BALANCING your ROLE AS ADVOCATE
KNOW
Know your child. Understand your child's age, level, gender and related expected outcomes (see WSA Soccer expected outcomes).
Know your child's coach, team, and the expectations the coach has for each athlete and his/her goals for the team.
Know your team's manifesto, the team's commitments, principles, shared vision, goals and expectations. Understand those, and if you come to agree to those then sign on. If you do NOT agree with them, do NOT obstruct or deter from those once the team has set a pathway forward. Becoming part of a team requires ALL (including parents & stakeholders) to relinquish some of their personal agenda, while participating in the vision of the team and community. You are held to the same standard as your athlete. Your privilege to be part of the team requires your understanding of the team vision, and abidance by the team principles.
Know or work to understand the game at the level your child plays. From the age of 2 to 5 to 10 to competitive and college, to pro-am. Working to UNDERSTAND and KNOW will help you RELATE.
As your child grows in the game the game becomes more sophisticated, and your child might be fulfilling an expectation or attempting to fulfill an expectation with your team's game model. Understanding at a base level the team concept will help you relate to your child's challenges and successes within the team game model.
The most important objective in KNOWING is to UNDERSTAND so that you can RELATE.
Know your child's coach, team, and the expectations the coach has for each athlete and his/her goals for the team.
Know your team's manifesto, the team's commitments, principles, shared vision, goals and expectations. Understand those, and if you come to agree to those then sign on. If you do NOT agree with them, do NOT obstruct or deter from those once the team has set a pathway forward. Becoming part of a team requires ALL (including parents & stakeholders) to relinquish some of their personal agenda, while participating in the vision of the team and community. You are held to the same standard as your athlete. Your privilege to be part of the team requires your understanding of the team vision, and abidance by the team principles.
Know or work to understand the game at the level your child plays. From the age of 2 to 5 to 10 to competitive and college, to pro-am. Working to UNDERSTAND and KNOW will help you RELATE.
As your child grows in the game the game becomes more sophisticated, and your child might be fulfilling an expectation or attempting to fulfill an expectation with your team's game model. Understanding at a base level the team concept will help you relate to your child's challenges and successes within the team game model.
The most important objective in KNOWING is to UNDERSTAND so that you can RELATE.
TRUST
The Two Faces of Trust: Trust Worthiness and Trust Willingness.
Being willing to Trust your child's coach, team, and game model is significant to advocating for your child.
Being willing to Trust your child's coaching staff is significant in modeling behavior towards an important social aspect and character outcome at WSA: Followership.
Becoming Trust Worthy to your child is earned through engagement, objectivity, and empathy. The more you can understand, the more effective you can communicate with your child. Your child appreciates your objectivity in the realm of his/her competitive sport. Your child knows they are not "always right" or "always the best". If you can relate to your child through an objective lens, a truthful spirit, while being supportive and empathetic, this will grow TRUST.
Your child most likely LOVES HER TEAM and LOOKS UP TO (sometimes adores) HER COACH. Your participation as a supporter, even when it is difficult or challenging to support, is usually going to be more appreciated by your child, than your dissent. The
Improving TRUST will improve RELATABILITY. RELATABILITY is a cornerstone to becoming an ADVOCATE for your child's sports experience.
Being willing to Trust your child's coach, team, and game model is significant to advocating for your child.
Being willing to Trust your child's coaching staff is significant in modeling behavior towards an important social aspect and character outcome at WSA: Followership.
Becoming Trust Worthy to your child is earned through engagement, objectivity, and empathy. The more you can understand, the more effective you can communicate with your child. Your child appreciates your objectivity in the realm of his/her competitive sport. Your child knows they are not "always right" or "always the best". If you can relate to your child through an objective lens, a truthful spirit, while being supportive and empathetic, this will grow TRUST.
Your child most likely LOVES HER TEAM and LOOKS UP TO (sometimes adores) HER COACH. Your participation as a supporter, even when it is difficult or challenging to support, is usually going to be more appreciated by your child, than your dissent. The
Improving TRUST will improve RELATABILITY. RELATABILITY is a cornerstone to becoming an ADVOCATE for your child's sports experience.
PARTICIPATE
Quite simply, as much as life allows, be a participant in your child's sports endeavor.
"Showing up" on game day is enormous. The game is the "incubator" and your presence and capacity to share in the experience, whether good or bad, is a realm of connecting that is irreplaceable.
Support the team, and your athlete, by ensuring you consistently have your child at practice and team events, and meet team deadlines for uniforms, events, payments, and all that is involved in participating. Your child is worth it. Your coach will work to make the experience worth it.
Continue this level of engagement even for those athletes with Driver's Licenses or who carpool with other teammates. If you are not the primary means of transportation, you are still the primary means of empowerment and accountability.
Read the team (and club) correspondence and be attentive to the messaging from your child's staff (and club).
When you cannot show up, do your best to stay aware and informed.
Participation at a healthy level will demonstrate you are "in it" with your athlete, and this is a strong principle of ADVOCATING for your athlete.
"Showing up" on game day is enormous. The game is the "incubator" and your presence and capacity to share in the experience, whether good or bad, is a realm of connecting that is irreplaceable.
Support the team, and your athlete, by ensuring you consistently have your child at practice and team events, and meet team deadlines for uniforms, events, payments, and all that is involved in participating. Your child is worth it. Your coach will work to make the experience worth it.
Continue this level of engagement even for those athletes with Driver's Licenses or who carpool with other teammates. If you are not the primary means of transportation, you are still the primary means of empowerment and accountability.
Read the team (and club) correspondence and be attentive to the messaging from your child's staff (and club).
When you cannot show up, do your best to stay aware and informed.
Participation at a healthy level will demonstrate you are "in it" with your athlete, and this is a strong principle of ADVOCATING for your athlete.
SUPPORT
Support for your athlete requires a balance of being available and accessible for the necessary levels of sacrifice that allow your child's participation.
This can vary from transportation, to managing healthy lifestyles (nutrition, sleep), to participating in healthy positive talk and narrative regarding the team and coach and teammates. Sometimes this support will be in the form of BEING QUIET. Refraining from offering a negative opinion or spreading negative narratives about the team while you temporarily exist in a space that does not allow you to agree with the team direction, is significant support.
Sometimes the best support will be your patience with process. Teams are built. Experiences are built on processes. They are not delivered via a transaction, but created via a transformation. Patience with process is SUPPORT.
Support WITHOUT ENTITLEMENT is the SWEET SPOT for parental engagement. If you can help advance the team, the platform for your athlete's experience, there is no greater impact you will have. This could happen by sharing resources, time, energy, ideas, volunteerism, connections, or finances. If you can fulfill this commitment without requesting, requiring, or expecting an ROI (return on investment) then you have hit the SWEET SPOT for your athlete.
Athlete's do not appreciate favors or special attention. Most always an athlete wants to EARN IT (WSA Soccer mantra). While parents may think that helping nudge, push, or creating step ladders for the rise of their child is helpful, the fact is it reduces the sense of accomplishment, and notwithstanding simultaneously adds toxicity to the team atmosphere.
WSA Soccer recognizes this is not easy and rides against the current of several common societal norms. It is DIFFERENT HERE. The "WEST" in "W"SA reminds us of one prong of our Mission Statement: Challenge the Status Quo.
To Support WITHOUT ENTITLEMENT is to SERVE without expectation for a return. And this is the first prong of the Mission of WSA: TO SERVE.
This can vary from transportation, to managing healthy lifestyles (nutrition, sleep), to participating in healthy positive talk and narrative regarding the team and coach and teammates. Sometimes this support will be in the form of BEING QUIET. Refraining from offering a negative opinion or spreading negative narratives about the team while you temporarily exist in a space that does not allow you to agree with the team direction, is significant support.
Sometimes the best support will be your patience with process. Teams are built. Experiences are built on processes. They are not delivered via a transaction, but created via a transformation. Patience with process is SUPPORT.
Support WITHOUT ENTITLEMENT is the SWEET SPOT for parental engagement. If you can help advance the team, the platform for your athlete's experience, there is no greater impact you will have. This could happen by sharing resources, time, energy, ideas, volunteerism, connections, or finances. If you can fulfill this commitment without requesting, requiring, or expecting an ROI (return on investment) then you have hit the SWEET SPOT for your athlete.
Athlete's do not appreciate favors or special attention. Most always an athlete wants to EARN IT (WSA Soccer mantra). While parents may think that helping nudge, push, or creating step ladders for the rise of their child is helpful, the fact is it reduces the sense of accomplishment, and notwithstanding simultaneously adds toxicity to the team atmosphere.
WSA Soccer recognizes this is not easy and rides against the current of several common societal norms. It is DIFFERENT HERE. The "WEST" in "W"SA reminds us of one prong of our Mission Statement: Challenge the Status Quo.
To Support WITHOUT ENTITLEMENT is to SERVE without expectation for a return. And this is the first prong of the Mission of WSA: TO SERVE.
EMPOWER
George Bernard Shaw once wrote "BE A FORCE OF FORTUNE".
Empowerment is any activity, decision, spoken word, belief, or idea that promotes the success of others; facilitating the best in others.
Our message in one semester of college soccer was "Believe in Each Other's Best."
As we operate within the Culture desired by The WSA Way, one mantra that will consistently ring true:
To be your best, experience you best at WSA, you must help others to become their best.
As you Empower your child through a belief in his ability to overcome, to endure, to manage, and to rise from failure by learning, you teach him that he has within himself an indelible power within to BECOME. What a great gift to offer during your co-participation with your child in his/her athletic endeavors.
“The true joy in life is to be a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy” - George Bernard Shaw
Empowerment is any activity, decision, spoken word, belief, or idea that promotes the success of others; facilitating the best in others.
Our message in one semester of college soccer was "Believe in Each Other's Best."
As we operate within the Culture desired by The WSA Way, one mantra that will consistently ring true:
To be your best, experience you best at WSA, you must help others to become their best.
As you Empower your child through a belief in his ability to overcome, to endure, to manage, and to rise from failure by learning, you teach him that he has within himself an indelible power within to BECOME. What a great gift to offer during your co-participation with your child in his/her athletic endeavors.
“The true joy in life is to be a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy” - George Bernard Shaw