Well we see it all the time in sport the parent our there who thinks they have a talented child, and who then try to live their failed ambition through their child. So how do we deal with pushy parents as a coach, and selector, how do we help those parents to understand why a certain decision is taken when selecting the team or settling on a starting line-up etc?
The biggest thing I feel as a Coach and a selector is that you need to do the best you can to help that parent or parents to understand why the decision has been taken, and also take the approach of gently reminding the parent that the odds are more often than not 1000-1 that there child will actually reach the highest level.
You take for example in my sport of hockey, in Australia currently there are around 200,000 people registered and playing hockey across the country, now each year every single state picks 16 women and 16 men to represent them at the Australian Hockey League (AHL), which is a total of 128 men and 128 women. Now from that 128 men and 128 womens they pick just 25-30 names who go into the Kookaburra's and Hockeyroo's programs as well the AIS Hockey Program which is currently based in Perth.
So again I ask these questions to all parents out there-
1. Is the dream of being an elite sportsperson, the dream of your child or is it your dream?
2. What do you think the odds are that your child will actually achieve this dream?
I know this may seem like a harsh approach, and perhaps a dream crushing approach, and why'll I say its great to dream, that dream like my late Grandma said need to be tempered just a little with some realism.
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