Youth athletics in America is an ever-evolving landscape. People continue to focus on its educational benefits, whether learning teamwork or getting a college scholarship. However, these competitive foci can also bring out the worst in parenting. Parents often become more drawn into success than their kid-athletes. At the college level, tantalizing new constructs like the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) marketing and the Transfer Portal require wise decision-making to avoid pitfalls. What are kids to do? And what are parents to do? Professionally, Kirsten Jones, a former D1 volleyball player, helps families navigate the playing field of youth athletics. Here, she distills wise guidance on how to best empower young athletes for their futures.
She principally focuses on having fun, not winning, as the main benefit of sports. She also stresses the lifelong lessons that can be learned from playing sports at any level. As a parent of two college athletes, she is well aware that the sports odyssey can end at any moment and that the value of every moment must be maximized. Her main advice to parents is to not ruin it for their kids. Instead, empower them to make their own decisions. Importantly, that attitude equips them for the next level, whatever that is, and it equips them for life.
The climb in sports is fleeting. Everyone wants to win, but only a small group can reach the pinnacle. Plus sports is ephemeral – champions are here one day and gone tomorrow. Thus, its foundation is fragile and can’t become sole to our children’s identities. Yet it can keep kids connected to a healthy path when their primary drive is not academics or some artistic hobby. To navigate this domain, she offers not just advice, but stories of real young athletes that were her friends and clients. She visits their mistakes and their successes to give us adults wisdom.
While this book’s obvious audience is parents, the more mature young athlete can also benefit from its perusal. They can see mistakes that adults often make and prepare themselves for their futures, wherever that may lead. Coaches can also benefit from understanding parental motivations better so that they can guide their young athletes towards longer-term success. Thus, this book is broadly generalizable to many groups. In a competitive landscape among competitive people, Jones offers a beacon’s light of winning guidance to prevent us from causing our own losses.
Raising Empowered Athletes: A Youth Sports Parenting Guide for Raising Happy, Brave, and Resilient Kids
By Kirsten Jones
Copyright (c) 2023
Triumph Books
Page Count: 240
Genre: Sports, Kids
Sponsored link to www.amazon.com