The Unknown Parent – Establish boundaries

The Unknown Parent is a series of musings for Sports360AZ.com from an anonymous parent of athletes. The parent is an Arizona high school sports fan from their time involved in education, coaching and athletics. Want to have your questions or comments featured in future articles? Email TheUnknownParentAZ@gmail.com

 

Read last week’s post HERE.

I’ve been thinking about boundaries this last week. Maybe because I’m writing this from the car as the 10th practice of the young football season has gone nearly a half an hour over its supposed end time so that the coaches can run some character into the kids. 

When my kids finally have drivers’ licenses, then feel free to run them to the point of exemplary citizenship, until then, you’re just making it so the groceries in the fridge spoil and our drive-thru burger expenses go through the roof.

Yes, boundaries are important. Kids need them more than ever. Boundaries often are looked upon as limitations by the people within them. My kids’ coaches don’t seem to want the boundary of strict end to practice time, just like the kids on the team seem to bump up against the boundaries of expectations that they treat the locker room with care, speak to each other with respect, and turn their homework in on time, with limited AI assistance. 

But those things that feel like limitations are actually protections! For the coaching staff, ending practice on time is a buffer against burnout and a help to the families that crave their attention. For the kids on the team, the rules and standards that “dull” the potential fun of being an athlete protect them from forgetting that we’re all in this together. These are team sports. To win, you have to have everyone exist within the system that the coach designs. You can’t prioritize your own success over the greater good- not in the long run, anyway. 

One might assume that because I’m complaining about this coaching staff’s time management, that I don’t appreciate them. It’s quite the opposite. I have a few kids who participate in several sports. These football coaches have been the best group of coaches any of my kids have experienced, and that was reinforced earlier this season when a very good individual player bumped up against the team rules earlier in the season. 

The coaching staff didn’t ignore the issue for the purpose of a short term gain. They addressed it, they came up with an accountability plan, and they moved forward. 

They not only erected a boundary- they defended it. And the result was a team full of kids who knew that their coaches prioritized the concept of “them” over the potential of “HIM.” The kids rallied, and the scoreboard the week of that game reflected it.

I want to encourage any coaches or teachers or parents that are reading this to be firm in your boundaries, and not to get exhausted at the prospect of having to defend them. 

We can either be tired now, or defeated later. 

After all the post-practice sprints I watched these boys run today, the only guarantee is that they’ll definitely be tired. 

 

          -The Unknown Parent