This resource is from a case study in PCA Founder Jim Thompson’s (@JimThompson18) book, Positive Sports Parenting.

Your child was very excited at the beginning of the season. Now it seems like every practice he comes home a little more down. You are worried about his morale. As a Second-Goal Parent®, what should you do?

Your objective in this situation should be to find out what is draining your child’s enthusiasm and enlist his coach in trying to reverse it so your child will want to keep playing sports.

There are two general possibilities here. Either the coach is generally a benign influence or he isn’t. In either situation, it would be helpful to see if you can get any insight from your child.

“Gordon, it seems like you aren’t as excited about soccer as you were at the beginning of the season. Do you think that is true?” If he agrees, “What about soccer this year makes you not like it as much?” Then listen carefully. If he is willing to share his thoughts on why he isn’t enjoying his sport as much, then you can use that in your conversation with the coach. If he doesn’t agree, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there isn’t a problem. It may simply be that, for whatever reason, he isn’t willing or able to articulate what the problem is.

To read the full response -- including descriptions of both coaching situations presented above, along with recommendations on how to proceed -- download the book excerpt found below.

To purchase the entire Positive Sports Parenting book, and to learn more about other PCA books, click here.

These books are used in PCA’s live workshops. To learn more about our interactive parent workshops, click here.