Lent Day 15: From the sidelines

This one is going to ruffle some feathers. And I'm still very undecided on it but I think some of the views I'm about to express need to at least be considered by my current generation of parents. 

The other day I arrived 15 minutes early to fetch Gray from rugby practice. I parked on the side of the field and did some work. Five minutes before the end of their practice I got out the car to chat to another mom. 

It was then that I noticed a very long throng of parents (mainly dads) watching the rugby practice. To be honest it looked more like the crowd for an actual game. I wondered how that many dads could afford to be there at that time of day. I also wondered how I could maybe get a job like that too. 

I'm going to throw my first little curve ball out there. I get that my generation of parents are determined to not be the kind of parents their parents were. I'm generalizing here because my Dad was great at showing up but the stereotypical dad in the 80s wasn't exactly hands on. He didn't prioritize a rugby game (let alone a practice) over a business meeting or a round of golf. Our generation of fathers were predominantly absent. And when they did show up it was to discipline their kids - who probably wouldn't have made half the bad choices they made if they had fathers who showed some more interest in them. That's not to say that our fathers didn't love us, they just were working hard to provide for their families and were following in the footsteps of their fathers who had fought in a war at the age of 18. Not a whole lot of warm fuzzies going on there. 

So our generation of dads have vowed to themselves not to be their fathers. They are determined to be the opposite of their fathers. They are going to be there for every single moment of their kid's life. No kid in the history of all kids will be more supported by their dad than our generation of kids. I think it's really lovely and sweet but I also think we need to put our kids into the equation of overcompensation. 

A sports practice is a time for coaches to broker a relationship with their team. It's a time to try things out, to test the mettle of a kid, to set boundaries, to discipline. I can't imagine that's an easy job when you have 20 overzealous dads watching your every move. 

A sports practice is a time for kids to work out dynamics amongst themselves. It's a time to start experimenting and experiencing the very real and complicated dynamics that come from working in a team. It's a time to make mistakes, to make (and break) friendships, to learn valuable lessons about themselves... by themselves. Again, I can't imagine that will happen successfully when your dad is watching your every goosy and interaction. 

At the end of the day Darren a sports practice is a time to mess up and for that to be OK because no one is watching you and the only expectations that are not being met are your own. That cannot happen when your biggest fan is on the sidelines. 

If I had audience members watching any of the first rehearsals of the productions I have directed over 20 years they would probably tell people not to watch my shows. It's carnage, it's raw, there is almost always some shouting, the cast have no idea what they're doing and it's clear that already one lead role is going to be a bad investment. Fast forward a few weeks to opening night and it's (hopefully) an entirely different experience. 

Because it's called 'practice' for a reason. And practices weren't meant to have audiences. Because then there is definitely going to be more than one coach on that field. And that's not fair on the actual coach. 

I'm no psychologist but I really think we need to consider the psyche of a child. If kids are not given the space to do things on their own, process these experiences and then communicate their version of these experiences back to their parents are we not failing to teach them the vital skills of reflection and self regulation? If a child discovers they've made the B Team (and not the A Team they were aiming for) do we not want to give them time to process this feeling before they are then forced to walk 20 metres to their parents to deliver the news to them. And more often than not this disappointment becomes a double hurt because a child is dealing with their own sense of sadness, as well as having to deal with that of their parents, in swift succession. 

And what then starts to happen is we just start living vicariously through our children and I really don't think that's healthy. And I say all this as someone who is fiercely competitive and overprotective when it comes to my own children, make no mistake. When they were in their first year of preprimary school I was prepared to pay for someone to install a secret camera so I could spy on their every move, and sort out every single threat. I am not on my high horse because I'm prefect. But I do see the aftermath of this kind of parenting later on in teenagers and it's not good. 

I think we need to back away a little bit. We need to find some middle ground between the absent generation of our youth and the overzealous participation of todays parents. Nobody doubts that you love your kids. But sometimes loving your kids means you give them the space to develop by themselves so that they don't feel like they're under the pressure of your constant gaze. I think the helicopters need to find something else to do with their afternoons rather than hover. Our kids will be OK... and then, of course,  there's always game day...