The Ride Home

This one is more for parents, but as a coach it's a great message for you to share with them.

I like to tell my kids' parents that one of the most important parts of a soccer game is "The Ride Home". Use this exact phrase, as it is easy to remember and will stick with them for a long time.

The point of "The Ride Home" is that it is an incredibly important time for parents to have a positive impact on their child's soccer experience. When handled properly, not only does it improve their child's enjoyment of the game and the memory of that day's soccer, but it also extends well beyond that to a larger impact it has on the parent's relationship with the child as a whole.

Too many parents simply maintain expectations that are too high, and when their child doesn't score as many goals as the parent would have liked, doesn't hustle as much as hoped for, or if the team loses the game, etc., for some unknown reason it is these negative points that the parent chooses to discuss during "The Ride Home".

This is exactly the worst thing that the parent can do.

A year, a month, or even a couple weeks later, it is not how many goals they scored that the child will remember. It is not which team won that specific game. It is not how much they hustled or how well they played. What the player will remember is how much fun it was participating on the team and enjoying the sport of soccer. It is these feelings that will make the player want to come back next week and next season, and it is these feelings that the parent should encourage during "The Ride Home."

So I challenge my parents to consciously be aware of what they discuss during this critical time, to always focus on the positive things that occurred during that game, and to definitely avoid any comments that would turn an otherwise fun event in their child's lives into anything to feel discouraged about.