Push! Push! Push! After all, don’t you want your kid to go pro?

Dads, do you remember growing up as a teen - the school work, girls, pressure to succeed in sports, and zits? I’m only going to touch on the sports end of this topic.

High school athletes are dealing with more pressure these days, than I had as a teen. Feeder programs develop players faster and stronger, at a younger age. Larger schools make it more difficult to land a spot on a team. And, parents’ high expectations of their children, fuels the beast that gobbles up some of the best athletes.

In my high school, with a senior class of 80 students, there were no tryouts for football, baseball, track, volleyball, cross country, or wrestling teams. If you wanted to play, you were on the teams. The only sport that held tryouts was basketball. I made it on the team, so it certainly wasn’t too difficult. There may have been AAU or other competitive leagues in the bigger cities, but Little League Baseball and school teams were the only opportunities we had.

When my son was a toddler, he came home from school with a poem laminated on a piece of construction paper, in the shape of a tennis racket. I don’t know who the author is, but I pinned it up on the bulletin board in our office at home to remind me of an important part of parenting - not to push children too fast.

Keep it in mind the next time you find yourself analyzing play-by-play of a Pop Warner football game, teaching your son how to throw a curve ball in Little League, lecturing your daughter from the bleachers on the finer points serving a volleyball, or replacing your toddler’s rattle with a dumbell.

Here are the words:

“Walk a little slower, Daddy”

Said a little child so small.

I’m following in your footsteps,

And I don’t want to fall.

Sometimes your steps are very fast,

Sometimes they’re hard to see;

So walk a little slower, Daddy,

For you are leading me.

Someday when I’m all grown up,

You’re what I want to be;

Then I will have a little child

Who’ll want to follow me.

And I would want to lead just right,

And know that I was true;

So, walk a little slower, Daddy,

For I must follow you.”

*Author unknown

-Bob Hammerstrom

Tags: athletes, Children, competition, competitive, dad, dads, fathers, game, kids, Parents, player, pro, sports, stress, student, training, workout