My daughter finished up her first season of middle school tennis last week. She\u2019s played sports before, but never on a team like this. And even though she will probably let all the air out of my tires for saying it \u2026 I\u2019m so squeakin\u2019 proud of her! <\/p>\n
It was awesome as a parent to go watch and cheer her on. But, I\u2019m also learning there are a whole lot of ins and outs to being the parent of a kid playing a sport. So this week I\u2019ve written the Code of Athlete Parenting: <\/p>\n
\u2022 Thou shalt not blurt out \u201cDoh!\u201d loud enough for your child to hear if he or she misses a shot, or sends a ball into lower Earth orbit. The next shot might be aimed at your head.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Thou shalt not blurt out loud enough for everyone to hear, \u201cYeah! That\u2019s right! Eat it, punk!\u201d when your child brilliantly tucks a ball in an un-returnable corner. And if you do happen to do this and people turn around to glare at you, just blame \u201cmedication\u201d and start drooling. That will buy you at least a pass or two.
\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Thou shalt learn how to keep score. Listen, I grew up playing soccer, where the scores are so low even dolts like me can remember them. And running, a sport that is great because you never have to count. \u201cDid you win?\u201d No. \u201cWhat place did you come in?\u201d They don\u2019t count up that high. Very simple stuff. But tennis has all the complexity of quantum physics. Scores are like \u201c30-love,\u201d which makes absolutely NO sense! People would walk up and ask, \u201cSo, how\u2019s she doing?\u201d I would stare intently at the court and sadly remark, \u201cHonestly, I have no idea. Could be she\u2019s winning \u2026 or she\u2019s already lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Thou shalt not say anything for at least 10 minutes after a match for fear of saying something completely wrong \u2026 because everything you say will be COMPLETELY wrong. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Thou shalt not be overly honest or dishonestly supportive if your child loses large. Find the middle ground between \u201cBoy, that was a real stinker!\u201d and \u201cBoy, you looked like Serena Williams out there today!\u201d Be positive, but honest. For instance: \u201cYou know, when you served, you enunciated the score SO well.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u2022 Thou shalt not carry on a conversation, look away, take a bathroom break or even blink during a match. Because if you do, you will miss some act of brilliance that will be talked about for the rest of your life: \u201cWhat do you mean you missed my ace!?! It literally caught on fire as it crossed the net and burned a hole in my opponent\u2019s shirt!\u201d But \u2026 but \u2026 I saw this really cute squirrel eating a nut \u2026 <\/p>\n
\u2022 Thou shalt stare in awe at this child out doing something he or she loves \u2014 taking that chance, braving a new challenge and putting her heart and soul into every swing for nothing more than the sheer joy of it. Isn\u2019t that what childhood is all about? And isn\u2019t that what makes parenting so wonderful? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My daughter finished up her first season of middle school tennis last week. She\u2019s played sports before, but never on a team like this. And even though she will probably let all the air out of my tires for saying it \u2026 I\u2019m so squeakin\u2019 proud of her! It was awesome as a parent to go watch and cheer her on. But, I\u2019m also learning there are a whole lot of ins and outs to being the parent of a kid playing a sport. So this week I\u2019ve written the Code of Athlete Parenting: \u2022 Thou shalt not blurt out \u201cDoh!\u201d loud enough for your child to hear if he or she misses a shot, or sends a ball into lower Earth orbit. The next shot might be aimed at your head. \u2022 Thou shalt not blurt out loud enough for everyone to hear, \u201cYeah! That\u2019s right! Eat it, punk!\u201d when your child brilliantly tucks a ball in an un-returnable corner. And if you do happen to do this and people turn around to glare at you, just blame \u201cmedication\u201d and start drooling. That will buy you at least a pass or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573,562,561,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-nutshells","category-childhood","category-family","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1747,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions\/1747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}