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Welcome to Coach Dad. Coach are dad, coaches, and sports family trying to look better at home in the stands and on the field. Here's your host, Jim Bill.

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So tell me,

Sports Memories

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what are some of the things that jump out at you when you think about sports when you were growing up? For me, I've got a couple of them that are just huge. I had I had gone 0 for 4 against Texas Tech. This guy was just eating my lunch. I struck out three times, I think one weak ground ball. And it's the bottom of the 10th inning, and I'm coming up to bat, and the coach comes to me and he's like, hey, I think we're gonna pinch hit for you. And I was like, Coach, come on, I got this. I got this, coach, I can do this. And he was like, uh, alright. And uh so I go up there, sure enough, I get up there at the plate. First pitch, the guy throws me a curve, and I just swing and miss, and I'm I'm terrible. Just not even anywhere close to it. And then the fool, the pitcher comes back and tries to sneak a fastball by me. And sure enough, I hit it out of the park to win the game. It was a walk-off home run, and I I distinctly remember running around the bases, and the feeling of relief was so much bigger than the thrill of victory in that moment. I'm just I'm jogging, just so relieved that I didn't strike out again. And that I was going so slow that the umpire at second base goes, man, you should pick it up a little bit, big guy. What's going on here? I was like, sorry. I just I'm just relieved right now. So we all have moments that are these great moments in sports,

Not So Great Sports Moments

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and let me tell you, I've got a ton of really bad ones too. I'll give you just a great example of that. My freshman year in high school, I made four errors in one game. I remember we had made an out and we're throwing the baseball around, and I catch the ball, and I'm at shortstop, and I threw the ball away. I threw it away, throwing the ball around in the infield. And I heard a fan in the stands, some mom was up there, and she was like, Man, he can't even throw the ball around in the infield. My name

Sports is a Training Ground

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is Jim Miller, and I'm a coach, and I'm a dad. And I love sports because of the great tool it is, the resource that it is to teach us and to help us teach our kids about life. The crucible of sports is a fantastic training ground. But as parents, we've got a huge calling. Our calling is that we want to make it a servant. We don't ever want to allow sports to run the day. Sports are a great servant, but they're a terrible master. Now, I know that in a game, there are a lot of times that we walk away, and on our way from the field to the car, or the court to the car, there's a list of things going through your brain that you gotta talk to your kid about. There's a conversation that has to be had.

Connection Before Correction

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Now, I know that there were plays that were botched, there were efforts that were less than effortful, there were mental mistakes that were made. There were things that need to be corrected 100%. I'm not saying that we don't correct the mistakes, but I am saying that what we need to do first is we need to remember our role as parents. And so we're gonna go back to what I call just a little coach-dad principle here. Before we have correction, we need to have connection. It's kind of cheesy, isn't it? I love the little cheese, a little formage for the diet. So I'll say that again. We need to have connection before we have correction. Listen, this idea of safe spaces gets a terrible rap. But for kids, it's vitally important that they understand that the love that you have for them, the way that you treat them, the way you think of your child is not in any way tied to their performance. Whether it's at school or whether it is on a ball field or whether it is in any other area of their lives, they need to understand that you love them for them because they are your son or your daughter, and not because of the way they perform in a baseball game or in a soccer game or on a star test or on some other standardized test. It's cool. There's nothing that can separate them from your love as a dad.

What Not to Say

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So, how about this? Let's let's take a step back for a little bit and let's think about some things that we should not say, right? Let's just rule some things out right away. And because we don't want to look back at the conversation later and go, man. So let's start off with things that we don't want to say. We don't want to say, man, you look scared or intimidated or nervous or overwhelmed or overmatched. We don't ever want to start off a conversation that way with our kids. Now, later, we may want to come back to them and say something along the lines of, hey, you look like you didn't feel comfortable out there. You look like you could have felt better. How can we better prepare you for that situation? Okay, you don't ever want to say to them, man, you blew that play. What were you thinking? What's the matter? But instead,

What to Say Instead

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take that step back and you can ask them questions like, hey, what was going through your brain when that happened? What were you thinking about? And how can we help to reframe that so that they'll be more successful the next time around? We don't ever start a conversation telling our kids how they should feel about a moment. Trust me, they've got the emotion part of it down. They've got that figured

Emotions Don't Rule

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out. What we can do as parents is help them learn how to process the things that they feel so that the thing that they feel does not dictate how they perform. The greatest athletes don't ever allow emotions to rule or dictate how they play. They find a way to take the emotion that they're feeling and turn it into a superpower in many ways. We talk a lot about how we can be nervous sometimes, but that nervous energy that you have is God preparing your body to perform better than you could have dreamed possible. That is the saber-toothed tiger standing in front of you, and you get that adrenaline rush. That feeling of nervousness and fear is the exact same hormones in your body as exhilaration and excitement. Just a different reframing in your mind. So when you're talking to your kids, help them begin to process the emotions that they felt and to turn out how to take those emotions and use them to their benefit moving forward. What are the things that you can do as mom or as dad to help them process it and move forward

24-Hour Rule

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in a good way? So, something of a practical rule that's really healthy to implement might be a 24-hour rule where you just wait 24 hours before you give any kind of feedback about the game, where you don't have any kind of major correction within that first 24-hour period. Or maybe you, as you come to them, might say something along the lines of, Hey, would you rather have dad feedback, coach feedback, or no feedback? And honestly, there are a lot of times that you could probably answer that question for them. You don't even need to ask it. So figuring out what it is that your kids need, that's part of the blessing of being a parent. Seeing what your kid needs and giving them that thing to make sure that they have what they need in any situation, including preparing them for what's on the field. Because let's

God Doesn't Parent Us Based On Our Stats

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be honest, aren't we glad that God does not parent us based on our stat line? Imagine a world where God looked at us and said, Man, you're you're not really doing a good job of this thing. So I'm just not gonna really be your I'm not gonna really work with you right now. That would be a terrible world to live in. This world where the love of our Creator is dependent on our performance is just horrible to think about. And really the truth of the matter is that when we read, what we see is that perfect love casts out fear.

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

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So perfect love casts fear aside. There's no fear in that perfect love. Or another way to say it is that well-developed love gets rid of fear. So if your child is in fear of what you might say, then we need to do a better job of developing the love between them and us. So let's make sure that the car ride home does a good job of keeping the mission front and center.

Transformation, Not Just Transportation

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The car ride home is not really just transportation. Car ride home could be transformation. Ah, look at that cheesy. I like it. So remember, the car ride home is not just transportation, it's transformation. And we're finding ways that we can use it to help our kids develop into the person that we are called to help them become, to raise them into the sons and the daughters that we want them to be, the people that we wish that we had aspired to, right? The thing that we wish that we could become one day. That's what we want our kids to become. So let's just remember that the mission is bigger than the game, and it starts at home. Or actually, in this case, I guess it starts on the way home. I think you get the point.

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Thanks for listening to Coach Dad, where it starts at home.