Positive Parenting in Sports by Former Major Leaguer Jack Perconte

Following is Jack’s article he writes for the Press Enterprise Blog in Southern California:
One of the top complaints that parents have with youth sports, and it may be number one, is that their child’s coach stinks. This complaint usually comes from parents who feel like the coach is treating their kid unfairly. Their concern is [...]

Success – The old saying “nothing succeeds like success” does make sense. Without positive results in sports, most kids will not want to continue, and that is understandable. Success is sometimes hard to define though and just as important is what I call “the feeling of success.” Often, success is judged by

Resiliency – Another one of my favorite words with regards to sports. If nothing else, kids who play sports learn to be resilient because of the failure which all athletes will encounter. Even the best players have to learn to deal with loss and failure and this usually builds up a resiliency that serves them

Negativity – First word that comes to mind when I think of the letter N is negativity. Negativity unfortunately is way too common in sports coaching today. Coaches and parents who are negative are always looking at the downside of  players performances and make it a point to express the negative to their players. This [...]

 
Motivation – The first word that comes to mind with sports and the letter M is motiavation. Motivation is a lot like love because it can be developed and it can come at different stages of a child’s career. All kids are diferent  – some are naturally motivated whild others have little motivation. There is [...]

Love of the Game – Love is the first word that comes to mind when I think of the letter L. The term is often loosely used by parents when speaking about their kid’s interest in a sport. “He/She loves to play” is a common statement and, when true, it is a great thing. The problem [...]

From Raising an Athlete – Jack Perconte’s second book due out September 1 -

Attention – Getting the attention of players can be difiicult. Their attention span is often short and when they are around teammates and friends it tends to be even shorter. A couple of techniques I use to help this situation was