Teaching Players the Importance of Right and Wrong

Research shows that sports participation is actually eroding the moral reasoning of many athletes.  The good news is that coaches can make a difference by coaching ethical toughness and by engaging athletes in dialog about ethics and sports.

Anyone paying attention knows that there is an ethics crisis in sports.  The media is full of stories about ethically challenged athletes, coaches, parents and administrators.  Most of us can point to people in our own communities who have visibly crossed ethical lines in pursuit of athletic success.

The headline-grabbing ethics violations we see in the news are rooted in a much less visible crisis that runs wider and deeper than many people think.  The less visible ethics crisis in sports is a steady, widespread erosion of moral reasoning in competitive athletes.  This is certainly not happening to all athletes, but it is happening enough to cause serious concern.

Research on Moral Reasoning of Athletes

The erosion of moral reasoning has been documented by The Center for Ethical Theory and Honor In Competition and Sport (ETHICS) at the University of Idaho.  ETHICS has studied the moral reasoning of athletes for 20 years.  Over that time the Center has compiled data on the moral reasoning of over 70,000 athletes at the high school and college level. Their findings show that on average, the longer a person participates in competitive athletics, the more impaired their moral reasoning becomes.  Quite simply, the longer they are involved, the more likely they are to lie or cheat, or tolerate lying and cheating, in the name of winning.

If we project the Center’s research findings to the entire population of young athletes, we can assume that this problem involves thousands of athletes across the country.  When we consider that most sports programs justify their existence in terms of character education, the fact that competitive athletics may actually erode moral reasoning is troubling.

The good news is, research by ETHICS also shows the moral reasoning of athletes can be sustained or restored through deliberate character education.  The ETHICS’ Character Education Program and other such programs help athletes strengthen their moral choices regarding athletic competition.

Coaching for Ethical Toughness

Few of us have the time or resources to implement a full-fledged character education initiative as part of our athletic program.  But we can talk about character every day, and more importantly, engage our athletes in dialog about ethics and sports. As recommended by researchers Brenda Light Bedemeier and David Light Shields in their work for the President’s Council on Fitness and Sports:

The most important educational process is probably dialog. Moral reasoning is unlikely to advance if the athlete is simply a passive recipient of the coach’s exhortations, however prosocial they may be. Children and adolescents need to talk about their values; they need to discuss their views of right and wrong, both with their peers and with respectful adults. Coaches should make space in team meetings for discussion of moral issues relevant to sports in general and to the life of the team in particular.

The power of dialog will be amplified if it is combined with meaningful responsibility. Athletes who cooperatively share in important dimensions of team decision-making are likely to benefit substantially. To maximize social and moral growth, coaches should use a democratic leadership style in which responsibility  for developing team norms, goals, and expectations is shared with the members of the team. If team members develop a sense of ownership for the team and feel responsible for maintaining the team’s expectations, they can learn important lessons about both character and citizenship.

In simple terms, coaches can and do help athletes sustain and strengthen their moral reasoning.  This works best when coaches make it a priority to ‘coach for ethical toughness’ as well as mental and physical toughness, and include their athletes in a daily dialog about ethics and moral reasoning.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to PositiveSports.net for this article.

A Parent’s Role in Character Development

Winning the game is not the responsibility of the parent.  Only the coach and athlete can control that outcome.  However, the parent has a key role in forming the attitudes and life lessons that their child will take away from youth sports. Jim Thompson, Executive Director of the Positive Coaching Alliance, discussed this crucial task with Executive Editor TK Stohlman. Here is an excerpt of their discussion.

TK: So the three things from Positive Coaching Alliance research are don’t push kids into sports, have a can do attitude, and most importantly have unconditional support.

Jim: Right

TK: I know you worked with some big name coaches again such as Phil Jackson and Larry Brown. Are there some lessons that they taught you either through workshops or through different talks that could maybe apply to different youth coaches?

Jim: You know it is interesting, When Phil Jackson first became our national spokesperson, he gave a talk about his journey, from being a pretty negative coach, he said that he coached in the NBA he had gotten kicked out and he led the league in technical fouls in his first year as a coach, but he was smart enough to realize that it wasn’t working. What really makes Phil Jackson successful, by his own words, is the ability to build a community players who really care about each other and who don’t want to let each other down, which is very different from the infuses most youth coaches have like I got to learn the “Xs” and the “Os”. I would also add one thing that Jack Clark, who is the Rugby coach at Cal State, he is not a household name but in the world of rugby he is a giant - winning about 20 national titles in the last 25 years. When he came to a PCA workshop he walked away from it and said “wow, this is great, I learned some things from it.” His definition of leadership is one that I just love. He says that a leader is not somebody who yells at other people and tells them what to do, but a leader is somebody who makes their teammates better and more effective and every player on his team is a leader and needs to be a leader they need to look up for ways that they can make other players better. That’s just an incredible lesson for all coaches and parents and athletes.

TK: So when you talk about Bill Clark and Phil Jackson and the insights they provide, how does that lead to the creation of the PCA and the program that you have called “the second goal parent program?”

Jim: Well the second goal parent is a spinoff of our idea of a double goal coach. A double goal coach is somebody who has a first goal of preparing his team to win, that’s goal number one and that’s important. But, there is a second goal that is even more important, that is that they use sports to teach life lessons. So we want every youth coach, you know if you are a professional football coach then go out there and just win baby, but even the best coaches are concerned with helping their players to develop character. It’s really is about being a double goal coach. You are trying to win but you really need to use all of those teachable moments that come rolling through every day at practice, because every day at a game there really is a teachable moment if you are looking for it. With that said, we ask parents, “should you be double goal parents?” And they always say Yes, Yes, Yes. However, it’s a trick question because we actually then say no. There are two groups of people whose job it is to win games, one are the coaches the other, the athletes. Parents have a much more important job and that is to focus on that second goal, the character building goal. So if your child strikes out at the end of the game with the bases loaded and your team is one run behind you could have a second goal conversation with them. “I know you are disappointed that you didn’t make the play there but you are the kind of kid who really bounces back from setbacks like this.” You talk to your child about results and how great athletes don’t succeed all the time and what makes them great is that they always come back. That’s what it means to be a second goal parent.

TK: So when you talk about second goal parent program it differs from the double goal coach program in that as a parent you don’t even talk about wins and losses. Is that what you are saying Jim?

Jim: Well everybody wants to win and the question is what do you emphasize? If you child comes home from a game and you haven’t been able to see it you might say “Who Won?” However, what does that communicate to your child? It says that winning is the most important thing. So what we are saying is your kid can take away from youth sports the most fantastic lessons that will help them be successful and happy throughout their whole life. And it is a parent’s job to focus on that. Let the coaches and the kids worry about winning. For example if you see your daughter patting a player on the back when her teammate made a mistake, talk about that after the game. Say “hey I noticed that when Molly made a mistake you went over and patted her in the back; tell me about that,” Encourage her by saying “Wow that’s really great, you know that’s great leadership making your teammates feel better, and cheering them up helps. And you know that after you did that, Molly made a play in the next inning.” You’re filling their emotional tank. So you are not focusing on winning, you are focusing on what kids are taking away from it.

Editor’s Note: A special thank you to Jim Thompson for this interview.

How to Help Your Player Stay Positive

When a child is learning a new sport it can be easy for them to become discouraged. Sometimes this can lead to negative thoughts and feelings.  The following is an excerpt from a conversation between Executive Editor TK Stohlman and noted child and sports psychologist, author and motivational speaker Dr. Darrell Burnett on the topic of helping your child avoid negative self talk.

TK: Dr. Burnett again, we are talking about mindset and confidence, let’s discuss a little bit about kids and young athletes and that mindset when it comes to self talk, specifically negative self talk.  What can parents do to help prevent that and to encourage more positive thinking from their kids?

Dr. Burnett: What’s interesting is that realm that’s becoming more and more important and talked about.  There are all kinds of books out now about the mental game.  It used to be mainly for the pros and all that but it’s really kind of filtering down now and we’re seeing, and I’m seeing even in my practice not just in sports, feelings follow thoughts.

The way you think and talk to yourself affects your feelings about things.  The goal is to have a lot more positive self talk going on than the negative.  In fact, the research shows there should be anywhere from four to six to one ratios of positives to negatives in a healthy family.  When parents are talking to their kids for every one time they’re criticizing them about something or confronting them there should be four or five “way to go” complements or positive stuff.

The same thing then should happen if the healthy kid is talking to himself.  What you want is at least a four to one ratio of positive self talk to negative self talk because that affects everything that they do on the field.  Again, if you’re focusing on skills you’ve got a better chance the kid can focus on staying positive when they make a mistake.  I think this is one of the key parts of sports.

Sports are wonderful for kids and that the key message is that it’s okay to make a mistake.  That’s how you learn.  The more you learn from your mistakes the better. That is what separates the really good athletes from the okay athletes — how they handle mistakes.  And negative self talk is all a part of that.

Here is what I mean — when a we make a mistake we have two options.  One is the part of the brain that gets all judgmental, analytical, “I blew it. I can’t believe I did that,” very emotional.  “You know I could do that in my sleep, I can’t believe I didn’t make that shot.”  The other side of the brain simply looks at it as a spatial event and then tries to fix it and look at it mechanically.  Here is the example.

I once saw a couple of gymnasts, getting ready for national championships.  One of the things that separated the two was not their physical skills but their mental self talk.  You know how in gymnastics the girls tried to stick that landing, how they plop down and throw their hands back up? Well if they didn’t stick their landing one girl would go through a whole series of self talk like “oh my goodness my parents are spending ,000 for this” and “what if I do this in the national tryouts, I won’t make it.”  She thinks to herself,  “my teammates are upset, my parents are disappointed, my coaches disappointed, ” all emotional self talk.  The other girl,  would say “I think I have a little too much weight on my right side I need to balance that out.”  In other words, she looked at the event as a spatial event not a whole lot of emotional stuff connected with it, and figured out how to fix it. So when we’re working with kids in terms of the self talk, the goal is to get them to look at their mistakes, not get all emotional. To see what they can do to fix it.

Here’s how this relates to parents. When a kid makes a mistake, if the parent can stay calm, there is the chance the kid can reflect on what happened and think about it.  If the parents are yelling, “I can’t believe you didn’t cover that guy on that path,” or the coach gets all upset, now the kid is going to get emotional.  There’s no way that that child is going to step back and say, “gee coach I wish you weren’t so emotionally involved right now. See, I’m working on the other side of my brain right now.”  If we give players the opportunity of staying calm when they make a mistake and they can see what they can learn from it then you can increase positive self talk rather than negative.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Dr. Darrell Burnett for this interview.

How to Be a Team Player

One of the key elements to team sports is the relationships of the team members. It is important to remember that the success of a team does not depend on one player, but rather the entire team dynamic. The following article provides critical ways to work together as a team.

It’s natural to dream of shooting the game winning basket or scoring the go ahead goal or touchdown.  However, as team skills increase, it becomes progressively harder for one player to be the scoring hero.  That’s when smarter players start using their teammates to help them score goals and win games.

A timely pass, throw or block are effective ways to score points in a game.  Though not scoring directly, players who facilitate these goals are guiding their play and, in fact, asking their teammates to finish off their own efforts.  It actually takes more player skills to contribute to team wins in this fashion than it does to contribute unassisted.

In hockey, player statistics are kept that record individual goals and assists with goals.  Wayne Gretzky, recognized as one of the best hockey players ever, finished his career with over twice as many assists (2,223) as goals (1,016).  Though he had the skills to score by himself, he more often used his teammates to get the job done.

Editor’s Note: A special thanks to Sports Esteem for this article.

How to Successfully Deal with Losses

Everyone wants to play on winning teams. Yet on any given day, half of all teams will lose or, at best, play to a tie. For parents of young athletes, dealing successfully with losses is a key factor that determines whether kids will continue playing sports past the current season. Before thinking about how to deal with losses, parents should consider the following questions to determine the differences between winning and losing teams.

1. A team wins a game and afterward a coach stands up and congratulates players on their hard work and accomplishments. When a team loses, what should a coach do?


2. A team wins a game and afterward parents congratulate their children on their efforts. When a team loses, what should parents do?


3. A team wins a game and afterward parents brag to family members about the play of their child. When a team loses, what should parents do?


4. A team wins a game and afterward parents thank the coach for his or her hard work and time. When a team loses, what should parents say?


5. A team wins a game and afterward parents encourage their children to try to better their performance. When a team loses, what should parents encourage?


6. A team wins a game and everyone goes out afterward and celebrates player accomplishments. When a team loses, what should everyone do?


7. A team wins and the next practice is devoted to improving player skills. When a team loses, what should practices focus on?


8. A team has a winning season and afterward the entire team gets together to remember memorable moments. When a team has a losing season, what should the team do?


9. A team has a winning season and afterward players sign up to play again next year. When a team has a losing season, what should players do?

The correct answer to all of the above is “the same thing.” Every game has a “scoring” outcome that is often determined by one player, one moment, or one mistake. Every game also has a “fun” outcome. As parents on winning teams often know, these two things are not related. The coaches and players may control the “scoring” outcome, but parents control the “fun” outcome. If games and the events that surround them are fun, players will want to play again. If these events are not fun, players will quit whether their team is winning or losing. Youth sports are not professional sports. Youth coaches seldom get fired mid-season for poor records, and players are rarely traded. This lets everyone focus on building better kids both during the game and in life. Though wins are important for statisticians, they become critical to young athletes only if parents forget why it is important for kids to play sports.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Sports Esteem for the above article.

Sports Heroes: Not Always the Best Role Models

It is easy for kids to admire professional athletes who stand out in their sport. This admiration often takes the form of “hero worship” and gives kids someone to mimic in their path to adulthood. Just like their heroes, most kids can easily see themselves making the winning score or receiving the praise and lifestyle that comes with success. Many parents encourage this behavior through buying jerseys and seeking autographs.

Professional sports are a form of entertainment just as television programs are. Like actors and actresses, professional athletes become celebrities and gain additional exposure for the things they do away from the game - blurring the line between performance and lifestyle. Parents can’t always control what kids know about their favorite players. As personal celebrity becomes intermixed with professional accomplishment, kids can begin to mimic an athlete’s personal actions and mannerisms as well as an athlete’s professional skill. Kids can become confused about what it is they are trying to imitate.

However, as recent news accounts only reconfirm, professional athletes do not always make the best role models. A professional player’s conduct away from the game is often unknown. Most fans do not really know a player’s morals, ethics, work habits, and respect for teammates or for fans. Thus, most parents do not really know if they want their child to grow up mimicking the life choices of a specific professional athlete.

For kids who want heroes and parents who want role models, there can be conflict. One way around this conflict is for parents to begin distinguishing between admiration for a player’s abilities and admiration for a player. For example, saying that a professional player is a great athlete is different than saying a professional player is a great person.

Parents can help focus their children’s attention on players whose community actions are admirable even if the player’s game actions are not at the superstar level. Helping kids understand the difference between a player as a person and a player as an athlete is the key to providing the right role models for children.

Good Attitude Is Key to Hockey Success

No one masters hockey. There is too much to learn and every game presents a new combination of challenges and opportunities. A positive attitude is essential to becoming a better player.

Attitude is a combination of physical and mental approaches. A positive attitude is demonstrated in many ways such as:

• Giving maximum physical effort on the ice


• Staying positive no matter what is happening in the game


• Being open to new ideas


• Seeking ways to improve your game


• Being constructive when problems come up


• Focusing on team play and cooperation


• Listening


• Setting and working toward personal goals

Having a good attitude can give a player an edge over someone else who is quicker or faster but lacks a good attitude. When playing against a good opponent, players often encounter constant frustrations trying to pass, stick handle, shoot or block shots. Having a good attitude in the face of frustration is critical to improving skills and having fun.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Sports Esteem for the above article.

Learning Life Lessons: The Reason for Youth Sports

The chances of a child’s playing college- or professional-level sports are better than winning the lottery but not by much. Though the dream of playing professionally motivates many young players, parents should be clear that the goal of youth sports is about building better kids, not about building a career.

Kids active in sports are more likely to:

• Avoid regular or heavy smoking


• Avoid drugs


• Stay in school


• Have good conduct


• Attain high academic achievement

For girls in particular, the benefits of playing sports can be tremendous. Girls playing sports:

• Like themselves more


• Have more self-confidence


• Suffer less depression


• Have a 60 percent lower likelihood of breast cancer


• Have fewer unwanted pregnancies

These benefits come from the fact that sports teach many life lessons. Active parent involvement gives parents the best chance of shaping these lessons for their kids. Life lessons from sports can include:

• Respecting others (including opponents)


• Exercising self-discipline


• Playing fairly


• Being a good winner


• Being a good loser


• Developing teamwork and trust


• Overcoming challenges and frustrations


• Learning to deal with constructive criticism


• Responding positively to disappointments


• Building health and physical fitness


• Feeling the pride of accomplishment


• Taking responsibility for mistakes


• Showing leadership


• Making friends


• Learning to resolve conflicts


• Learning to deal with stress


• Setting goals


• Following rules

These life lessons benefit kids in whatever course they set in life. They provide parents with strong incentives to motivate their kids to play longer, whether or not these efforts land their kids scholarships or contracts.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Sports Esteem for the above article.

Should You Motivate by Paying for Results?

Kids begin playing sports to have fun, and fun is often all they need to continue playing well. Too many rewards actually undermines a player’s progress. Players will continue to play well because they love the game and enjoy the feeling of satisfaction that comes with improvement.

A frequent mistake parents make with their young players is rewarding points or specific activities with money or some other incentive. Although it sounds similar to rewarding a good report card, paying bonuses often does more harm than good.

Scores in a game should be the result of a team’s working together and outworking its opponent. A score often starts with hard work by the defense and culminates with a coordinated attack by the offense. A score generally has many players sharing the credit. The player who actually gets credit for the score should always be thankful to everyone else on the team.

Parents should encourage their child to be a part of the effort rather than just to be the one to get the credit. Players motivated to score points will often either play selfishly or, for fear of losing an opportunity to score, simply stand around waiting for someone else to pass to them. Paying for goals can diminish a child’s sense of accomplishment and pride in his or her own efforts throughout the game. Teams may not win and players may not score. If a player’s only measure of success is being paid, then it will be difficult to learn the importance of being satisfied with individual efforts in spite of what else happens during the game. The best motivation parents can instill in their child is the motivation that comes from within based on efforts, desires, and a love of the game.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Sports Esteem for the above article.

Handling Bad Calls – How to Help Your Player

Parents are going to see bad calls. Some of these calls will actually be bad calls, but most will just seem that way. Officials have a difficult job to do and cannot see everything that happens. Sometimes this is because they were not looking where the problem occurred. Other times they were not focused on watching for the penalty. Officials cannot call all penalties, just the ones they see. Here’s what you can do to help your player when you think an official makes a bad call.

To keep the game moving along with younger players, officials may also take into account a player’s intent and avoid calling every penalty. Officials are often kids themselves, learning skills just like the players. The turnover for youth officials often approaches 50% to 70% annually. After just one year, many youth officials find something better to do than deal with adults.

Yelling at an official in a youth game should never be allowed or condoned by parents, coaches, or league officials. Not only does it set a bad example and create potential embarrassment for kids, it also escalates negative emotions and greatly increases the risks of a confrontation. If parents see something they believe is unfair, they should express those concerns to league officials after the game. However, if parents see something they believe is unsafe, they should express those concerns to the coach and let the coach handle the situation.

Special thanks to Sports Esteem for the above article.

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