his son's athletic prowess, made the other parents feel small. The players knew his son was a strong player. So did the parents. But Bob did not need to insult us or put our children down. If your child overhears you putting her on a pedestal and singing her praises in front of others she may become afraid to let you down. It's easier for your child not to have you see her do poorly in a game than to be embarrassed in front of all the people that you brag to. Even if she does well, she is being put under undue - and unnecessary - pressure to perform. When that happens, she isn't having fun. When she isn't having fun, she is more likely to quit.

Besides, children develop at different rates. One day, the shoe might soon be on the other foot. Bob's son might reach a plateau in his athletic development and see other players catch up or even surpass him in ability. Kids need to support each other and play as a team. Parents need to do the same.

Think About How You Are Viewed By Others

How do you think your sideline behavior is perceived by other parents, coaches and players? Imagine what a video playback of your behavior would look like. Would you see yourself helping to clean the sidelines after a game or tossing a coffee cup on the ground in disgust after the opposing team has just scored its seventh goal? Would you hear yourself leading a positive cheer, hands clapping with a smile, or see yourself booing and making an obscene gesture at the referee? Would you see yourself smoking near the player's bench or handing out oranges to players at halftime?

Your child - and all the other players, for that matter - will have the best experience if she knows that you are on the sidelines supporting her and her team and that you have put the interests of the kids first and left your ego and personal agenda at home. Children learn self-control by watching you display self-control. Like a coach who remains calm and under control in tough situations, exhibiting good sideline behavior provides young athletes with an appropriate role model for handling the emotional ups and downs of competition.

Actions speak louder than words. Your efforts to teach self-control will be undermined if your child sees you losing your cool on the sideline and yelling at the officials.

Exhibit Good Sportsmanship and Have Fun

Nearly seven in ten 9- to 15-year olds in a recent study said they had seen a fan angrily yell at an official. Three quarters of the parents and coaches questioned in the same survey said they had witnessed such unacceptable and verbally abusive behavior as well.

Such behavior can negatively affect all the players. If you are supportive and positive in everything you say and do, it will spill over to all the kids, on both sides of the field. Don't view the other team as the enemy. Talk to parents in the stands from the other team. Congratulate any player who makes a good play. If children see their parents in friendly conversation with parents from the visiting team, they will be getting a very important message: that the game isn't such a life or death, kill-or-be-killed affair that parents can't exhibit good sportsmanship. If your kids see you having fun on the sideline, instead of grimly pacing up and down like an NFL coach in the fourth quarter of a playoff game, they will keep the game in perspective and realize that they can be good sports and have fun too!

Whatever you do, don't condone poor sportsmanship. If a coach goes nuts over a referee's call and is ejected, don't cheer him when he goes into a Bobby Knight-like rage, kicks an equipment bag and instead of turning the coaching reins over to his assistant coach leads the entire team off the field or court, forfeiting the game. If we as parents lose our perspective, we can't expect anyone else - least of all our children - to keep theirs. As parents we are our children's last line of defense when it comes to teaching them proper sportsmanship.

Thank the officials

Most youth sports officials regard parent abuse as the most stressful and negative aspect of officiating, one that is driving many to quit officiating. Resist the urge to criticize the officials. Instead, take time at the end of the contest to thank them and compliment them for their hard work.

If you thank the officials, you will, as I often was, be rewarded with a surprised smile and some interesting observations about your child's team. Such expressions of gratitude go a long way to motivating officials to continue officiating and handle the inevitable criticisms by coaches, parents and players. Remember, most are volunteers and, often, young people themselves.

Adapted from the book, Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports (HarperCollins 2006) by Brooke de Lench, founder and Editor-in-Chief of MomsTeam.com.

Out-of-Control Parents In Youth Sports: Symptom Or Disease?

By Brooke de Lench

Symptom or disease

It seems to be popular these days to blame the parents for their out-of-control behavior at youth sports events. There is probably no way to completely eliminate the emotional pressure a parent feels when they are attending their child's athletic event (pressure that naturally increases as the child moves up the competitive ladder), but are parents who act out a symptom of what is wrong with youth sports or the disease itself?

I think it is a bit of both: part of the blame lies with the parents themselves, part can be blamed on the way youth sports is organized and run. There will always be adults who act inappropriately; however, if we can shift the focus from the current adult-centered to a child-centered philosophy we will see the bulk of the bad behavior eliminated.

Part of the problem stems from parents who:

Use youth sports to gratify their egos. Seeing your child compete arouses strong emotions. You experience a flood of positive emotions when she wins, an emotional letdown when she loses. For men, the male hormone testosterone magnifies the positive effect of winning and the negative effect of losing. Because the boost in testosterone men experience when they win creates a feeling of euphoria and exhilaration, men who compete and win, even if they are just coaching or watching (winning by proxy), have an incentive to compete not enjoyed by women (whose testosterone levels goes up most regularly if they feel they have played well, whether or not they have won). Whether as parent or coach, most men want to see that their team/child wins. Because they are so intent on experiencing more emotional highs (and trying to avoid the emotional letdown when their child loses), such parents literally let their emotions get the better of them, with just about any kind of behavior justified in their minds if it helps the child or child's team win. They imagine that they identify with their child but in fact they end up ignoring their children's real feelings, goals, and dreams and focusing instead on their own.
Are unable to cope with the emotional ups and downs of youth sports. It isn't easy being a parent of a child playing sports. The ups and downs of competition not only challenge a child's coping skills but a parents' as well. Some parents lack the skills to handle the emotional roller coaster and end up acting in inappropriate ways.
View youth sports as a zero sum competition with other parents. All parents want their children to be successful, but, increasingly, many see parenting itself as a competitive sport in which success as a parent depends on their child winning and the children of other parents losing.
See the time and money spent on their child's youth sports as an investment. Parents these days seem willing - indeed many feel compelled - to make enormous sacrifices of time, money and emotional energy to give their children the best chance of succeeding in an increasingly winner-take-all society. Because youth sports demands the two things that most parents have in shortest supply - money and time - too many have come to view their sacrifices as investments which, like any investments, they want to monitor and to protect. When that investment is made in the name of the thing they cherish most, their child, and when that investment is made in a market (youth sports) that arouses strong emotions, and, in the case of contact sports like hockey, soccer, basketball, and football is also intense, fast-paced, and inherently violent, the desire to protect the investment often causes parents to act in inappropriate ways.
Believe that lower standards of behavior apply to youth sports. Parents wouldn't yell out at a child's piano recital "Eric, you bum, you can't play the piano to save your life." Why do they feel the right to loudly criticize their child's sports performance? Research by sports psychologist Brenda Bredemeier and her colleagues shows that adults and children tend to suspend their normal level of moral reasoning when entering the sporting arena and adopt a form of "game reasoning" that allows them to be more willing to accept unethical and unsportsmanlike behavior simply because it is sport.
Have a hard time giving up control. As one Canadian journalist wrote recently, Youth sports are "an arena ... to which parents who are themselves competitive, ambitious and frequently controlling by nature are drawn. And, vexingly for them when they take to the stands, it is an arena in which control must be yielded: to the coach, to the kids on the ice, to the officials." Sometimes, such lack of control leads a parent to act inappropriately to try to get back the control they have lost.

Expressing frustration

But sometimes parents who act out at youth sports contests are simply expressing their frustration over larger, more structural problems in the youth sports experience itself, some of which can be fixed. Consider the following examples:

A mother, seeing her child riding the bench, screams at her child's coach to give everyone, including her child, a chance to play. She might be screaming at the coach because he isn't following league rules regarding minimum playing time, or because the coach failed to make clear to the parents that his philosophy is to play the "best" players. The problem could have been avoided had the issue of playing time been addressed at the pre-season meeting so that the coach, players and parents had the same expectations.
A father yelling at the coach for poor decisions may be yelling because he is caught up in a winning-at-all-costs mentality, but he could be criticizing the coach because he hadn't been adequately trained. The problem could have been avoided had the coach been properly trained.
A mother admonishing the referee for making a bad call may be doing so because she is overly invested emotionally in the game's outcome or because she or the referee doesn't know the rules. I remember a mother of a player on one of my soccer teams who told the referee that he made a "stupid call" when he issued her son a yellow card for unintentionally head butting another boy as they were both going for a "50-50" ball. Had I gone over the rules at the preseason meeting, had she understood that it was a violation, unintentional or not, she would probably not had yelled at the referee.

Setting Expectations

In other words, some of the misbehavior by parents on the sidelines of youth sports contests could be avoided in the first place if expectations were set before the season started about playing time, if the coach had been adequately trained, if the parent had been educated about the rules, or if the program itself was more child-centered.

While I am not a huge fan of parents' codes of conduct because they don't address the root of the problem I see with today's youth sports (that it is adult- instead of child-centered), setting expectations through the use of a code of conduct or designating a parent to be an "ambassador" to receive training on dealing with out-of-control parents are ideas at least worth exploring.

Adapted from the book, Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports (HarperCollins 2006) by Brooke de Lench.

Ways for Sports Parents to Set a Good Example

By Brooke de Lench

"Children learn self-control by watching you display self-control. Like a coach who remains calm and under control in tough situations, parents who exhibit good sideline behavior provide young athletes with an appropriate role model for handling the emotional ups and downs of competition."

~ Brooke de Lench

1. Support the Entire Team
Instead of focusing on your own child, choose cheers that complement the entire team. The players may never hear your words of encouragement but the kids on the bench will get the message that you are pulling for the entire team.

Don't Critique the Players Negative remarks have a way of reverberating through the crowd and will undermine the team work on the field. Practice good karma ("what goes around comes around").

Don't Put Your Child on A Pedestal Kids need to support one another and play as a team. Parents need to do the same.

Congratulate any Players who make a Good Play If kids see the adults applauding good plays made by the other team, they will be getting a very important message: that the game isn't such a life-or death, kill-or-be killed event that parents can't exhibit good sportsmanship.

Thank the Officials and Coaches Expressions of gratitude go a long way to motivating officials and coaches to continue doing the job they are doing and shows your children that they individuals are important.

My quote on Sportsmanship:

October 27, 2015

Assignment/ Ibat-Ibang Uri ng Tela

My little kiddo requests if I could help him with his school assignment.

Hope this will help other mothers too J

KOTON

Ang Koton na tela ay maaaring maging lubhang matibay at kumportableng magsuot. Pinakamahusay gamitin sa ating klima sapagkat mabuting sumipsip ng pawis at maginhawang isuot

Karaniwang galing sa hibla ng halamang koton. Ito ay kapaki-pakinabang sa paggawa ng tuwalya, buli cloths, tea bags, tablecloths, bandages, at uniporme at mga sheet para sa ospital at iba pang mga medikal na mga gamit.

Kabilang dito ang Katsa, Voile, Oxford, Calico, Crepe at Percale.

KATSA - ang katsa ay isang uri ng tela na pinaglalagyan ng harina o flour.

VOILE – bestida, tshirt, daster

OXFORD- malambot, breathable at kumportable. Ginagsmit sa mga kamiseta, sportswear at damit pangtulog.

CALICO - magaspang at matingkad ang kulay nito. ito ay ginagawang kamisadentro at epron. ito ay yari sa koton.

CREPE -malambot at makintab ito. ito any ginagawang bestida, blusa, o damit panloob.

PERCALE – isand uri ng paghahabi ng hibla ng koton. Ginagamit sa bedsheets.

LINEN

Linen ang kinikilalang pinakalumang uri ng tela mula sa halamang Flax. Ito at malambot, matibay at may anti-fungal at anti-bacterial na properties kaya kalimitang ginagamit sa kumot at bedsheets.

LANA O WOOL

Ang Lana ay mula sa balahibo ng tupa. Ito ay makapal, magaspang, at mainit sa katawan kaya't mahusay gawing jacket, kumot at sweater.

SEDA

Ang Seda ay makintab,manipis, pino at mamahaling uri ng tela. Ang seda o silk na tela ay galing sa bahay o cocoon ng isang uri ng uod.

Kadalasang yari ang mga ito sa seda, ang makintab na tela na tinaguriang reyna ng mga hibla.

Ang sutla o seda ay isang uri ng tela. Ito rin ang tawag sa anumang damit o kasuotang yari mula sa ganitong uri ng tela.

Isa itong likas na hibla o pibrang gawa ng mga silkworm. Batay sa kasaysayan, nanggagaling ang sutla mula sa Tsina at napakamahal ng halaga nito.

SINTETIKO

Ito ay telang likha ng mga tao, yari sa kemikal. Hinahabi sa iba't ibang uri ng tela tulad ng Rayon, Nylon, Dacron at Banlon.

NAYLON ay isang uri ng sintetikong hibla o pibrang ginawa ng tao. Nagmumula ito o kabilang sa mga poli-amido, at parang plastik o parang tela, kaya't mayroong uri ng telang naylon.

Pangunahing ginagamit ang naylon para sa paggawa ng mga damit, mga karpet o alpombra, mga telang pangkurtina o panglaylay, mga balindang, at mga pangtakip sa mga upuan ng mga kotse at mga bus.

RAYON ay isang sintetikong hibla, sinulid o tela, o pibrang gawa ng tao] Bilang uri ng hibla, bunot, o pibra, isang itong pinanariwa (nagdaan sa rehenerasyon) o muling sinariwang selulosa. Nanggagaling ang rayon mula sa halamang bulak o kahoy.

POLIYESTER o poliester (Ingles: polyester, Kastila: poliéster) ay isang uri ng resinang sintetiko at isa sa mga hibla o pibrang gawa ng tao.

Bilang hiblang sintetiko, ikinakalakal ito sa ilalim ng tatak o markang Dacron, Fortrel, Kodel, Vycron, at iba pa.

Pangunahing ginagamit ang polyester para sa paggawa ng mga lubid, mga damit, mga layag, mga tapete, at kurdon ng gomang gulong.

BATISTE - ito ay malambot, matibay, at makintab. maaring gawa ito sa koton.

Batista ay isang pinong tela na gawa sa cotton, lana, Polyester, o isang timpla, at ang softest ng magaan opaque na tela.

Padjama, kamiseta, punda ng unan.

BIRD'S EYE ito ay hinahabing may disenyong hugis dyamante at tuldok sa gitna tulad ng mata ng ibon. ginagawa itong lampin, twalya at pamunas ng kamay.

BROCADE - ito ay may pagkaseda at makintab. ginagawa itong curtina o pantakip sa mga muwebles. brocade” na ‘di na kailangan ng mga burda sapagkat nakadikit na mismo sa tela ang disenyo

CHIFFON – ay manipis at makintab na telang kadalasang ginagamit sa laces at laso sa damit.

ORGANZA – manipis at makintab at matibay na telang karaniwan gawa sa silkworm. Ginagamit sa maistilong panyo, gowns at kasootang pangkasal.

Ancient Chinese Birth Gender Chart

Ancient Chinese Birth Gender Chart

This is an ancient Chinese Chart used to predict the sex of your unborn child, reportedly with a 99% accuracy. The Chart was buried in a tomb near Beijing for 700 years. The original is in the Institute of Science in Beijing.

All you need is the month the child was conceived, and the age of the mother at the time of conception.

Cross reference age of mother at conception with month of conception

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