Have you taken a moment to consider the dramatic changes in today's youth sports culture? What are the implications of this shift from neighborhood little leagues to elite clubs on our children? In our latest episode, we expose the reality of the so-called "soft era of kids," and how we, as parents, can step up to build resilience in our young athletes.
Through an honest assessment of the challenges of parenting in the youth sports realm, we reveal the necessity of accepting that not all games will lead to a ribbon and how to choose the right environment for our kids. We emphasize the importance of teaching our children the value of hard work and instilling a habit of health and fitness early on to not only enhance their performance in sports, but also set them up for success in life. This episode is a valuable resource for parents navigating their child's journey in sports and beyond. It's time to take responsibility, parents. Let's raise children who are not just good at sports, but are also prepared for life's challenges.
Have you taken a moment to consider the dramatic changes in today's youth sports culture? What are the implications of this shift from neighborhood little leagues to elite clubs on our children? In our latest episode, we expose the reality of the so-called "soft era of kids," and how we, as parents, can step up to build resilience in our young athletes.
Through an honest assessment of the challenges of parenting in the youth sports realm, we reveal the necessity of accepting that not all games will lead to a ribbon and how to choose the right environment for our kids. We emphasize the importance of teaching our children the value of hard work and instilling a habit of health and fitness early on to not only enhance their performance in sports, but also set them up for success in life. This episode is a valuable resource for parents navigating their child's journey in sports and beyond. It's time to take responsibility, parents. Let's raise children who are not just good at sports, but are also prepared for life's challenges.
What's going on everybody? This is coach Steve and you are listening to the cornerstone athletics podcast. I Am excited to be here. I'm looking forward to the conversation today. It is a subject that is hot and ever prevalent in the. What would I say, how would I call this? Our society today, the sports culture today, and we're gonna dive into it a little bit. So Kids are soft. These kids are soft, cry babies, insert, whatever else.
Speaker 1:If you've been around sports any amount of time, I know you have heard this Statement. I've made this statement a time or two over the years, post college ball into now, just watching or seeing the difference and thinking it was softness. But today I want to talk a little bit more deeply about what actually is Going on, what, what are we actually seeing? What are we actually experiencing and how can we remedy the soft era of the kids? And I don't think it'll be something that you are excited to hear, but I think it's necessary and I think it is relevant, because we're living in a time or age where, as much as we have access to, as much as we have the ability to do great things, we are limited by, I would say, character, our willingness, our Drive and desire for greatness. And you know, within that, I would also say we're limited by our leadership, whether that is, you know, a school coach, a club coach, a College coach. But here's really the funny one, we're gonna get into it it's the parents. Us, as parents, we have a big role in that. If you've listened to the podcast for any amount of time, you've heard me kind of allude to this and say this in different words. But it's on us, at the end of the day, to Make our kids not soft and I quite honestly think too often we relinquish our responsibilities and our duties to some other Authority figure of an authority figure that's supposed to be a Collaborator with us, right, raising up our child, and we just say you know what teacher, little Timmy's yours for eight hours, so you figure it out. You know what coach Little Susie is yours, so you know Everything that happens, rises and falls off of you and if something goes great, great, if it goes bad, it's your fault, all of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And it sucks because when we get to the topic of kids are soft, what comes first? The chicken or the egg? Kids are kids, kids are, and they're going to be Challenges, they're going to be in need of grooming, nourishing, accountability. They're gonna need to be taught right, taught a lot of stuff and that Produces a challenge. That produces a difficulty. When you weigh in your own excuse me, your own responsibilities, your own needs and wants and Stressors, and now you have to then manage and navigate one for your children, it becomes very difficult. And it can be easy Giving us a lot of credit. It can be easy to hand off this responsibility of your child's development To the person that does what they, you know, are doing professionally. Aka, okay, the kid is at school there the schools responsibility. The kid is at practice there the coaches, organizations, responsibility. But that's a cop out.
Speaker 1:My opinion, everything starts in the house. Everything starts with us as leaders in the house and before anybody jumps off of a cliff and gets in their emotions because that's gonna come up to Our inability to manage our emotions. I Understand everybody's houses are different. I understand that everybody comes from stable situations. I understand that the burden of when you really look at the Challenge and responsibility that you have as a parent to raise another human. It's a daunting task, I get it. But that doesn't mean that we Again relinquish our responsibilities to someone else and then when I hold them to the fire, when our kids are, you know, underperforming or you know, you name it, you can pick a thing attitude is bad, underperforming, being disruptive, whatever. But as soon as something goes good, we want to take out a credit and praise and cheer and throw confetti. Snier works.
Speaker 1:So why does it start at home? Why are kids quote unquote soft these days? Well, part of it is. The world has changed dramatically. You know 37.
Speaker 1:I grew up in a time where a Lot of them will one. I don't think the world was as as fast, as fast then as it is now. So whether it's the exposure, the access to different things, that just wasn't a thing. That the closest we got, what was it? Sega Genesis was the, the hot thing that everybody wanted to do. Super Nintendo, social media wasn't a thing I don't even remember. Maybe the internet was a thing.
Speaker 1:Growing up in the Midwest, I know we're slow, we get stuff Late and you know different things of that effect. But yeah, man, like I remember sports being the big thing for me and my guys and the folks around me and Sports were different. Sports were neighborhood little league. Everybody went. You know. Every team had good players, not good players, the whole ticket. All the kids played in the same league. I don't. By the time I got the school ball I had moved and I was doing Kind of a parochial league thing. So you know, that was a little bit different in itself. For anybody who goes to Catholic school it's just different. But you know, club wasn't a Big big thing and and I say all of that like it was just different Me and all my teammates that were in that same neighborhood playing for those same teams would then Play with football at recess. We would go home from school and then we would go play football outside, like we didn't just play football at recess.
Speaker 1:I remember weekends, any given weekend I could go to a court around Kansas City and Play basketball at a park and there would be people playing basketball for hours on it. I Would go with my uncle. Sometimes I would get dropped off. As I got a little bit older I remember high schools kind of having open gyms, especially in the summer, where you could just run, and I would run with my high school team, I would run with other high school teams that needed players, like it was just a thing where you could just Go hoop, go learn how to compete, go learn how to do stuff in a lower kind of stress environment situation, if you will.
Speaker 1:But here's the other piece. I Don't think anybody's hooping at the park anymore and I'll just, I'll put myself out there. I also know this to be true too. If people were hooping at a park, I don't know that I would let my kids go, my daughters and, hell, even my son. If I had a son, let go over to a park and hoop. Now, is the world as crazy and as dangerous as it seems? Probably not. But at the same time we know in some instances it is. So that's not really a dynamic anymore. So the stuff that I was able to iron out and figure out and do in a kind of unorganized raw environment, it's not really a thing anymore.
Speaker 1:I remember me and my friends fighting each other quite a bit, quite a bit. You know you're really not a streetball legend. If you didn't fight anybody, it got competitive and you navigated competition differently to where a good deal of time these fights was breaking out just off sheer competition and competitive, you getting picked on as a competitor, meaning if you can't guard me, there's no one that's going to be able to help you out here. I remember way back, way back. I lived in South Kansas City and we lived in Kirktown it's a place called Kirktown, or yeah, and then it was Kirktown, kirkside.
Speaker 1:I had gone to basically Ingle's Elementary. I just moved from Grandview. It was a travesty. They had realized I didn't live where I was supposed to live and I was going to school there. So I ended up having to go to Ingle's and there was a bunch of us in the little neighborhood and we would play football all the time in the street. We had two kind of little fields that we could well, not little. The one was a smaller one and then one was a really big field and this cat named Gary and I forget the other dude's name, but I never forget he was getting picked on and not like in a bully kind of oh my goodness, you're picking on me, all of this kind of stuff. He was getting cooked. He was getting cooked and Gary was bigger than him and dude just couldn't guard him. He was getting what we call. I don't think Randy Moss was a super big deal at the time, but he was getting Moss and I remember, in this instance, right.
Speaker 1:You see it, he didn't quit, he didn't run home, he didn't go get his big brother. His big brother was out there anyway. He was crying yeah snot, coming out his nose at every play he faced it. He's every time they was on offense. Gary was lining up. He didn't want to switch off a Gary. Gary was talking bad to him and guess what? He ripped Gary's shirt in half trying to stop Gary. And I guess technically he did, because once Gary's shirt got ripped he ran home and then the mamas got into it. It was a whole thing. But the point is he was able to exercise that situation right there and then, and he got his cloud, he got a street cred, he got his reputation. He might have not been the fastest, he might have not been able to catch the best, but he was tough. Every I think Gary scored like five touchdowns on him and this is basically like recess ball there's no quarters, there's no nothing. You just go for possession for possession and like yeah, he was, he was fighting, ripped that man's shirt in half, trying to stop him and ultimately did, like I say, gary quit after that.
Speaker 1:So the world is different. What environments, what situations could our kids get in that they could learn that and learn it that way, because here's what I also know as we grew up. In that little time I was there. What is that man's name? Shoot, I can see him. His life, skin, cat, curly hair. I can see him. But the point is this His confidence grew and then, as he changed, guess what changed with him? His confidence, his mindset had already changed. And then, as his body changed, guess what he turned into. He turned into a pretty good athlete, he turned into a pretty good competitor, and that experience, when he wasn't developed, helped him be better prepared when he actually, physically, was developed.
Speaker 1:And that piece is wild, because when I look at some of the stuff that goes on now, we talking about kids being soft, what makes our kids soft? Like I say, the world is different. I get it. You don't see a bunch of kids just out of park hooping with random strangers that they don't know, like we used to. It's us allowing our kids to be soft. It's us literally allowing our kids in different ways. And I honestly think no one, no one, really wants their kid to be soft and no one thinks they're making their kids soft. But the reality is we're making our kids soft, because I think this is my opinion of how we make our kids soft. We can't manage ourselves enough to let them go through stuff that's going to make them honestly what I think everybody wants their kid to be, which is the best that they can be Tough. You want them to look the part and be the part you want them to do. Well, well, here's what we know about life, but let's just keep it in the sport. Like I said on before I think I did a what's it called an episode about it Sports are hard. Competition, innately, is hard.
Speaker 1:When you look at the overarching concepts. We are competing, which means what? There's someone that we're going against in some form I don't care if it's baseball, volleyball, basketball, track football that is trying to beat us. They are trying to beat us. They are trying to find a competitive advantage to defeat us. In whatever we're doing, that's not always gonna feel good, that's not always gonna be fun, that's not always gonna be glamorous, it's not always gonna be easy, and at every single instance that we feel discomfort or we feel our kid feeling discomfort, we wanna interject, we wanna intercede, we want to stop. We want them to feel good. We're making them soft. Now I get it.
Speaker 1:There's instances we over here on our side have had them before where, okay, the situation might not be like truly and really good for your kid, cool, that's whatever. That's some stuff that you figure out as you go. Unfortunately, I hate that part of it. I wish there was like manuals and stuff that could be handed out because this current landscape, which I'd like to talk about in the next coming episodes a lot of people don't know what they're getting into. So you add that to the fact of you don't know what you're getting into and you don't know how to prepare your kid for what you're getting into. So both of you are getting surprised by what you're walking into when you unfortunately, you see it at the rec level too, but especially as you climb in a more competitive circle. So there are situations that are just like yo, this ain't really a good fit, this ain't really a thing.
Speaker 1:Cool, but at the end of the day, knowing how to manage yourself enough so you can walk with your kid through these things, because every situation, most situations, ain't abusive and detrimental and all of this, we might overhype them, we might overdramaticize the situation, but when you can get back to the bare bones and the bare basics of it, which I've had to do. Is my kid being treated well? Is my kid being developed and challenged to grow? Are they loving it? Are they having a good time? Okay, cool. Then I need to always check myself on those things. If those three things aren't in order, then, yeah, you might have to have some conversations. But if you can look and say those three things are happening, then you got to look in the mirror and that's another thing a lot of people parents don't want to do is look in the mirror. What are you really after?
Speaker 1:Because, unfortunately, your kid, if they are actually doing sports for real, for real, not everybody gets a ribbon, not everybody gets a brownie after every game, but as they level up and they start to actually compete, that's not going to feel good all the time. It's just not. We talk a lot in our household about different analogies to help our kids understand the tie between what we do in sports and the lessons we learn in that correlation into real life, every little concept, every opportunity. We have to teach them some of these things. That's what we do. Right, talk about climbing the mountain, and the higher the mountain goes, the fewer the people are, fewer people you're going to see on the mountain, because it's hard, not everybody is physically capable of it, not everybody is mentally capable of it, and that parallel to kind of trying to win a championship. It's hard, it just is. There's no magic pill you can take to automatically do all the great stuff in sports and not have to deal with any adversity.
Speaker 1:So I've said this before, because kids are kids. If a generation of kids may be more or soft, it's on us as the parents. And I say parents primarily because I've seen parents like the parent game of well, you see this everywhere. Actually it's not just sports too. Even in the schools you don't want nobody saying anything to your kid. You don't want a coach saying nothing to your kid, you don't want the teacher saying nothing to your kid. Nobody can say anything to your kid. So you don't want to do your job as the parent. But then you don't want nobody else to do their part, which, again, if this was a collaboration, it should be both units.
Speaker 1:If you will bringing this kid up in a way that's going to make them productive, responsible, successful, insert whatever else you want to throw in there. But that's not the case. We want our kids to feel good all the time. We don't ever want them to hurt. We want them to just be okay. Every single time they do something, it's great. Every single time they tie their shoes up, we're going to give them a cupcake oh my goodness, look how cute they are and that's great, and that really does serve a purpose at a certain point in their journey. So if you got a five-year-old and this is you that makes a little bit more sense. But if your kid is 14, 15, we got to redirect, we got to regroup, we got to go back and figure out okay, what are we doing this for? Because, again, that's another piece.
Speaker 1:Sometimes and this might be just a small sliver, but it just popped into my mind Sometimes these kids are soft because you got them in a spot they shouldn't be in. How many of y'all have seen that or experienced that? The parents are putting that kid in a situation that they just really shouldn't be in because the parents want them there. The parents are doing this. You've heard it before. I'm living vicariously through my kid and whatever my kid is doing is really about me more than it's about the kid. So I got my kid in an environment that ain't really in alignment with who they are or what they want. But it makes me look good, it makes me feel good to be able to say my kid is on this team.
Speaker 1:And then we turn that into a detrimental situation because, at least as far as I've seen that and I've seen that quite a bit when that kid runs out of steam Of that grind of doing this thing over and over again, and I really don't want to and I really don't love it like that, it was more social for me. Mom, dad, whoever now Said parent, has to come up with a narrative To mask their own ego, their own embarrassment, whatever comes with that, which also just creates more chaos. So part of the reason our kids are soft small part maybe Is we're not in alignment with why we're doing what we're doing. I want my kids to get better, I want them to grow. I Want them to grow as players, I want them to grow as athletes and Thankfully, because they're blessed, it's a way for them to learn Life lessons without having to go through the hardships that I had to learn life lessons through. I learned some great lessons in sport, but sport was more of an outlet for me. I Learned a lot of lesson through some hardship in my life real hardship, not a game you know like in real life stuff going on. So what are you doing this for and is and are you tracking in a fashion that is Is an alignment with where you are meaning? I'm all good with kids dreaming and having goals and all of that kind of stuff, but a young person that says they want to go to college and play volleyball or basketball at nine years old, are we, in an age-appropriate fashion, helping that young person get there Because they're nine?
Speaker 1:There's a whole lot that can change between nine and twelve, 12 to 15, 12 to 14, 14 to 17. It's a lot of life change happening in that time frame. Are you in a place, parent, where you can Track and lock and step with that situation? Because if you can't, you're setting your kid up for failure, potentially because there's a lot of kids that get labeled as soft, that don't deserve that label. Call it a Mismanagement of leadership or parental negligence. Have whatever rings a bell for you. Kids got to be able to dream. Kids got to be able to get taught and learn and the ups and downs that come with learning things Like the ups and downs that come with actually being taught things, the ups and downs that come with trying to execute and competition. We have to give them room to do those things. Just because a kid cries after they lose a game or gets angry after they lose the game doesn't mean that they need a label. Everybody handles failure differently. It's a teachable moment. Everyone handles success differently and, yeah, when they're young sometimes they get a little loud and boisterous and arrogant and foolish, and all of that they don't deserve a label. That's a teachable moment.
Speaker 1:Training, working out, conditioning as much as they give a benefit from a health standpoint. This is this is the conversation I'm having with my girls right now, because everything that I did regarding working out coming up was strictly for competitive advantage. So I have no idea. Actually I learned when I was an adult, but at the time I couldn't have told you what I would be Like, if I liked working out or not, because everything was about a competitive advantage. I found out when I was an adult oh, I don't like working out as much as I thought, and that's a big thing for athletes. So I tell my girls when we train and you know we do stuff quite often is. I want you to look at this very differently than I did, because as an athlete, yes, you're always looking for a competitive advantage, you're always looking for that age and you know I'm not a big fan of the age, because as an athlete, yes, you're always looking for a competitive advantage, you're always looking for that age that you can have. I want you to do it in a way that's a little bit different, because I need you to understand the importance of knowing how to work.
Speaker 1:Okay, another reason kids get labeled soft is because People just expect them to know how to work, without teaching them how to work and the value of work and and walking with them and learning and helping them Grow into quote-unquote workers. And I don't mean like, hey, I go to a desk job every day and work, or something like that. I mean literally, do you understand the importance of work in your life, knowing how to work? So we do daily workouts and because we do daily workouts and I've shifted, because there was a time where I would have them doing Off-season, in season, preseason, stuff like that and every receptive to it. It was cool, but I've I noticed I'm like man, I don't like their responses and because I'm always trying to grow, whichever every one of us coach, parent the athletes as well. We should all be constantly growing and observing and learning. I'm like here's what I don't want for them. I Don't want them to associate their working and their training with Just sports. So we backtrack.
Speaker 1:I said we're going to have the long-term play I, because from a health standpoint, you should move every day. I know they say 60 minutes. I would push it a little bit above that, but I know a lot of people don't have the flexibility for that and that's a. I'll talk about that on my other podcast another time. But, like when you really do it, I'll just say it this way when you really talk about that, like working out, just do the math Seven days a week, one hour. Calculate how much time. That is a percentage. What percent of time is that out of the total hours in a week? It's not really a lot. So that's why I say I would do a little bit more than an hour. But at the end of the day it is what it is I'm teaching my girls. I want you to have this habit of health from working out and yes, it will give you a competitive advantage. But if I can get you to understand the value of working out, exercising on a regular basis, it's going to have so much more benefit for you in the long run from a health standpoint. But then, when it's time to work specifically for basketball or volleyball, now it's just a matter of intensity versus getting into habit.
Speaker 1:Okay, meaning okay, I haven't done anything all summer, now it's time to get ready for football season. And I got a quote, unquote get in shape. You know, I don't know if any of you listening have ever done that, but that sucks a lot, especially when the everyday average athlete thinks like that I'm teaching my girls to stay ready, so you don't have to get ready. Most athletes think, oh well, I'm chilling, I'm chilling, now it's time to get ready. And here's what that does Now I'm. Now I'm in coach mode, so, forgive me, football.
Speaker 1:Let's say football, you can kind of map it out versus whatever sport you might coach or be involved with. So, football, I haven't done anything all summer. I've been chilling, I've been enjoying myself, all of that. Now it's time for two days. So, instead of showing up ready and getting in shape isn't even a thing we need to discuss Now. The quality of our training. Well, one I've seen some of my high school friends who I've tried to have this conversation with. They just identify getting the kids in shape as part of their job. And I'm like, dude, do you understand? And yes, it might take some work.
Speaker 1:If you could get your kids to embrace the idea that showing up out of shape is unacceptable, how much more time does that give you to focus on football? Think about it. If my kids, or at least most of them, or the ones that are going to be the most impactful, however, you want to do it If they are showing up to camp in shape, if we never have to worry about being in shape or we can minimize that to a little bit of time, how much more, how much better can we get? Because we can focus our energy and our time towards football stuff. And unfortunately, a lot of that went over people's heads, archaic thinking. So you waste a week and a half, maybe two weeks, getting kids in football shape and now you got a week to do football stuff. Well, because, yeah, of course you can go through the drills and do all of that crap, blah, blah, blah. But what are the quality of your reps? What's actually happening. Is it beneficial, is it impactful? So I teach my kids to stay ready. So now we show up and we're already in shape, we are already ready to go, we're looking forward to doing whatever the sport is. Because guess what? Man? Because I haven't lost sight of this, talking about kids being soft who wants to work like that? Most adults that know better don't want to work like that, let alone a kid that's growing up that wants to be a kid. Kids, unfortunately, on the whole, would rather spend more time trying to find a way out of something than just focusing their energy on getting it done. I've seen that pattern over 15 years of coaching how long it takes them to just hey, if you just show up and listen and give me your best, this is going to be a whole lot easier than you trying to conserve energy. I ask you to go hard. All you're thinking about is how many do we have to do, versus if you give me everything you have? They have to learn that. They have to be taught that.
Speaker 1:When you see that kid I saw this the other day. It was a clip on YouTube there was a little kid that got cooked at the line. He was a DB Got cooked, got beat, could have been to tackle. But guess what happens when you get out there and you're young and you're immature and you don't know no better, you get embarrassed. I don't know, maybe the coach was a crazy coach, it doesn't even matter. The moment is I got beat, oh well, I guess he's going to score. Made no effort to go get the guy. He was jogging feeling sorry for himself, all of this stuff. It's unacceptable for me, like I'm saying that as a former athlete that knows better. Does that kid know that? I don't mean, does the kid know it, like you should know that. I mean, was he taught that? Was he taught that? Because I know my experience, we was getting taught that all the way up until college, where you would think by the time you get to a collegiate level you know these things. But you don't. You might kind of know it, but do you know the depths of why pursuit is the utmost expectation and football, you get beat, you better run to that damn. You better be hauling ass. And there's an actual pursuit drill that you get taught On angles you can take to be able to make the tackle, because you don't give up until they actually scored a touchdown? Was he taught that?
Speaker 1:When I think about the label of kids being soft, the first thing that I go to Is what were they taught? What are they hearing? Are you teaching? Let's just, let's just go straight here. Are you teaching your kids to be tough in your house? Are you teaching your kids how to work? Are you teaching your kids how to compete? Are you teaching your kids how to conduct themselves and how to behave, or are they supposed to magically absorb that? Somehow? Kids are soft because we allow them to be soft across the board.
Speaker 1:And I'm not going to blame a coach, because the landscape that I see from a coaching standpoint is well, if I say something or I try to do this or I try to enforce this, the parent might snap on me or the kid might leave and go somewhere else. That's a part of the problem too. It's not just the coach might not have the skill set or faculties to teach or instill those values. Is it a collaborative effort in doing so? Because, guess what? The kid? Yes, as they grow up, they should know how to be respectful, they should know how to listen, they should know how to work. But are they being taught that Kids whining and crying and doing all of this kind of stuff. They get taught to not do that. Sometimes it can be done easily. Sometimes it's done very hard, in a difficult fashion.
Speaker 1:Have the kids been taught how to not be soft? I would say no, and I don't necessarily have the answer. Why? Is it a lack of know-how? Is it negligence? I don't know. But when you see that trend you can't help but ask why and you can't help but start to observe the leadership. That's what I go to. Everything rises and falls on the leadership. That's why I said at the beginning parents, coaches, if you wanted to go to teachers, principals, you name it. It's a leadership thing.
Speaker 1:I don't expect a kid to behave any way or in a way that they haven't been taught to behave. That's a foolish expectation. If I have not taught you what giving maximum effort is, if I have not taught you in language and in action common language, common action equals culture If I have not created a culture for you to understand what being tough is, if I haven't taught you what it's like or how we get prepared to compete at the highest level whatever that is for you, because it's relative you can teach these things you don't have to. This is another thing that kind of aggravates me is this isn't something that's exclusive for the elite of the elite athletes, student athletes excuse me, you might not be on a top team, on the best club, or like you don't have. That's another reason the kids are soft. Too often people are asking well, why would I do that Instead of why not? I don't care what team you're on.
Speaker 1:Again, if you're looking at the universal big umbrella ideas of sport, you don't do it to lose. And here are some things I'm not going to go into them that we believe put us in the best position to win, aka not lose. Effort attitude, knowing the plays, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Have they been taught how to not be soft? Can you define soft? We can go down a lot of rabbit holes with this. That's why it's really messy.
Speaker 1:These kids are soft. Maybe they are, but why? Can you help me understand? Do they know what they're actually out here trying to do? Do they know how to do it? Have you taught them how to do it?
Speaker 1:What do you expect from your kid Parents when they put that jersey on and they go compete? And that's not necessarily mutually exclusive from what the coach wants, but because it's like your kids show up, however you allow them to show up, do they show up? Aloof and goofy, not really focused and not paying attention? Well, if they do, that's not the coach's fault. Does the coach have a responsibility to manage it? Sure, but the initial management starts at the house. Is your kid focused? Is your kid disciplined? Are they working towards being focused and disciplined? Because that's even different than Like. It's okay for them to be in transition towards discipline, but guess what? It starts with them being taught that that's an expectation. Them being taught that this is what we're doing. This is what we're doing, this is what we're after, this is what we're going for. Have you taught them to not be soft? Can you define soft? We're relinquishing too much, and this goes for parents, this goes for coaches, this goes for any other. We're relinquishing too much, and I'm not saying it's easy to stand in that gap, but we're relinquishing too much to kids that don't know as much as they think. So I would just propose, if you don't want your kid to be soft, teach them how to not be soft. That'd be a good start.
Speaker 1:So I appreciate you all listening in. Man, it's good to be back, getting in flow. And yeah, man, something resonates with you. Hit me up Cornerstone athletics A, m, d, g at gmailcom. I'd love to hear from you Because this is an ongoing conversation. This is a fluid to any time you're dealing with humans, it's a fluid, ongoing thing Rises and falls. You take two steps forward, one step back. The whole thing it's worthy of a convo. So I appreciate y'all. Y'all be blessed. Have a good day. We'll talk soon.