— A cheerleading tryout, a failure, and a father’s response

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today on Coach Dad, Jim is talking about something every sports dad needs to hear. How good dads can accidentally crush their kids' confidence. Not because they're cruel, not because they don't care, but because constant correction can start to sound like pressure. This one is practical, honest, and worth listening to before the next game.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

A few years ago, I heard a story about a young lady who was telling her dad about her day, and she had tried out for cheerleader that day. And so as she's sitting here telling her dad about the tryouts, she's describing the colossal failure, that it was epic. Her dad's asking her for details, and she's saying, Oh my gosh, Dad, it was horrible. It was just absolutely terrible. Her dad's response to that is one of the big things that she gives credit for the success that she has had later in life. She's a highly successful entrepreneur. I'm going to tell you a little bit later about what it is that dad said and why that made her so successful. I also want to talk today a little bit about dads who just on accident, not intending to, but things that they do that that really crush their kids' confidence. It's a well-meaning dad who's crushing his kids' confidence. And then finally, we're going to give some practical tools that dads can use to help their kids be confident no matter what's going on to develop resilience and grit, which is something as parents we should all be trying to put into our kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Welcome to Coach Dad. It's hopeful dad, coaches, and sports families trying to look better at home in the stands and on the field. Here's your host, Jim Larry.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Hey, my name is Coach Jim. Welcome to Coach Dad. Today we're just talking about well-meaning dads who are destroying kids'

— The dripping faucet metaphor

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confidence and what it is that's causing that to happen. And so I want to set the scene for you. Let's let's look at something here that we're probably all familiar with in one respect or another, is the dripping faucet. You've been around a dripping faucet before, there's there's a leak, and you start to get these little drips of water one after another. And it starts off really almost you don't even notice it. Just somebody somebody's walking around and says, Hey, do you hear you hear a faucet dripping? And then eventually you're thinking, Oh, yeah, I hear a faucet dripping. Do you hear that? Yeah. And then before long, what do you notice? That is the only thing you hear, no matter what is going on in the house, you hear that faucet drip, and it becomes this overwhelming noise in your mind. Now, it's not the volume of that little drip, drip, drip. It's it is the constant, unrelenting pressure that it never stops and it never goes away. That is the thing that causes us to have overwhelm at the sense of that noise. I don't know, maybe you're feeling a little anxiety as I describe it right now. You feel a little bit of pressure of having a hard time breathing because of this? Sorry. So let's let's take a step back, and I want you to think about this

— Advice before the game, correction during warmups, review afterward

SPEAKER_01 3:10

dad. Okay, the dad is on the way to the game in the car. He's just talking to his son, and he's really really being helpful. He's reminding him, hey, remember, remember we talked about you practicing keeping your elbow up. And and remember, be sure that when you stride, that you don't step in the bucket. You want to step right to the coach. Okay, oh uh, you know, or in soccer, you know, keep your be sure you remember, keep your knee over the ball as you're taking it, as you're taking a kick. Uh or an elbow, remember your elbow goes underneath, and be sure that you shoot up through the window, up through the window, okay? And so we get these these different input that you're giving your kid on the way to the game. And then as they're warming up, right? They're throwing the baseball around and you're just hey, get your arm behind it, remember, point, point to the target when you're throwing, right? Point to the target. And and don't don't forget to do this, and when you it just every every little thing, you're giving a little correction, little correction, trying to help them out. All right, and then during the game, and it stands, right? As they're as they're getting ready to bat, you're yelling, you're yelling, hey, remember when we talked about your elbow, remember that? And just one thing after another, one thing after another. And then we get in the car on the way home, and you're kind of replaying the different things, and oh that one, that one swing you took, remember your elbow was down, and that's why that's why you had trouble. You missed you missed the ball because you didn't keep your elbow up. Okay, so we start to give this feedback then on the way home that really causes them to uh to start to think about all the mistakes that they've made. And it becomes that constant dripping

— When constant correction becomes the only thing kids hear

SPEAKER_01 4:38

noise, and it's well-meaning, right? It's not we're we're not intending anything negative with it. We're honestly, those dads, we're trying to help our sons be the best they can be. But in the long run, what happens is that constant drip becomes an overwhelming noise, and those kids can't hear anything else. Just the voice of correction from the parent, from the dad, from the mom that is over and over telling them do this instead, do this instead, do this instead, do this instead. And now we've got a problem.

— Ways dads accidentally crush confidence

SPEAKER_01 5:12

So here's some of the things that the well-meaning dad do. What happens is we end up over-talking, we just say too many things, and it's an overabundance of information that's coming at the kid. Or we play the comparison game, and instead of just talking to our son or our daughter about them, we talk about hey, what about remember this guy over here? Remember what she's doing over there. Be like her, be like him. We talk about the mistakes they make. And oh man, you messed this up. Oh, we made this mistake, did this wrong, do it this way next time. Too many instructions at once, visibly showing disappointment when they make a mistake, making this game about future outcome, treating every shot, every play, every basket, every goal, as if it is the final judgment on their life. So confidence of our children is gonna grow as our other their identity is separated from their performance. So we don't base their identity on performance and where correction is measured and where love is unconditional. If they feel like they're the the love that we have for them is based on how they do, that's a problem. If we feel like if we are if we are giving out too much correction, then that could be problematic. And if uh we are basing their performance on how we treat them or the things that we do for them or kind of making it making it based on, hey man, you're a great, you get you're a great hitter because you got three hits today, um, then then those are gonna be problems. So we want to try to separate those things and take take that step back in the way we look at it.

— The dad who celebrated effort after failure

SPEAKER_01 7:02

So now I want you to remember that story from earlier that we talked about. This young lady, what what she said is as she was looking at her uh as she was speaking to her dad, she was telling him about this horrible tryout, and her dad was like, Oh my gosh, tell me more. Oh, it was horrible, it just went terrible. And his questions to her were not based on the outcome, but he was cheering her on because she tried something hard as she was describing this event. That oh my gosh, dad, it was terrible, it was a colossal failure. He started praising her for trying something hard and for doing something completely out of her comfort zone, and because she made a great effort at it, he was high-fiving her and celebrating what she did. And she said that as he's doing this, that instilled in me this grit and determination that I can do hard things, and even if I fail at it, that's not gonna stop me. I'm gonna continue to press on and to work hard. She she ended up doing this huge clothing empire. It's a name that probably most of the wives listening to this know, but but she is a very successful entrepreneur and has gone on to just do really big things. And so we want to think about what it is that we're feeding into our kids as we're doing this. Now, there's a there's a

— The confidence equation vs. the fear equation

SPEAKER_01 8:44

kind of a math equation that we can use, an equation that's gonna help build confidence versus one that is going to build fear in our kids, uh, a fear of failure. And so as we're looking at these two things, I want us to consider how it is that we build confidence as dads and as moms. Um so first let's look at this idea of what it is that we're that we could potentially do that's gonna build fear, uh a fear of failure in our kids. One, if we look at uh criticism, criticism plus results-based praise, and what do I mean by that? Results-based praise is when, hey man, you got two hits today, great job. Or, hey man, you scored 10 points, man. That's fantastic, that's a great job. Uh, or you, you know, just whatever it is that we're basing our praise of them based on the results that they got in the thing that they did, then that that can cause some issues. So criticism, results-based praise, uh putting pressure on them to succeed, and then the comparison game that we talked about a minute ago, right? As we're looking at them versus, hey, you know, Noah got nine nine hits today, and you got you got two. I mean, that's that's not enough. We need you to get nine next time. Uh, you walked this many guys, you missed four free throws. Okay, as we're making these comparisons to them and the other people that are playing, then then that can be a problem. Okay, so what about how what's the formula then for success that's gonna build grit and determination and and confidence in our kids? That'd be that would look this way. One is gonna start off with unconditional love. So our love for our kid is not based on their performance, it's not even based on effort or any of those other things, that we love them no matter what. That what they did today is not gonna make you love them anymore, and it and it couldn't make them make them less loved in your eyes either. So uh one is unconditional love, two is belonging, right? What is it that ties them to you? It's it is belonging, they are a part of the family, right? They're a part of the team that they're playing on, they have this sense of belonging, and as a coach, you can create this in your kids by really identifying a hard identifier of the fact that man, you've got the name of the team on your on your jersey, that means you're one of us no matter what. If you if you do fantastic in the game or you do terrible in the game, you've got the name on the jersey, you are one of ours, and we are gonna fight for you no matter what. Okay, that sense of belonging is huge. Um giving them an opportunity to take

— Letting kids take safe risks

SPEAKER_01 11:31

risks with safety, okay. As young kids, allowing them to try things that they could potentially fail at, or maybe maybe even there's they're likely to fail at. So this young lady went to a cheerleader tryout. Man, that was probably not on her list of things that she was great at, and so it was gonna be really difficult for her. So, what are some things that we can do as parents? What are some challenges we can give our kids so that they have uh they have things that are bigger than them that they're trying to do? Um, and then and then a process,

— Process-oriented praise

SPEAKER_01 12:02

process-oriented praise where we give them things to do. Uh, we we praise them based on the fact that they worked hard all week. So instead of hey man, they they got three hits this weekend, and that could be fantastic in and of itself, but you know what, they didn't take the A-Bs, they didn't hit off the T this week at all. And so those three hits may just been luck, right? Or they got three strikeouts, but they put in the work all week long. Then we're more concerned with the fact that they put in the work and less concerned with the fact that they struck out three times. We're gonna praise the fact that they worked hard, okay? We're gonna also praise the fact

— Praising good teammates on the bench

SPEAKER_01 12:40

that they're a good teammate. So there may be things that they could do on the sideline or in the dugout uh or on the bench that make them a fantastic teammate, right? And as as you get as you get a guy on your team that gets a base hit, or you get a guy that makes a clutch free throw as a coach, every now and then what you ought to do is you ought to look down the line and see what the guys on the bench are reacting like and take note of that, right? So when one of your one of the guys on your team does something that's big for your team, look down the line and see how everybody is responding so that after the game you can say, man, I saw, I saw Paul, I saw what you did on the bench when this happened. That's what makes us a great team. Those are the kinds of things that really develop us into a into a solid team. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for good teammates, people that are working hard. Man, when that guy came out of the game, you came up with them with a towel, so they wiped wiped themselves off. You know, there are things that we're trying to do as a coach. We're trying to look for things with the people around us that are going to be good teammate things, and less about what goes on on the field sometimes or in the court, and more about what's going on behind the scenes that makes a good teammate. Okay, so

— Durable confidence: love, belonging, safe risks, and process praise

SPEAKER_01 13:54

let's hit that one more time. Unconditional love, belonging, providing safe risks for them, process-oriented praise, and all those things together are gonna give us durable confidence. It's gonna make kids that are confident no matter what's going on around them. So let's go into an idea of a little coach's inside

— Coaching insight: give athletes room to figure it out

SPEAKER_01 14:20

here, right? As we are, as we're working towards these things, I'm taking a high-level coaching course, and one of the things they talk about is how athletes need some room to figure out how to organize their body moving forward. So as you're giving them something to try to do, they are gonna take a few repetitions to figure it out. And if we are standing over them as they're trying to figure this out and we're giving them constant correction, then it's not instead of naturally organizing themselves for efficiency of movement, then what's gonna happen is that they're gonna start to, they're gonna start to think about, oh, he just said to do this different, or he said to do this different, or he said to do this different. And these are things that could be causing them some some issues, and they're not really listening to their body anymore. So we want to give them space all the time to see what's going on in their body to try to react, to have a good reaction so that moving forward they're able to do a good job of tapping into their athletic ability rather than having to have the feedback correcting them all the time. Let them find ways to correct themselves. So just a little coaching insight there. Not it's not it's not original to me for sure. Uh it's something I learned recently that we want to give the athlete time to mess up so that they can eventually start to get it right. And we do that by just being quiet and letting them take the reps sometimes. So now

— The 3:1 rule for praise and correction

SPEAKER_01 15:44

here's a here's a practical tool that we can use, kind of something to keep in our tool belt as coaches, as parents, and we'll call it the three to one rule. Okay, now let's let's be really fair. When I say three to one, three is extremely generous and it's probably difficult to hit. But when we're gonna talk about three to one, we're gonna aim for three to them, we're gonna probably land at two to one, which is good. That's a good number, and we're talking about three times that we're gonna praise before one time that we criticize, right? Three times that we praise versus one criticism. And a couple weeks ago in one of our episodes, we talked about the sandwich that we have the praise, criticism, praise sandwich. That's a great place to start, right? We always want to try to have to start off with a genuine praise, and let's look at praising things also that that are things like effort,

— Praise effort, character, hustle, and controllables

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the intangibles, so that the processes that they put in. Hey man, I thought you worked really hard all week long, and and I really honor that. Uh offer praise for things like the character that they have, or the way they acted on the bench, or that they were the first one off the bench to go meet their teammates when they came off the field, or that man, I saw the way you, as coach, was calling you guys, you hustled every single time that you were coming on or off the court, on or off the field. Okay, offer praise for the things that are easy to control, because if we're praising the things that are easy to control, then the other things begin to take care of themselves. Now, there's there's a reason that when we talk about Steph Curry

— What great athletes teach us about failure and work

SPEAKER_01 17:30

as a three-point shooter, we talk about him as one of the greatest of all time. And it's not because he makes every shot, because he doesn't make every shot. It's because his percentage is high, right? And so we we look at the fact that Michael Jordan missed more game winners than most people would ever make. Okay, but the fact is that he took the game winner to make the effort, that's what we look at. Okay, so we talk about the fact that he made game winners, but he also missed game winners. We talk about the fact that the greatest of all time, one of the greatest pitchers of all time, uh, struck out more batters than anybody else in history. He also he walked more batters than anybody else in history, right? So there's there's the positive and the negative side of things that we're looking at in the results, but when we look at people like him, we want to talk to our kids based on the work. So Nolan Ryan put in the work, right? Michael Jordan put in the work in the gym. Uh Kobe, put in the work in the gym. These are all guys that put in the effort. Gretzky, put in the work in the gym. So these are the guys that, and this is the stuff that we can praise. This is the

— Praise effort, process, character, selflessness, and teamwork

SPEAKER_01 18:47

stuff that we can focus on. So praise effort, praise process, praise character, praise selflessness, praise teamwork. These are things that we want to praise on the front and the back side. And then when we give that criticism in it, the criticism for, but hey, but let's talk about the ground ball that you missed and what we could do better next time. Now let's talk about why you missed that free throw or what it may have been that caused you to miss that free throw. Let's talk about some of these other things, then we can we can use that sandwich, the two to one or the three to one that we're aiming for, so that when we do the criticism, it's gonna be more easily responded to, it's gonna be more easily accepted, that we're not gonna have uh the feedback and that pushback that we don't want as we're trying to make our kids better. Okay, well-meaning parents, well-meaning coaches that are being critical, we wanna be sure that we're giving both sides of that so that the kids are not only hearing the negative components of it.

— Practical things to say to your child

SPEAKER_01 19:48

So, what what are some things that we could say? We can say, man, look, I really saw you compete today. You worked, you you competed really hard. Okay, you can say things like, Look, I saw that you were nervous, but you still stepped up and made an effort. Okay, you could say things like I saw how you were trying to focus on building up your teammates here. You could say things like, I saw all of the work that you did this week coming into the game on the weekends so that you were prepared as well as you could be. You could say things like, I saw how you were trying to be a good teammate, how you worked hard, how you had integrity, how you were cheering for your teammates. These are the kinds of things that we want to praise and focus on to give our kids that bass that lets them know I love you for you and not for how you perform. It's not based on your performance. Heard a great story the other day. It was it was a it was about a comic, and it's a it's a it's a comic

— "Future software engineer" and the bigger mission

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that was hand-drawn, and you can see there's a batter that's standing in the box, and it's this little E kid standing in the box with the bat on his shoulder, and he's getting ready to bat, and it shows the dad as yelling hit him from the stand, ah right, and the coach is in the dugout yelling at him from the from the dugout, ah and underneath it says future software engineer. Right? Listen, the mission is bigger than the game. The mission is bigger than the game. The game, we want them to be successful, we want them to do well, but ultimately our goal is not the sport. The goal is bigger than the sport, the mission is bigger than the game. Always bear that in mind. Keep that as a focus as you're working with your kids. So, one thing I want to encourage you with, it's it's an encouragement, but it's also a big challenge,

— Your voice becomes your child’s inner voice

SPEAKER_01 21:41

is the fact that your voice is gonna become a big part of your child's inner voice. That as they move into adulthood, they move through those teen years into adulthood, the voice that you give them will be a big part of the inner voice that guides them through the rest of their life. Okay, now I say that because I want you to think about the types of things that you are putting into that background noise of their mind as they go forward. Just remember to steward that voice carefully. Along that note, uh your child's relationship with God is gonna go through you. The way they view their relationship with God is gonna be a reminder of how you related to them. So the things you say, how you treat them, the way they identify through you, all of that is gonna develop the relationship that you have with the Lord through you. You're the one that's gonna lead that. So just bear that in mind and the way that you talk to them and how you relate to them and everything that goes on through that. Even Jesus needed an encouraging dad. I just want you to think about that. That what

— "This is my beloved Son"

SPEAKER_01 22:54

does it mean that Jesus needed an encouraging dad? One of the most famous statements of all time is spoken from God to Jesus when when God said, This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Imagine speaking that over your son. You are my beloved son, and I love you so much, and I am so pleased with you. Let's try to be that kind of dad today. Now listen, I really appreciate you watching all the way to the end. Uh, if if something that I've said has resonated with you or has been helpful for you, I would just really be honored if you would head over to CoachDad.live, coachdad.live where we've got a newsletter that we send out every week that's got encouraging notes, reminders, and things that can help us to be the very best dad and coach so that we can raise young boys, young daughters that are gonna grow up to be men and women that are the right types of people that are gonna change the world around us. We we love you guys and we appreciate you very much. Thank you so much. Remember, the mission is bigger than the game and it starts at home.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Coach Dad, right?