I grew up loving sports, playing basketball and looking up to my favorite players. The thought of building a career around playing sports felt like a dream, but after studying psychology and sports methodology, I was able to turn my skill set and expertise into a career that helps build the next generation of kids who love to play. I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life as part of the Sportball family, first as a coach of their youth sports programs and now as Vice President and Growth Coach, and I’ve been able to help shape the curriculum into what it is today.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to your particular career path?

My career path really came together at the intersection of two lifelong passions: sports and working with kids. Growing up, I always wanted to play sports professionally, but after coaching from a young age and studying to become a child psychologist, I realized what I truly loved was helping children grow. I worked with a family whose child had additional needs, and that experience got me deeply interested in cognitive behavioral therapy and supporting children with exceptionalities. When I discovered Sportball, it felt like the perfect combination of my areas of excellence: sports and child development, with a focus on positivity. I was hired initially as a coach, and knowing my background in psychology, the founders asked me to design a program for children with special needs. My experience quickly evolved into a career where I could shape programs, mentor young coaches and help thousands of children build confidence and resilience through sports.

Can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority on raising resilient kids? In your opinion, what is your unique contribution to this field?

My career has been all about helping kids develop a love of physical activity, while developing vital life skills at the same time. I spent four years as a Sportball coach then led our training and adapted programs, where I helped integrate child development theory with sport-specific skill progression. Our focus has never been on training the next generation of pro athletes. It’s about helping kids of all skill levels find the fun in physical activity and play, while building confidence, resilience and social skills that will carry them through adulthood.

Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?

One quote that has always stayed with me is: “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” When I came across it midway through my career, it reminded me that it doesn’t matter if a kid grows up to be a great athlete, if they’re not a good human being. Every interaction with kids matters, and whether you’re a parent, teacher or coach, you’re constantly a role model. This quote helps me be a better dad, coach and trainer of young professionals. A moment that really brought it to life was a child in an adaptive program who struggled with a skill and wanted to quit. He had oppositional defiant disorder and didn’t connect well with coaches and teachers. Instead of pushing him to perform, I focused on building trust and connection with kindness. It took several weeks, but eventually, he not only wanted to come to Sportball, but he began supporting other kids who were struggling. That moment reminded me that when we invest in a child’s character and confidence, the ripple effects can be far greater than we ever expect.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. How can parents handle situations when a child faces failure or disappointment? What strategies can parents use to help a child bounce back?

The first step is normalizing failure as part of learning. Too often we rush to fix the problem or shield them from disappointment, but those moments are actually where growth happens. With my own daughters, I’ve learned to validate their emotions first and make sure they feel heard — not just give solutions. When they come to me with a problem, I’ll even ask if they want me to help fix it or just be there to listen to them. From there, parents can ask simple, reflexive questions, like “What did you learn?” or “What would you try next time?” It’s also important to celebrate the effort vs. the outcome. Focus more on the character development than the trophy. Keep the moment small and make sure your child sees that you’re composed and can be that rock for them to learn from.

What role does parental modeling of resilience play in the development of emotional strength in children? Can you share an example of a resilient parenting moment that you experienced directly or that you have come across in the course of your work?

I often say that kids either borrow your chaos or borrow your calm. It’s hard to talk someone into being resilient, but when parents model it, or kids see their siblings and friends make it through a challenge and find the courage to move forward, then they’ll learn and internalize it more. I see this often in parent-and-child sport classes. When a young child becomes frustrated with a new skill, a calm parent who kneels down to their level, makes eye contact and says, “Let’s try this together,” can completely change the moment. The child often mirrors that calm energy and becomes motivated to try again. As children age and can better express their feelings with words, you just have to make sure you meet them where they’re at and that your behavior corresponds with their development level.

What approaches do you recommend to foster a growth mindset in children, encouraging them to see challenge as opportunities to learn?

When kids are given an opportunity to succeed, they are more willing to put in the effort to learn and grow, so they can keep succeeding. That’s how we like to structure our multi-sport sessions, especially with the younger kids. We kick off with something easy and fun, like throwing around a bunch of colored balls and having the kids pick them up and toss them back in a bucket. It seems simple and maybe a little silly, but it’s deeper than that. It’s something that all of them can do, so everyone starts off with a high five and a feeling of accomplishment. Then, when we move onto a more difficult skill lesson, they’re riding on that confidence and know that the coach with the high fives has their back to support them through whatever they try next. While kids tend to only see the finish line as success, we like to celebrate wins in between start and finish with things as small as keeping both hands on the hockey stick. You can scaffold success and build in moments of victory before the finish line to show kids that there are multiple opportunities to be successful along the journey. It also helps to remove unnecessary barriers to their success. For example, we don’t start young kids with regulation-sized basketballs and net heights. We start with smaller balls and hula hoops, so they can be successful at a skill level that’s right for their size and be motivated to build up from there. Growth also begins with curiosity, so encourage that. Always give them a chance to try new ways to figure something out. It can be as simple as saying, “Let’s see what happens if we try this.” Giving something a try without knowing what the outcome will be helps build curiosity to stimulate that growth mindset.

How can parents balance providing support with allowing their children to experience and overcome difficulties on their own?

The idea is to support them enough to keep them safe, but not so much that you remove the challenge all together. Failure is a part of success, so rather than giving answers, parents can ask guiding questions that help children think through solutions themselves. This leads kids to ask the questions they need to be successful and helps them learn that they are capable of solving problems and navigating challenges.

What self-care practices would you recommend for parents to maintain their own resilience while going through the everyday challenges of raising children?

Parenting is demanding, and one of the best things parents can do for their children is take care of themselves. Simple self-care rituals like going for a walk, practicing mindfulness, exercising, deep breathing or even enjoying a quiet coffee can help recharge your emotional reserves. Give yourself permission to do something for yourself. Seeing that will model for your children how to self-regulate. Plus, if you want your child to be active, go out and be active yourself, whether that’s hitting the gym or playing sports with other adults. It’s also important to connect with other parents. Sharing experiences reminds us that we’re not alone in this journey. Perhaps most importantly, parents should extend the same compassion to themselves that they give their children. There is no such thing as a perfect parent. It’s in our right to pursue perfection, but attaining it is not our business. We try our best and learn along the way.

Ok. Here is the main question of our discussion. Can you please share “5 Strategies To Raise Children With Resilience and Emotional Strength”? If you can, kindly share a story or example for each.

1. Celebrate effort over outcome

At Sportball, we often have a child look up at us with that classic “I can’t do it” face. My response is always the same. I smile and say, “I love how hard you’re trying. That’s exactly what Kobe [or insert their favorite athlete] would do.” Their whole expression changes. They take a breath, give it another go, and even if the skill doesn’t click right away, they keep trying because they know the effort is what truly matters.

2. Create safe spaces for failure

In a multi-sport class, we were practicing overhand throws. One of my nine-year-olds missed the target completely and shouted, “I’m terrible at this.” Before the frustration could take over, I tossed my own ball and missed by a mile on purpose. The kids burst out laughing, and I shrugged and said, “Looks like I need practice too.” He tried again but this time smiling, and the rest of the group followed. Suddenly, missing wasn’t embarrassing; it was just part of the game.

3. Build confidence through small wins

Because children develop at their own pace, it’s important to recognize what “winning” looks like for each of them. In our Parent and Child classes and programs for 3–5-year-olds, sometimes “winning” is joining the group for the first time. Sometimes it’s holding the bat correctly or remembering a skill from last week. When we celebrate those small steps, kids start to see themselves as capable, and that confidence fuels everything that comes next.

4. Model calm, regulated behavior

When I’m giving instructions, and the group’s attention starts to drift, I use a class management strategy called the power of silence. Instead of raising my voice or giving a consequence, I simply pause mid-sentence and wait. The silence gets loud in the best way. One by one, the kids notice, settle and self-regulate. When everyone is with me again, I thank them and continue. It teaches them that calm is contagious, and that they can find it themselves.

5. Encourage problem solving and independence

In basketball classes, older kids often ask me to fix their form. After offering a few pointers, I’ll say, “Let’s try something. What do you think feels off?” They look down, adjust their stance, try again, and it’s almost always better. I’ll say, “See? You’re coaching yourself.” For the rest of class, they experiment, make adjustments and even help their peers. Their confidence grows because they realize they can self-correct and figure things out on their own.

How can mindfulness and emotional regulation techniques be incorporated into daily routines to support children’s emotional resilience?

I’ve actually taken some of the things from our adaptive programming at Sportball and integrated it into my home life. We do short breathing exercises before school or bedtime, and I like to do a lot of positive affirmations with my daughters before dropping them off at school. I’ll have them say “I am kind. I am strong. I am independent,” and I always say to them, “Be kind and make good choices.” The goal is for these repetitions and reminders to be stuck in their heads like a Bruno Mars song, so they always feel that they are their best, most confident selves. We also practice naming their emotions to help them better identify and communicate how they’re feeling, and sometimes we just take a pause. It’s OK to not always have the answer and to take a beat to self-regulate. Also, just model mindfulness yourself, so kids can see it in action. Movement is another powerful tool for releasing stress, anxiety and pent-up energy, especially with school-aged kids who sit in desks most of the day. Activities like sports, gymnastics and dance are great for that.

Are there any specific tools or resources (books, apps, courses) you recommend for individuals looking to improve in this area?

For kids, my obvious answer would be getting them into multi-sport youth programs that lead with fun over competition. Aside from the physical benefits, it’s an impactful way to teach kids valuable interpersonal skills, like following directions, taking turns and teamwork. Many parents also benefit from it too. They learn tools and strategies to help their children succeed and grow in a nurturing way. Any activity or class with parents and children can help build positive relationships with your kids. For parents, local parent groups on social media or through schools, hospitals or local organizations can be really beneficial communities of folks who have kids the same age and can share supportive resources. Sharing experiences and strategies helps parents see that they’re not alone. I recommend meeting up in person with other parents. Join an adult sports league, where you can enjoy the games and talk shop about parenting with others going through it. Hidden Opponent is a mental health organization that focuses on athletes, which is something I’m passionate about, and Sportball is very aligned with. It’s for athletes older than the ones we serve, but they provide really great resources for student athletes and their parents. It gives me hope to see other organizations prioritizing the emotional wellbeing of young athletes as they age and become the adults they’re meant to be.

Wonderful. We are nearly done. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂

The chance to connect with Dr. Becky Kennedy would be pretty cool, to talk about resilience, emotional regulation and how it helps transform kids. I think we’d have a lot to talk about on how to coach parents and coaches on how to interact with kids in a positive way. From the sports world, I’m a big basketball fan, so I have to say Steve Nash, because he’s a huge supporter of youth sports, and Steve Kerr because of his ability to coach. He won championships in his playing days, but he’s also won four for the Golden State Warriors. He gets the best out of his players who might not be the tallest or fastest, and it’s inspiring to watch.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

They can find me on LinkedIn and learn more at Sportball.com.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!

– Authority Mag Editorial Staff, Medium. Link to article: https://medium.com/authority-magazine/raising-resilient-kids-jason-drocha-of-sportball-on-strategies-for-nurturing-emotional-strength-ec33f6c709fb

The post Raising Resilient Kids: Jason D’Rocha Of Sportball On Strategies for Nurturing Emotional Strength in Children appeared first on Sportball.

Founded in Toronto in 1995 by husband and wife Mark and Carmella Gelgor, Sportball was built around a belief that felt almost radical for a sports program: that kids do not need to compete to grow. Movement, joy, and a coach who greets them at the door, that is the starting point. Thirty years later, that belief has grown into a franchise system with more than 900 activity sites across four countries, reaching more than 70,000 children each year. The brand already has locations in Austin, Boston South, Brooklyn, Dallas, Katy, North Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio East, and Southern California. With U.S. expansion now accelerating, the brand is bringing its research-backed, fun-first approach to American families who are increasingly looking for something different.

Jason D’Rocha, Vice President of Sportball and a 20-year veteran of the company, sat down with Franchise Brief to tell the story of how the brand was built, what makes its methodology distinct, and why the ideal Sportball franchise owner might not have a sports background at all.

Where It All Begins: Meeting Kids Where They Are

Sportball’s founders arrived in Canada with a concept, not a playbook. Their multi-sport approach had roots in South Africa, but not everything translated to North American culture and climate. So they spent years rethinking which sports would resonate, how young they could start, and what the experience should feel like for a 2-year-old encountering a soccer ball for the very first time.

What emerged was a curriculum built around eight major ball sports, delivered in developmentally appropriate stages starting as young as 16 months. Earliest classes are parent-participation programs, where parents join their children on the gym floor. That choice was deliberate. For toddlers, sport is not yet about skill. It is about building positive associations with movement, with coaches, and with the adults who brought them there.

“When you’re thinking of teaching kids how to play sports, they’re not going to go play pickup basketball or hockey,” D’Rocha said. “But what they’re going to do is build up really positive association with sports, physical activity, and mom and dad or their caregiver.”

As children grow, the structure evolves with them. Drop-off programs begin around age 3 and a half, introducing independent play and giving children their first experience with an authority figure who is not a parent. By the time kids reach 6, 7, and 8, Sportball has layered in skill development, team play, and gentle introductions to competition, all within a framework where mistakes carry no real stakes.

The Case Against Early Specialization

Across North America, children are being funneled into single-sport programs earlier and earlier, and the consequences are visible. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 70% of kids quit sports by age 13. Overuse injuries are rising and burnout is common. For every child who reaches a collegiate or professional level, thousands more walk away from sport entirely before ever finding out whether they actually enjoyed it. Sportball has spent three decades working to interrupt that pattern, and the urgency has never felt more relevant.

When Winning Becomes the Wrong Goal

D’Rocha draws a pointed analogy. He references Andre Agassi, one of the greatest tennis players in history, who famously admitted he never loved the game he mastered. Specialization without passion, D’Rocha argues, can produce skill without fulfillment, and sometimes resentment.

Physical Literacy

Exposing children to up to eight sports within a single season, the program builds what the brand calls physical literacy: the foundational movement skills, including balance, coordination, timing, and hand-eye tracking, that allow a child to enter any sport with competence and confidence. Producing elite athletes is not the goal. Producing kids who love being active, and who carry that love into adulthood, is.

“If you can introduce children to sport and physical activity at a young age and they have developed positive associations with parents, with a coach, with friends, with teammates,” D’Rocha said, “well, then when they get older, maybe they’ll start to see it as necessary as brushing their teeth.”

Screen Time

Physical literacy is only part of the picture. Growing sedentary behavior driven by screen culture is a concern that runs parallel to early specialization, and Sportball addresses both. D’Rocha, who has two daughters of his own, is candid about the challenge. Children communicate on screens, do homework on screens, and entertain themselves on screens.

When “Counting Sleeps” Becomes the Metric

That phrase, “count their sleeps,” comes up more than once, and it matters because it captures the emotion Sportball is trying to create: anticipation, not obligation. When a child asks their parent, “how many more days until the next Sportball class?”, the parent knows they found something special. The joy and excitement in that question are akin to counting down the nights before a special holiday or number of school days before a fun vacation.

D’Rocha connected that anticipation to the broader realities of digital screens and sedentary routines. Sportball, he suggested, gives parents a consistent weekly reason to show up. That helps establish routine and reinforces that movement belongs in the rhythm of life.

In the same breath, he framed routine as a life lesson. Many adults know the feeling of not wanting to do the thing that is good for them, then doing it anyway because the habit is established. Sportball’s role is to create that habit early, but in a way children experience as fun and relationship-driven.

What Actually Happens Inside a Sportball Class

Walking into a Sportball class for the first time, a parent might be surprised by how much structure lives beneath what looks like organized chaos. Sessions run about 60 minutes and follow a deliberate sequence that coaches are trained to deliver consistently, because for young children, knowing what comes next is half the battle. Predictability reduces anxiety, and reduced anxiety means kids are ready to learn.

Structure That Feels Like Play

Opening with a 10 to 15 minute warm-up that is as much social as it is physical, coaches introduce turn-taking, following instructions, and skill combinations, sometimes asking children to balance on one foot while holding a ball, layering challenge without raising anxiety. Consider a game called Popcorn, where a coach dumps a bucket of colorful balls into the air and children race to return them to the basket. Simple by design, every child can succeed, and that first moment of success becomes the foundation for everything that follows.

“If I can play a game where they can have success, then when I put a tennis racket in their hand, they’ll think, ‘Coach J already gave me a chance to be successful. Let me see what else he’s got,’” D’Rocha said.

Built to Progress, Not to Judge

From there, class moves into skill practice, individual exploration, and group activity. Coaches are trained to offer progressions for children who are ready for more challenge, and refinements for those who need more time. Sessions close with a low-energy activity to bring the group back down before a structured, hand-to-hand dismissal that ensures every child is safely returned to their caregiver. Coaches then brief parents on what was covered and offer ideas for practicing at home, because as D’Rocha puts it, “refine, rehearse, and repeat” extends well beyond the gym floor.

For families who want more flexibility, or have children who are not drawn to team sports, Sportball also offers a Fit Kids program built around functional fitness games and activities that develop strength and endurance without a sports-specific focus. Birthday parties and private events round out the menu, making Sportball a program families tend to grow into rather than out of.

A Franchise Model Built for Purpose

Sportball’s franchise model is built around low overhead and geographic flexibility. Rather than requiring brick-and-mortar locations, franchisees run programs inside gymnasiums, multi-purpose rooms, schools, and community centers, paying only for the hours they occupy the space. Costs stay predictable, and growth comes from adding locations and registrations rather than managing a lease. It is a structure designed to let owners focus on building relationships and delivering great programs, not on managing real estate.

A Model That Works for Everyone in the Room

Pricing is seasonal, with families registering for 10-week sessions at rates that typically range from $15 to $25 per child per class, depending on the market. That range is not arbitrary. It sits comfortably within what families already spend on enrichment programs, and that pricing integrity leaves franchisees room to invest in what matters most: the coaches who show up every week and make the experience worth coming back for.

Paying coaches well is not just good culture, it is good business. When a child counts their sleeps until their next Sportball class, that loyalty belongs as much to the coach as it does to the brand. Retaining great coaches means retaining families, and retaining families means a stronger, more predictable business.

Setting Franchisees Up to Win

Each new franchisee goes through a structured discovery process that builds a full business plan for their territory, including competitive analysis, revenue modeling, and identification of program locations, before any commitment is made. As D’Rocha puts it, “We’re awarding territories. We’re not just selling them.”

From there, a support model connects new owners with a corporate team member who provides dedicated hours each week covering registration platforms, marketing assets, business development playbooks, HR, and training.

Once a franchisee is ready to launch their first season, one of the model’s most valuable advantages kicks in: registration opens before the doors do, so families are signing up and deposits are arriving before a single class is ever delivered, giving new owners early financial visibility and a running start from day one. After opening, Monthly Growth Labs bring the franchise network together to share best practices, and bi-weekly calls with a dedicated growth coach keep momentum building from there.

The Person Sportball Is Looking For

Becoming a Sportball franchisee doesn’t require a background in corporate finance or operations; they have designed systems and playbooks to teach those aspects of the business. When asked what they are looking for, the message was clear:

“We’re looking for people who are passionate about our mission and willing to put the work into their community.”

Charisma, comfort with people, and a willingness to follow a proven system all matter. But what D’Rocha describes most often is someone who has reached a turning point; a person with real-world experience who is ready to use it for something that feels meaningful. He sees that shift happening across the corporate world right now.

“There are so many ways to earn a dollar in this life,” D’Rocha said. “Maybe I want to do something that actually makes a difference.”

Coaching Knowledge, Career Path and Impact

Most youth sports programs treat coaching as a transactional role: show up, run the drills, go home. Sportball treats it as a development opportunity, and that distinction runs through every layer of how the brand hires, trains, and promotes the people who deliver its programs. It is also one of the reasons the model works as well as it does for franchisees, because a coach who is growing tends to stay, and a coach who stays builds the kind of relationships that keep families coming back season after season.

That weight on the coach is why Sportball invests heavily in training. D’Rocha described a coach onboarding system, including the Coach’s Journey and Coach’s Academy, built to train coaches not only on sport delivery but also on how to engage families, manage classes, redirect behavior, and support children who feel nervous or experience separation anxiety.

From Rookie to Master

Every new hire enters through the Coach’s Journey and Coach’s Academy, moving through a graduated system from rookie to lead, lead to mentor, and mentor to master. Most Sportball coaches are university and college students, many studying kinesiology, occupational therapy, or education, and for those young professionals a coaching role at Sportball is a formative experience that builds skills they will carry long after they leave.

Sportball also sets what D’Rocha called “table stakes” for working with children: coaches are expected to have a nationwide clearance appropriate for working with the vulnerable sector, and to be CPR and first aid certified. D’Rocha also said Sportball has had very few injuries over its years of operation, which he attributed to the program’s non-competitive, low-impact approach and the young ages served.

What makes that investment particularly smart is where it leads. At the top of the ladder, Master Level Coaches become candidates for area management and even franchise ownership, creating a pipeline that benefits everyone in the system. Coaches who have lived the program from the inside make some of the most effective franchise owners, because they already understand the methodology, the culture, and what families expect when they walk through the door. Several current franchisees, including owners in Austin, Katy, Vancouver, and the Okanagan, began as part-time coaches before buying their territories. D’Rocha himself started as a part-time coach in 2004, a detail he shares not as a footnote but as proof of what the journey can look like.

Proof in the Pudding

Perhaps the most powerful illustration of what Sportball’s model can do comes from a story D’Rocha tells with quiet pride. A child with special needs arrived at Sportball barely able to catch a ball, terrified of what might come his way. His mother was ready to pull him out after the first class. D’Rocha asked for one season. The child stayed, grew from apprehensive to confident, from confident to competent, and eventually his mother asked whether he could train as a junior coach. He joined the staff. He became a mentor-level coach.

“The proof is in the pudding,” D’Rocha said. “We were able to move kids on this journey through physical literacy, sports development, and social development, to a point where hopefully not only do we pay them, but they can actually come back and contribute themselves.”

The Right Brand at the Right Time

Youth sports in North America is a $37.5 billion market, valued in 2022 and projected to reach $69.4 billion by 2030. That growth creates real commercial opportunity, but D’Rocha frames Sportball’s expansion in terms that go well beyond market size. He talks about a generation of kids being failed by a system that prioritizes winning over wellbeing, and a brand that has been quietly solving that problem for three decades. As the team expands its footprint in the U.S., Sportball is not chasing a trend. It is meeting a need that has been building for years.

A Market Ready for Something Different

Pressure points in U.S. youth sports are well documented. Seventeen percent of parents expect their children to go pro, even as less than 2% of NCAA athletes ultimately reach that level. Sedentary behavior driven by screens is accelerating. Early specialization, travel teams, and year-round training cycles are producing a generation of kids who quit by 13. Sportball was built for exactly this moment, and its track record across cultures suggests the model travels well.

Singapore offers a telling example. In a culture that had long prioritized academics over recreation, the brand reframed its value proposition around research showing that physically active children perform better academically. More than 5,000 children now participate in Sportball programs there, a result that speaks to the brand’s ability to find the right message for the right market.

More Than a Business

Above all else, D’Rocha returns to the same idea when describing what makes Sportball different from any other franchise opportunity. It is not the model, the methodology, or even the market size. It is the feeling of knowing that the work you do each day is shaping someone’s life in ways you may never fully see.

“You may not be famous on social media, you may not have a billboard with your face on it,” he said. “But sometime down the road, someone will look back and say, ‘If it wasn’t for that person, I may not be here today.’ You do have the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives in a way you may never even know. And I think that’s the beauty of having a business like this.”

For families, Sportball offers something increasingly rare: a place where kids can simply play. For franchisees, it offers a business built around something that outlasts any single season. For the coaches who grow through its ranks, it offers a start. And for the children counting their sleeps until the next session, it offers exactly what it always promised.

– Tim Katsch, publisher of Franchise Brief

Link to article: https://franchisebrief.com/sportball-early-movement-lifelong-advantage/

The post Sportball Turns Early Movement Into a Lifelong Advantage appeared first on Sportball.

What Is the Multisport Advantage for Young Athletes?

The multisport advantage refers to the physical, psychological, and social benefits young athletes gain from participating in multiple sports instead of specializing early. Research shows that multi-sport participation improves motor skill development, reduces injury risk, lowers burnout rates, and increases long-term athletic success and lifelong physical activity.

What happens if young athletes don’t embrace a varied athletic approach? Let’s break down the potential downsides of early specialization and explore the multisport advantage for young athletes. Keeping the athletic menu diverse offers benefits.

Below, we map out a progression that shows how Sportball’s multi-sport classes grow skills and spark confidence.

First Steps & Fundamentals. Age Range 16 months–3 years What It Looks Like:

In this phase, your child is experiencing movement for the joy of it. They’re introduced to a variety of fundamental movements: from running to kicking and throwing to jumping. Sports are taught through a playful and supportive environment.

Skill Benchmarks:

• Engages happily in group activities
• Develops gross motor basics (running, stopping, balance)
• Starts to follow simple instructions

This stage is all about building physical literacy, the bedrock of athletic confidence that’s transferable to every sport.

Practicing Independent Movement & Gaining Confidence. Age Range 3–5 years What It Looks Like:

Your little athlete starts recognizing patterns across different sports: how eyes track a ball, how feet work when running and changing direction, how to wait their turn and celebrate others. 

Skill Benchmarks

• Improved coordination and balance
• Can follow multi-step instructions
• Beginning sport-specific skills (passing, kicking with intent)

Sport Awareness & Playful Exploration. Age Range 5–12 years What It Looks Like:

With a solid foundation of general skills in place, kids begin to show preferences, maybe soccer sticks out more than basketball this week, or they absolutely love the way a golf swing feels.

Skill Benchmarks

• Better decision-making during play
• Awareness of teammates and sharing equipment
• Fundamental sport skills emerging across multiple sports
• Can stay focused through a full class 
• Plays cooperatively and listens to simple game cues
• Understands cooperation and rotation
• Game awareness (Where should I be? What should I do with the ball?)
• Solid control of sport-specific skills
• Can participate in full games with consistent effort
• Positive communication and sport understanding

This is the transition zone. Kids at this age can start sampling structured team play, like recreational leagues, while continuing multi-sport classes for the physical, social, and behavioural benefits.

Why Keeping Multi-Sport in Rotation Works

Across each stage above, research and experience agree on three big truths:

Broad motor skills=better athletes

Exposing kids to many movement patterns helps them develop strength, balance, coordination, and agility that transfer across sports. Studies from the European Journal of Sport Sciences and the Journal of Athletic Training state that, “most Olympians demonstrate better performance after youth multi-sport engagement.”

Lower risk of injury

Multi-sport programs, like ones at Sportball, are designed with fun first programming across multiple sports. According to research published by the Journal of Athletic Training, sport specialization often requires increased training hours and may predispose young athletes to social isolation, poor academic performance, increased anxiety, greater stress, inadequate sleep, decreased family time, and burnout. 

Dodge Dropout

Multi-sport play spreads movement loads and keeps sport fun, as opposed to focusing on one sport for most of the year. Project Play surveyed young kids, asking why they played sports. Winning ranked 48th. Fun? Number one. Multi-sport builds love of play for life. Kids who explore more sports are more likely to stay active because sport doesn’t feel like pressure: it’s just fun.

When Should Young Athletes Specialize?

Can multi-sport athletes still become elite?

Yes, many elite athletes played multiple sports in their youth. Your child can still become an elite athlete without early specialization. Did you know most Olympians didn’t start practicing their main sport until they were 10, and didn’t specialize until 15 years of age? On average, most Olympians spend the first 10 years of their life playing multiple sports, discovering what they enjoy, what they’re good at, and becoming well-rounded athletes.

Starting specialization

At Sportball, our non-competitive multi-sport approach is about confidence, teamwork, and resilience. Our coaching and programming are grounded in child development science, and designed to help every kid find a love of movement for life. 

After age 12, your child may be ready for the next step into specialization. Their path from Sportball beginner to confident league player doesn’t happen overnight, and it shouldn’t. It happens through play, exploration, and growing confidence. By keeping multiple sports integrated in that journey, even through specialization, you’re giving your young athlete the best chance to thrive physically, socially, and emotionally on any field they choose later in life.

References

1. Aspen Institute. (2019, August 1). Survey: Kids quit most sports by age 11. Project Play. https://projectplay.org/news/kids-quit-most-sports-by-age-11
2. Brenner, J. S., LaBotz, M., Sugimoto, D., & Stracciolini, A. (2019). The psychosocial implications of sport specialization in pediatric athletes. Journal of Athletic Training, 54(10), 1021–1029. https://doi.org/10.4085/1062-6050-394-18
3. Blake, S. (2025, November 24). More than a ball: How Sportball is nurturing healthy youth development built on confidence and community. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/special/contributor-content/2025/11/24/more-than-a-ball-how-sportball-is-nurturing-healthy-youth-development-built-on-confidence-and-commun/87449404007/
4. Mukhopadhyay, K., LeBlanc, M., Porter, M., & Zhang, Q. (2023). Starting and specialisation ages of elite athletes across Olympic sports: An international cross-sectional study. European Journal of Sport Sciences, 2(5), 9–19. https://eu-opensci.org/index.php/sport/article/view/9100

The post From Skills Class to Starting Lineup: The Multi-Sport Advantage for Young Athletes appeared first on Sportball.

How are we supporting the next generation of girls?

Why Early Sport Participation Matters for Girls

New research on women’s health is making one thing increasingly clear: the foundation for lifelong physical and mental well-being is built early. Childhood fitness isn’t just about running faster or throwing farther but strengthening bones and hearts (where girls face disadvantages), improving emotional regulation, and building resilience and confidence that carry into later life.

For girls, early positive sport experiences are especially powerful, shaping how they see their bodies, their abilities, and their place in the world.

And yet, despite growing awareness and momentum in women’s sport, participation numbers are concerning. 40% of North American girls are not participating in sports, and sport participation continues to decline with age.

There’s a widening gap between opportunity and access—one that National Girls and Women in Sport Day urges us not to ignore.

The Cost of Losing Girls in Sport

This trend is a story of lost opportunity. Girls face unique barriers through adolescence — body image pressures, social expectations, environments not designed with them in mind — that push them out of sport right when they need it most.

94% of women C-suite leaders played sports. Sports teach girls not be perfect, but to be brave and to trust their bodies. By losing girls in sports, we’re losing our next generation of change makers.

Regular physical activity as a young child staves off disease, such as osteoporosis, keeping our next gen healthy.

But here’s the good news:

We can change this.

By championing inclusive, joyful, confidence-building sport experiences, parents and educators can keep girls active and empowered.

That’s where community programs like Sportball come in — getting more girls into the game and building confidence and love of sport from an early age.

Sportball’s Longstanding Commitment to Girls in Sports

Long before today’s headlines and research began sounding the alarm, Sportball was already asking a critical question:

How do we keep girls confident, capable, and excited about sport from the very beginning?

For over 30 years, Sportball’s approach has been shaped by this lens.

Building Confidence Through Inclusive Sport Programs

The Sportball program was built on the vision of a co-founder who was a mom and educator herself, and who knew from experience that how children feel about movement early on shapes how they feel about it later.

That’s why Sportball classes are designed for girls to feel seen, supported, and successful. From developmentally appropriate coaching to a welcoming and non-competitive environment. Program initiatives that focus on female leadership aren’t a new trend for Sportball. These initiatives are part of a long-standing commitment to making sure girls don’t just show up, but feel like they truly belong and can thrive.

It’s proof that Sportball hasn’t just responded to the moment—it’s been building toward it all along.

What Girls Are Really Up Against and How Sport Can Help

Research shows that girls don’t just need sport—they need environments that actively build resilience, because the expectations placed on their bodies, performance, and identities are often heavier and more complex than those placed on boys.

From a young age, girls deal with pressures about how their bodies should look, what they should eat, and how they should perform—all while their bodies are growing and changing in ways that require extra support.

One serious health concern is called the female athlete triad, which happens when girls don’t get enough nutrition while training hard. This can lead to problems with their menstruation, weaker bones, and low energy levels.

Breaking Stereotypes in Girls’ Sports

Beyond the physical demands, girls also face outdated stereotypes. Phrases like “you throw like a girl” get used as put-downs, which can chip away at confidence.

But here’s the truth: throwing like a girl isn’t something to apologize for—girls are strong, capable athletes.

When we treat “like a girl” as an insult, we’re teaching kids that being a girl means being less capable, something Women in Sport describes as “structural and cultural barriers [that] continue to limit aspirations”.

And that message sticks, especially when children are still figuring out what their bodies can do.

Why Early Sport Experiences Shape Lifelong Confidence

Research also shows that how girls feel about themselves in sports directly impacts whether they continue playing (Slater et al., 2021).

Girls who don’t try sports early are much less likely to start later, unlike boys who often join teams even as teenagers (Howie et al., 2016).

When girls do participate early, the benefits are powerful: they develop stronger self-esteem earlier than boys, a healthier relationship with their bodies, and emotional strength that lasts into adulthood (Brettschneider, 2001; Pedersen & Seidman, 2004; Richman & Shaffer, 2000).

The bottom line? Getting girls into sports early isn’t just about learning to play and honing skills—it’s about building confidence, physical literacy and resilience before life’s pressures intensify.

For the Love of the Game

Helping girls fall in love with sports matters now more than ever—especially as stereotypes, pressure, and early drop-off continue.

New research from Women in Sport shows that only 23% of girls aged 13–24 now dream of reaching the top in sport, down sharply from 38% just a year earlier, the lowest level recorded since tracking began.

But success in sport doesn’t have to mean podiums or going pro.

As UN Women reminds us, “sport has the power to change lives,”.

Role Models, Multi-Sport Play, and Long-Term Success

Many of today’s most influential women in sport didn’t specialize early or follow a narrow path. Players like Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan from the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team played multiple sports growing up, building adaptable athleticism and confidence before specializing later (USA Today; ABC News).

Even beyond the field, women shaping the future of sport leadership and influence share similar roots—what sets them apart is not just power, but how they leverage it to redefine what sport can look like for the next generation (Forbes).

At its best, sport becomes a place where girls learn not just how to play—but how to belong.

How Sportball Helps Girls Shine in Sport Programs

At Sportball, supporting girls in sport isn’t an add-on—it’s woven into how programs are designed and delivered at every age.

That starts with language and representation: in spaces where boys’ voices or interests may dominate, coaches intentionally invite girls into the conversation, whether that means naming Skye and Everest alongside Chase and Marshall or asking about favourite superheroes and favourite princesses in the same breath.

Storytelling plays a powerful role here, too.

As we’ve explored in How Storytelling Helps Kids Build Skills, stories allow children to see themselves as capable heroes, problem-solvers, and teammates, not just participants.

Our coaches are trained to coach with purpose, focusing on encouragement, autonomy, and effort rather than comparison or outcomes.

Multi-sport programming is another key piece. Exposure to a variety of sports builds physical literacy, reduces pressure, and allows girls to discover what they enjoy—a philosophy we break down in What Does a Multi-Sport Class Look Like?.

Across all programs, the goal is consistent: to help children—especially girls—build confidence, social skills, and a positive relationship with movement that feels safe, joyful, and empowering.

Working Together to Support Girls in Sport

So, what does National Girls and Women in Sport Day really mean for families like yours?

It’s about the everyday moments that shape a girl’s relationship with movement—feeling welcome on the field, learning skills in a supportive environment, and discovering that sport can be joyful, inclusive, and for her.

When girls step away from sports early we’re not just losing players or participation numbers. We’re losing future leaders, confident young women, and a generation that could grow up knowing their bodies are strong, capable, and worthy of celebration.

This is why Sportball is committed to creating spaces where girls feel like they belong, where they can explore, make mistakes, and discover what they love. And we’re learning alongside them, partnering with educators, researchers, and community organizations to use our programs as a space for improving how we show up for every child.

National Girls and Women in Sport Day reminds us that change starts young.

By prioritizing developmentally appropriate, fun, and confidence-building sport experiences in childhood, parents and educators can help rewrite the story—one playful class, practice, or game at a time.

Change doesn’t happen on podiums. It happens in gyms, on playgrounds, and in community programs where kids are having fun, building skills, and feeling seen.

This National Girls and Women in Sport Day, let’s commit to giving every girl the chance to fall in love with movement.

About the Author

Ronda Robinson is the Product Lead and a Mentor Coach at Sportball for the last 4 years. She is a recent graduate with a Master of Arts in Child Study and Education from University of Toronto. Ronda has a passion for designing curriculum and writing on childhood resilience.

References

Brettschneider, W. D. (2001). Effects of sport club activities on adolescent development in Germany. European Journal of Sport Science, 1(2), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461390100071510

Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. (2021). The role of sports in youth development. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 3, 787334. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sports-and-active-living/articles/10.3389/fspor.2021.787334/full

Howie, E. K., McVeigh, J. A., Smith, A. J., & Straker, L. M. (2016). Organized Sport Trajectories from Childhood to Adolescence and Health Associations. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 48(7), 1331–1339. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000000894

Lucibello, K. M., Vani, M. F., & Sabiston, C. M. (2025). The prevalence of negative weight commentary in girls’ sport and associations with body image and well-being in young adulthood. Journal of Health Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591053251371809

Pedersen, S., & Seidman, E. (2004). Team sports achievement and self-esteem development among urban adolescent girls. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 28(4), 412–422. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2004.00159.x

Richman, E. L., & Shaffer, D. R. (2000). If you let me play sports: How might sport participation influence the self-esteem of adolescent females? Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24(2), 189–199. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2000.tb00197.x

ParticipACTION. (2024). Children and youth report card. https://www.participaction.com/the-science/children-and-youth-report-card/

Women in Sport. (2026). Why 2026 must be a turning point for girls in sport. https://womeninsport.org/news/why-2026-must-be-a-turning-point-for-girls-in-sport/

Women and Sport Canada. (2022). The rally report 2022. https://womenandsport.ca/resource/the-rally-report-2022

EY. (2020, Sept 23). Why a female athlete should be your next leader. https://www.ey.com/en_au/athlete-programs/why-a-female-athlete-should-be-your-next-leader

UN Women. (n.d.). Women and sport. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/women-and-sport

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office on Women’s Health. (2025, Feb 19). Female athlete triad awareness: Women and girls in sports. https://womenshealth.gov/blog/female-athlete-triad-awareness-women-and-girls-sports

USA Today. (2015, July 3). Abby Wambach, Morgan Brian, Lauren Holiday: U.S. women’s soccer stars. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/2015/07/03/abby-wambach-morgan-brian-lauren-holiday/29665797/

ABC News. (2016, April 7). The incredible juggling act of multi-sport female athletes. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-07/the-incredible-juggling-act-of-mutli-sport-female-athletes/7307472

Forbes. (2025, October 22). America’s most powerful women in sports 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2025/10/22/americas-most-powerful-women-in-sports-2025/

Sportball. (2025-a). How storytelling helps kids build skills. https://sportball.com/blog/how-storytelling-helps-kids-build-skills/

Sportball. (2025-b). Coaching kids with purpose. https://sportball.com/blog/coaching-kids-with-purpose/

Sportball. (2025-c). What does a multi-sport class look like? https://sportball.com/blog/what-does-a-multi-sport-class-look-like/

Sportball. (2025-d). How we build confidence & social skills in kids. https://sportball.com/blog/how-we-build-confidence-social-skills-in-kids/

CSEP 2025. (n.d.). Event sessions: Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology. https://site.pheedloop.com/event/csep2025/sessions/SESSBG0PQ0OEW8CMD

Zarrett, N., & Veliz, P. T. (2023). The healing power of sport: COVID‑19 and girls’ participation, health, and achievement (Report). Women’s Sports Foundation. https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/The-Healing-Power-of-Sport-FINAL.pdf

The post Why We Can’t Afford to Lose Girls in Sport appeared first on Sportball.

Welcome to the world of Sportball, where physical literacy and fun go hand-in-hand! Your child could be starting their journey with movement for the first time at one our drop off classes. Our drop-off classes are programs where children are greeted by a coach upon arrival, and parents leave the gym, returning after an hour of fun to pick up their little athlete.

Why Drop-Off Classes Help Build Confidence and Independence

We understand that starting a drop-off class can feel a bit like jumping into a pool for the first time: exciting, but a tad nerve-wracking (for both you and your kiddo!). Don’t worry, we’re here to help your child make a splash with confidence!

Picture this: your child enters the gym, greeted by our friendly coaches. Our mission? To make sure your little one transitions smoothly from their comfort zone into the fun-filled world of Sportball.

How to Prepare Your Child for Their First Sportball Drop-Off

Talk About What to Expect

Now, we know what you’re thinking: “What if my child clings to me like a koala to a tree?” Fear not! We’re experts in the art of easing separation anxiety. It all starts with preparation. Chat with your child before class, painting a picture of the exciting adventures that await.

Build Excitement by Framing It as an Adventure

Explain that Sportball is all about trying new things and having fun. It’s a safe place where they can make friends and learn to love sports.

Reassure Them You’ll Be Back After Class

When your child says, “I don’t want you to leave!” you can gently reply, “This is a special time just for kids to play, but I’ll be right outside waiting to hear all about it when you’re done.”

Our tips for easing separation anxiety

We know that every child is unique, some leap into action, while others take their time. That’s okay! We embrace the journey at their pace.

We Encourage Them to Watch Until They’re Ready

If your child enters “No Mode” (a.k.a. the land of “I don’t want to”), we invite them to simply watch the fun unfold. Often, the sight of other kids laughing and playing is the key.

Let the Kids Lead the Transition

We sprinkle a little magic by placing equipment nearby, and inviting them to join when they’re ready. Whether they dive in or prefer to be spectators, our goal is to create an environment where they feel comfortable and excited to participate.

Why Parents Are Asked to Stay Outside the Gym

As a drop-off program, we kindly ask parents to remain outside the gym, ensuring a safe and organized environment for all. But rest assured, our coaches are committed to working with you every step of the way, ensuring you and your child’s experience is a great one.

Is Your Child Ready for a Sportball Drop-Off Class?

If you’re still on the fence about whether your child is ready for this drop-off adventure, just give your local Sportball a call. We’ll be there every step of the way, so let’s get their journey to a life-long love of movement started! Watch the video below to learn more.

The post Sportball Drop-Off Classes: Tips to Ease Separation Anxiety and Build Confidence appeared first on Sportball.

We’re here with Jason D’Rocha. Jason, thanks for being here. I really appreciate it. This is one I’ve been looking forward to. You and I met about six months ago. I got to hear what you do at sport ball and instantly fell in love with it wanted to have you on here to tell other people because I think it’s such a great idea. But before we get to that, we’re going to start the same place we start every single week. We want to meet dad. So can you tell us a little bit about your kids, what they play and what it’s like being dad to them?

Coach Jason (00:26.177)
Thanks for having me, Jonathan.

Coach Jason (00:50.091)
Sure, it’s the best job I’ve ever had in my life, safe to say. I’m sure that’s what every dad says, but I have an 11 year old and an eight year old. I’m a girl dad and I love every minute of it. They came up through the sport ball program learning multi-sport and they found their passion is gymnastics. So my girls do performance gymnastics. They’re also huge swimmers, go to the cottage on the weekends in the summertime here. I’m in Toronto, so the weather doesn’t allow us to get up there in the winter, but.

you know, spend summers at the cottage and swimming and gymnastics for the rest of the year.

Jonathan (01:24.558)
Speaking of Toronto, we were actually, this comes out in like a month, but we were gonna record this yesterday, but Jason emailed us, I the first thing in the morning, he’s like, hey, we got a bunch of snow last night and our kids are out, so I’m like, how much snow does it take to cancel school in Toronto? Because here in North Carolina, it takes the threat. And so we were talking about that, like, would you say 40 centimeters?

Coach Jason (01:44.725)
Yeah, 40 centimeters canceled it. I mean, they were closing school boards down that never closed down. I think that the school board that my children are at the last time they closed down was probably a decade ago. So it was a big one.

Jonathan (01:54.595)
Mine closed down in December. And I guarantee you by the time this comes out, think in March, by the time this comes out, I guarantee you we will have at least four or five snow days, but we will maybe have an inch of snow. Maybe total because it just, yeah, that’s just welcome. Welcome to living in the South.

Coach Jason (02:04.661)
Wow. yeah. My kids woke up. Yeah, I was going to say my kids woke up like they won the lottery. Snow day was huge for them. So it was a busy house yesterday and I appreciate you making the accommodation for us to reschedule to today.

Jonathan (02:15.105)
You

Jonathan (02:21.558)
Absolutely. All right, let’s get into this because this is one I want to talk about. The thing that made me want to talk to you was the guiding principle you all have of

using sports to develop humans and not just athletes. I’m a giant believer that youth sports are not primarily about winning individual games. Yes, we want to compete and yes, we’re always going to try to win, but winning individual games is not the primary reason we play these games. The primary purpose of youth sports is helping kids develop all the tools they need to become successful human beings. And we want them to learn that they can do hard things. We want them to learn that they can bounce back after failure. want

Coach Jason (02:34.401)
That’s right.

Jonathan (03:01.548)
them to know how to be a good teammate and how to understand the importance of being active physically. Every kid’s going to play their last game.

usually between 11 and 16, but every kid grows up to be an adult. And if we can use these silly little games to help them learn what they need to do to be successful in life, then ultimately we’ve won regardless of what the scoreboard says at the end of the game. That’s my core message. Everyone listening to this has heard me say that before in your terms, in what you do, how do you view using sport as a training ground for life?

Coach Jason (03:25.931)
Well said. Yes, sir.

Coach Jason (03:39.061)
Great question. Sport is a safe place to do hard things, right? Life has some real consequences in it, you know, but when you’re playing sports, kids can be challenged. They can fail. They can put forth the effort. They can recover. You know, what a wonderful safe place to do it where the stakes are relatively low. You know, I think that every experience that I’ve ever had in real life was supported by some experience that I had playing sports.

So that’s how I would view it.

Jonathan (04:10.605)
Yeah, mean, it’s in the moment, these failures feel gigantic, but looking back as a 39 year old now, none of it mattered. Like none of it, none of it had a long-term negative impact. So there were some memories, but other than that, like I don’t remember as a ton of wins. I don’t remember a of losses.

Coach Jason (04:17.11)
they do.

Coach Jason (04:26.795)
That’s right.

Jonathan (04:36.151)
but I remember the things that happened along the way that helped me learn how to be a human. And we can use like scouts, we can use dance, we can use gymnastics, we can use all these different things. We’re just choosing to use sports because they’re fun.

Coach Jason (04:42.049)
Yeah.

Coach Jason (04:51.617)
Yeah, 100 % correct. You know, I just, I just wrote an article about this on, LinkedIn, you know, growing up, I came from, you know, humble beginnings, my folks were immigrants to this country and they had to work really hard to get a couple of nickels on, and, and so what they registered me for was not organized sports. It was like those life skills types of, so, you know, I had to go learn how to swim and being in Canada, you have to learn how to skate.

know, defend yourself. took some karate classes, but organized sports wasn’t a thing for me back then. you know, my uncle was really my first coach that I’ve ever had. And the one thing that he focused on was just the fun of the game, like develop a passion for it. You know, he talked trash, the good kind that, you know, you can know the difference between being insulted and having fun and not taking yourself too seriously. you know, those positive associations with sport at that young age allowed me to have the confidence to try and to fail.

And I think that serves you for the rest of your life.

Jonathan (05:49.058)
We had on, my friend, Eric Williams a little while back and he and I, we, talk a lot about this, but I think he’s 42, 43 at this point. He coaches his son’s U12 U13 baseball team. And he says right now his sole goal is helping his son love it so much that when he grows out of baseball and switches over to old man softball that Eric can still be playing and get to play with his son because both of them love it so much.

Coach Jason (06:00.907)
Hmm.

Coach Jason (06:17.287)
I love that. It’s rare.

Jonathan (06:19.349)
Isn’t that why I might not? I might not play adult soccer when my kids get there, but I want my kids to love the game so much that if they go to college, they’re wanting to play intramurals. If they if when they have kids, they love their experience so much that they want to coach their kids growing up like that’s the goal.

Coach Jason (06:24.971)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Coach Jason (06:36.161)
That’s the goal. That is it. And I mean, I have a lot of friends who don’t have a lot of positive associations with sport that played, you know, when they were younger and they are, they don’t want to go throw the football around or, or, or shoot some baskets or anything like that. You know, there was not, you know, it’s funny, like the impact that happens at such a young age, critical age really can have an impact on you as an adult, which you’re not even conscious of. And, and I feel for those folks and it makes me, you know, in my profession as a dad,

Jonathan (06:42.251)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Jason (07:05.248)
It makes me very conscious of making sure my kids understand the value of sports, but also to have some really positive associations with it. And really it all starts with just having fun.

Jonathan (07:14.207)
I have this theory that one of the reason it’s so hard to get coaches in today’s youth sports world is because so many adults didn’t have good coaches growing up. Yes. Like dealing with parents sucks. Like that’s the worst part of coaching in youth sports. Yes. But what I have seen is so many of the better youth sports coaches.

are people who they don’t have the time either. They’re exhausted at the end of the day, but they had a good coach growing up and they want to give that experience to the next generation of kids. And I just think about like if we can create a great environment for our kids. One of the things I’m writing, I wrote in the healthy sports parents book that I’m working on. actually by this point, I’ve probably told people the title, so it’s called youth sports aren’t about winning. but one of the things I wrote in that is when we signed our kids up,

Coach Jason (07:46.177)
Yeah.

Jonathan (08:09.461)
for sports for the first time, no one gave us a guide for how to do this. But if we get it right, then our kids won’t need a guide because they’ll have our example. And I just picture what we could do for our grandkids if we get this right and set the right standard and the right environment for our kids today.

Coach Jason (08:13.376)
Hmm.

Coach Jason (08:19.969)
That’s exactly right.

Coach Jason (08:31.263)
Totally. think a lot of parents go in with the expectation around, you know, how well does this coach understand that sport and the skills associated with that sport and have they played at a competitive level and what have they achieved in that sport? Less so on, I wonder how this coach is going to make my son or daughter feel. I wonder whether or not they’re going to make them feel welcome and feel confident and give them the opportunity to succeed and build that trust. Cause those are the elements. That’s what we look for when we hire a coach at, you know, at sport ball.

The first thing that we’re thinking about is not their sports background. Although we want them to be passionate about sports and physical play, we want to know how well they can connect with a child. Do they make that child feel welcome in a space where they’re experiencing things for the very first time? Being around other peers, being with a coach maybe for the first time, other parents watching them. There’s pressures that obviously come from those types of social experiences.

We want to know that that coach has the ability to navigate that. And something as simple as, you know, how, what their behavior is when they first meet a child. You know, when you’re a coach and you’re working with kids, you’re usually standing over them. You know, does the coach get down to a child’s level? Do they smile, which is the most disarming thing that you can do when you first meet a child? You know, do you, do you welcome them? Do you use their name? Do you look them in their eye and not just the parent in the eye? All those little things make me as a parent feel like my child is safe to be in your presence.

and they trust me a little bit more because they know I’m only going to bring them around people that have their best interests at heart.

Jonathan (10:02.121)
I have this, I will do one of two things. Anytime I’m at practice, if I’m coaching, if I see a kid walking in the field, I will yell at them from the park. If they’re in the park, I’ll yell their name at them just to show that I’m so excited. They’ll see they’re there. Or if I, if I can’t get to them before they get there and they’re like, what’s up dude? I say just like that. Like the funniest part is the boys love that the girls, when they first started, they’re like, dude, I’m like, dude, gender neutral, get past it. Let’s go. But it’s just like, I kind of make this sarcastic fun environment and

Coach Jason (10:13.269)
Love that.

Coach Jason (10:18.267)
Hahaha.

Coach Jason (10:26.997)
That’s right.

Jonathan (10:32.141)
Every kid’s different, but if you can get to a place with kids where you can joke around with each other and you can be sarcastic, then you know you’ve gotten to the point where they feel welcome and loved and accepted because they’ll give it back just as much as they’ll take it. But they only will do that if they know it’s out of love, not out of judgment or snarkiness.

Coach Jason (10:33.259)
that human connection.

Coach Jason (10:49.921)
That’s right.

Coach Jason (10:54.71)
Yeah.

That’s right. And they feel safe, right? Like I can attempt this and I can fail. That guy’s not gonna judge me, right? That coach is gonna have my back. That coach is gonna help me to figure this one out. All of those things come from this prerequisite skill of making a child feel comfortable in their skin.

Jonathan (11:16.909)
I said this with, um, it’s an episode that comes out in a couple of weeks with Dr. Caitlin Okamoto, Okamoto from the U S soccer foundation. And what I love about sport is that it brings together people from every background. And it’s one of the last places in our society that does that. And when you care for kids, like I coach you soccer.

I am Ted Lasso. I know enough soccer to know what I’m doing. I know some tactics. I can’t teach footwork for crap. I can teach you where to go, what to do. I can teach you big picture, but I’m gonna encourage you. That’s just the way I coach. There are people who can coach the game of soccer a thousand times better than I can. But I have a neighbor who has diametrically opposed political beliefs from me.

who we’ve had hard conversations about those beliefs with each other. And we see the world differently, but she loves me coaching her son because of the way I care for him. And I think about youth sports on the sidelines from coaches, from parents, from like all the different aspects of this. like, can we be the people who represent the humanity?

Coach Jason (12:25.493)
Yeah.

Jonathan (12:43.217)
of these kids who we might disagree with every other parent on our sidelines on a thousand different things in our lives. But can we treat these kids so well that that person over there who has a diametrically opposed belief about religion, politics, whatever, they want to be around me because I treat their kids so well. And as a coach, can I treat every kid that way?

Coach Jason (12:49.706)
Sure.

Coach Jason (13:07.359)
Yes.

Jonathan (13:12.957)
So that even if once we leave this parking lot, we might not get along. But while we’re here in this gym, in this rink, on this field, you know, I’m going to love your kid. So youth sports can be that bridge for us to build a relationship together.

Coach Jason (13:24.929)
Yeah.

Coach Jason (13:30.047)
Yeah, well said. I mean, not even when you be parents at the rig. mean, some of my own close personal friends and I see the world differently. My wife and I sometimes see the world differently. But when it comes to the kids, you’re absolutely right. You have to agree on a certain set of principles and then you all have to work together to create that environment for that child. know, children, let’s say children, they either bother your calm or they borrow your calm or they borrow your chaos.

you and they can figure that out very quickly by the way that you react, you know. So you want to be that stable force in their life. You want to be able to say that regardless of what the outcome is, here’s what, here’s kind of the ground rules, here’s the rules of engagement and we’re all on the same page. And not to say that you’re not going to come to, you you’re not going to butt heads or come to a disagreement on an outcome or even sometimes even the process, but you have to show up.

feeling like I can come to the table and I can have a conversation with even the people that I disagree with because at the end of the day, kids are always watching. Those kids that we’re trying to mentor are always watching us.

Jonathan (14:36.909)
And I did a reel the other day where I said that the way we talk about our kids teammates is the way our kids are going to think other parents talk about them. And the way that we talk about their coaches is how they’re going to think other people talk about them when they’re in a leadership position. So the, the, I said that like 75 seconds cause it had to be concise on a reel, but

The idea behind that is we can disagree on ideas or actions while still respecting the humanity behind it. And we’re using sports where there’s going to be disagreements. You might not like the playing time. You might not like the tactic. Like you might not like the formation on playing in soccer because it doesn’t fit your kid the best that’s for them, but it fits the whole team. Like we’re going to have disagreements, but can we have disagreements while honoring the humanity of the person? And can we have disagreements in a way that

Coach Jason (15:05.909)
Yeah.

Coach Jason (15:09.281)
That’s right.

Coach Jason (15:20.416)
Yeah.

Coach Jason (15:23.777)
That’s right.

Jonathan (15:26.034)
leads our kid in a way for how to model for them how we respectfully disagree with others.

Coach Jason (15:32.613)
You’re 100 % correct. You know, I always, you know, I always laugh because parents, want, we want all these positive experiences for our kids. We want the outcome, but we sometimes forget that children learn what they live and you have to model the types of behaviors if you want those types of outcomes. You can’t have one without the other. And so I think you put it, you put it very well. I think that we all have a responsibility to conduct ourselves.

in the same way. You can’t you can’t say you know do as I say but not as I do. No no they got it you know you have you have to do as you say. Starts there.

Jonathan (16:12.407)
you have so much more is caught than taught. And that’s just one of the things that it’s such a cheesy saying. It’s a cliche, but it’s a cliche because it’s true. All right. I want to switch to sport ball for a second because what I’m about to tell you is one of my favorite things I’ve ever told anybody. was insanely skeptical of sport ball when I was first introduced to it. And like, yeah, I

Coach Jason (16:18.987)
That’s right. That’s exactly right.

Coach Jason (16:24.694)
Sure.

Coach Jason (16:31.947)
Most people are.

Jonathan (16:35.037)
I went on your website. got a DM from the social directors and I, Hey, we’d love to tell you more about this because I’ve been talking about rec league and I go on the website. I’m like, I don’t know about this. Like you guys have classes for kids that are 16 months old. And like, like for me, with the systems that we have, I was skeptical because it felt like a money grab because

Coach Jason (16:48.321)
16 months.

Coach Jason (16:56.257)
Yeah.

Jonathan (16:57.579)
When I see any program for kids under the age of like four or five, I immediately think money grab. And for reference, like the reason for that is the American Association of Pediatrics doesn’t suggest kids start playing team sports until the age of six.

Coach Jason (17:03.146)
Hmm.

Coach Jason (17:11.382)
Yeah.

Jonathan (17:12.159)
So when you and I talked, I asked you directly, and I told you, I was skeptical of it. And your answer won me over. So for anyone listening, who’s wondering, when do I start my kids in sports? If they have younger ones, what do I do? Can you tell us why sport ball starts their classes so young and the approach that you use for those young kids? And when I’m talking about young kids, I’m talking like pre-elementary age.

Coach Jason (17:29.771)
Yeah.

Coach Jason (17:35.969)
That’s right. Yeah, so I think that the best way for me to put this, it’s not so much about when they start, it’s how they start. And I think that’s what we specialize in. And we can start them in the most incredible way, as young as 16 months. we actually see, you we started when this was 30 years that sport ball has been in the game. And we started with kids as young as four and five years old. And then we thought to ourselves, what is actually taking place here? Are we teaching kids sports skills so they can go play pickup?

basketball or go on the, you know, hit the links? No. You know, what we’re doing is we are teaching children physical literacy, social literacy. We’re using sport as a conduit to teach to gross motor, social and physical development. That’s ultimately what we’re doing. And we’re doing it in the most positive way possible. We’re building the relationship with parent and child in a safe environment. And so what age would you want to expose a child to that? So for us, we went from four to five. We started at three. Then we went down to three.

And we thought that went very well. we saw parents came in and said, listen, I have a two-year-old at home who has so much energy and loves to kick a ball and would just love to be out here with me. I said, all right, well, let’s try a parent and child class that starts as young as two. And we tested the waters with it. And a lot of what we did was trial and error because you can’t have all the answers right out of the gates, especially when you’re working with kids at that age.

You also have to make sure that not only do you have a curriculum that’s appropriate, but you have to train your coaches with the right class management strategy so that they can engage a child at that stage and ensure that it’s developmentally appropriate. And what we thought was, you know, if we start as young as 16 months and we introduced the thing, I thought so too. I thought so too. And you know what, as a coach, I remember the first time the founder of the sport ball, her name is Carmela Gelgore.

Jonathan (19:11.499)
Which is nuts, Jason, which is nuts.

Coach Jason (19:22.849)
She said to me, Jay, we’re actually gonna try a program for children 16 months. I said, well, I’m not going in there to do that. I don’t know what that looks like. And I remember sitting on the sidelines and she said, so what’s developmentally appropriate at this age? She said, stories, puppets, bubbles, nursery rhymes. We’re gonna incorporate that into the sport ball class. And I can’t sing for the life of me. I was young, I was in my twenties. And I remember sitting there shaking, shaking, watching Carmela out with the puppets and the bubbles and the stories.

Jonathan (19:28.044)
You

Coach Jason (19:50.625)
But what she did was exactly what we do in sports is she gave them activities that they enjoyed. She gave them activities that they can succeed at and she won their trust. And so all of a sudden she also won the parents trust. Wow. This, this coach, this sports coach did some stories, some bubbles, some songs. My kid is, my child is listening. They’re focused. They’re engaged. Now look at this. They just brought out a buckle, a bucket of balls.

And all they’ve asked all the kids to is pick up some balls and put it in the bucket. You win the kids successfully. Wonderful. Now you give them a soccer ball. You put it on a launch pad. We call it a pile on a launch pad. We say to the kids, we’re going to blast it into outer space. And all of a sudden we say, parents, you’re going to hold out your two fingers and kids are going to hold their hands and we’re going to walk and give it a big kick. And we use very simple language. And all of a sudden the kids feel like, well, the coach.

They love the coach. They were singing, they were doing bubbles, they were doing stories. Now they put a ball down, I can kick it. And all of a sudden we have these kids that are now progressing from what they’re comfortable with to trying new things. And all of a sudden we’re now teaching them the basics of sports and now developing their physical literacy. And by the way, what comes with that? Waiting for their turn, listening to someone give instruction, being out there with their peers, building up a relationship with mom and dad who gives them a high five or a hug when they succeed.

At what age would you want to have a child experience all those things? For me, as young as possible. And we start, like I said, at 16 months. And then once we get to three, we can step away from the songs, the bubbles, and the stories. And now we can get into the sports skills development. But you have to do it in a way that’s developmentally appropriate or you’re going to lose kids. So as I said, you use sports as a conduit to teach developmentally appropriate skills. And all of a sudden, you can build these really wonderful experiences for children.

Jonathan (21:41.23)
Staying in that age group for just a minute. I’m going to get a text for saying this and I’m just, I’m just too, I’m going to set my clock two months from now. I’m going to get a text for saying this. My college roommate’s son made the five U T ball all-stars this past summer. And there was a state tournament for five U T ball. And I remember when he posted on Instagram, I saw it and I’m just like, I’m so glad they had a great time, but that’s ridiculous. So, so.

Coach Jason (21:57.985)
Hmm.

Jonathan (22:11.233)
I’m just waiting for the text. Like it’s going to come. but I mean, I know him and so I know he was approaching it in the right way and we’ve talked about it, but not all of us are in situations where young kids are with the same environment you’re talking about. So when we’re talking, let’s bump the age up a little bit. say grade three and below, like what are we looking for at that grade three and below? Like,

Does the competition even really matter at that point? are we, what, what, are we focused on? Because a lot of us, that’s the ages where our first kid starts playing sports. Their first introduction to being a sports parent. And that’s when all those insecurities that we’ve had buried down for so long start popping up and we start having these feelings. We don’t know what we’re doing, dealing with. So those younger age, let’s say you eight and below third grade and below.

Coach Jason (22:43.509)
That’s a great question.

Coach Jason (22:51.627)
Yeah.

Coach Jason (23:03.414)
Yeah.

Jonathan (23:10.667)
What are we focusing on? What’s the point?

Coach Jason (23:12.607)
Yeah, great question. you know, again, this is coming from sportball. So sportball is a non-competitive sports instruction company from children from 16 months all the way to 12 years old. And our focus is to develop physical literacy and social skills. So yeah, please.

Jonathan (23:25.453)
Can interrupt you? I wanna take your background even further than sport ball. Should there be competitive levels at that age?

Coach Jason (23:33.505)
Well, that’s a great, yeah, that, that, think that’s where I was getting to. So for us, it’s non-competitive and you move them to semi, semi-competitive, and then you can introduce them to competition. It’s like, it’s like anything, right? If you want to, you know, you want to fly, you have to first learn to walk and run, you know, you can’t fly into flying. And I think that’s the same way that we approach sport ball. We, we want to make sure that kids have the foundation, which starts really with confidence in themselves, competence in themselves, some body awareness.

trust in a mentor or a coach. And then once they get to that, and again, we move from parent participation classes to drop off classes. So at three years old, three to four, when they start to go to school by themselves, we then allow them to come to sport ball by themselves. Parents stay out of the gym and what do they learn there? So they’ve gone from dependent play with mom or dad to independent play with their peers. But the focus there is still not me versus you, team versus team, it’s skill development.

How do I dribble a soccer ball? How do I dribble a basketball? How do I throw a baseball? How do I catch a baseball? How do I run the bases? All of those things don’t require it to be in a game situation where there’s a win and lose outcome. So you develop the competence around those skill competencies around sport and it’s still non-competitive. But then you can start to introduce them to some controlled competition. it’s like, for example, we’ll do a race in a sport ball class and the kids won’t race against each other. They’re actually racing against the coach.

So the coach will lose in week one and lose in week two, but the coach is getting better. And eventually by the end of the season, the coach beats the kids, but he also gives the kids to learn how to deal with winning and losing. The words to express themselves and how they feel. Put a thumb up and say, I tried my best. And point a thumb at the coach that you’re not happy that just beat you and say, good race coach. So we actually role play and we give the kids the pro social language that they need to be successful. And then once you get to that five, six, seven,

we start to introduce them to more competitive activities. So we’ll play a soccer game and maybe we’ll throw two or three soccer balls in the game. So more kids get a foot on the ball, more kids get a chance to score a goal and then we’ll remove a ball and then we’ll remove a ball and then before you know it, the kids are actually in a real soccer game but they have no idea that they have just progressed to get to that experience and they have all the social skills and physical skills to feel successful there.

Jonathan (25:53.773)
I want to nerd out on this for a second because, and I want to take that social skill concept and nerd out.

About a year ago, I wrote an article for the 74 million and the 74 million is a nonprofit news organization that covers the American education system. In the article, I made the argument that youth sports is the most overlooked classroom in every school district in America. So many of us view youth sports as just a physical outlet for kids when in reality it’s sports offer like this giant depth of learning and development and the social piece of it you just talked about. And I think we rush to competitive.

before kids have the social awareness and maturity to handle wins and losses at that scale. playing on a team, I think kids can understand wins and losses when it’s one-on-one pretty young. But when you’re a part of a team and you’re having to deal with teammates and the social skills it takes to have a kid who’s better than you, have a kid who’s worse than you, that takes some maturity to understand. So can you talk to us about…

Coach Jason (26:54.676)
Absolutely.

Jonathan (26:59.095)
how sports can, maybe even should be, used as a social emotional classroom, just as much as a physical learning device.

Coach Jason (27:10.281)
Yeah, I think sports are, it’s already a classroom, right? I think that when you’re in any sports environment, you you’re talking about coping with winning and losing, teamwork, waiting for patience, waiting for your turn, turn taking, problem solving. You know, these are all incredible ways where children are going to learn skills that are transferable to the

to the school setting, to the dinner room table, downstairs in the basement or in the back bedroom or in the backyard with your brother or your sister, how to self-regulate, how to be aware of yourself, your confidence, how my conduct has an impact on somebody else. These are all lessons that they can get from a sports environment. And what a really great place because the kids have so much fun. There’s so much benefit that comes from it developing a great sense of self, a positive body image.

Developing the endurance, the strength, the hand-eye coordination, the timing. So all of these incredible upgrades happen while they’re developing socially amongst for themselves and with their peers. So that when there is a situation in the classroom that’s not on the sports field, they’ll be able to have that lesson, which is like, I saw this play out on the sports field. I had this situation that happened in the soccer game last week. I’m not going to make that same mistake. Or this is how I cheered my teammate up. I’m going to do the same thing for my friend in my classroom.

You know, it is such a profound experience for children because they don’t even realize that learning is taking place. It’s like that muscle they’re developing cognitively that can apply to every relationship that they have in their life, even off the sports field.

Jonathan (28:55.68)
One of my favorite pastors is a guy I used to work with. He’s a pastor in Chattanooga, Tennessee now. In every one of his sermons, he gets to a point in the sermon where he puts on the screen, it just says, what? Coach J, I agree with you. I agree with what you’re saying. So what? I’m in an environment where the program I’m a part of…

Coach Jason (29:06.657)
Hmm.

Jonathan (29:16.864)
doesn’t value that the same way that you value. I get that sports are a social emotional development tool. I’m tracking with every single thing you said, but the other parents on my team and the administrators of the club, I’m a part of they’re so results based that they don’t even do this. So what does it look like to believe with what you’re saying while existing in systems that push against that? How do we do that?

Coach Jason (29:45.921)
It’s a fair point because a lot of those systems reward outcome versus process. And I think as adults, it starts with us. You have to decide what matters more, the trophy or the character. And you have to structure the system. You can’t wait for the fallout to happen. You can’t wait for kids to burn out and say, I don’t want to play sports anymore or have parents fighting on the sidelines and coaching from the sidelines.

and laying into the kids and making the priority something other than having fun and showing up and giving it your best effort. We are so outcome driven. And if you think about it, what do you say when you give an encouraging advice to anybody that’s in a difficult situation? You say to them, focus on what you can control, not what you can’t control. Well, as adults, what is it that we can control? Well, we can control the systems and the regulations and the rule book.

playbook before the games even played. So I think we have to come together and really decide how do we want our children to walk away with in terms of this experience. I think that’s the ultimate question we need to ask ourselves in any sports experience. I played very competitive basketball and volleyball growing up. I used to sit in the dark by myself when I lost the game. I was a sore loser. And there’s nothing wrong with that. think that there’s

Jonathan (31:09.591)
I was gonna say there’s nothing wrong with feeling bad about a lot like that’s a normal. We want our kids to be passionate enough that they feel after a loss.

Coach Jason (31:12.056)
Not at all.

Coach Jason (31:19.192)
100%. And I think that helped to drive me to achieve lots of great things in my life. So don’t rob children of feeling that way. In fact, I would reward the kids for feeling that way. That means they’ve tried their very, very best. But as adults, we have to provide the stability. We’ve been down this road before. We need to be that rock.

that regardless of what’s happening around them, they can come to us and it’s like, wow, that emotional stability, I know I can get that from my coach. I know that I can get that from my parents. So even when I’m waving all over the place through a loss and a win, I have that person that can kind of make sure that I can center myself from here, ground myself from here, and then carve a path forward. And I think that’s what we need to be as coaches and as any kind of sports organization. We need to be the grounding force for kids.

Jonathan (32:08.821)
And as parents on the sidelines, like…

Jonathan (32:14.899)
It’s not easy to be that because these are our babies out on those fields and we are so emotionally invested in their success. And that’s not a bad thing. Like I talk all the time about.

Coach Jason (32:19.521)
Yeah.

Coach Jason (32:24.801)
Yeah.

Jonathan (32:29.461)
What’s at the core of so much of these issues in youth sports is this idea of self-love and self-glory. Self-love being our desire to be liked, self-glory being our desire for other people to think we’re good at what we do. So we want others to like us, we want others to think that we are good at being a parent. And so that’s okay, but when we start getting that fulfillment out of our kids’ results,

Coach Jason (32:35.041)
Mmm.

Coach Jason (32:52.939)
Yeah.

Jonathan (32:54.631)
then it goes to a place that it shouldn’t. So it’s like, it just takes us re-centering ourselves and being aware that that’s there so that we can show up in a better way.

Coach Jason (32:59.841)
That’s right.

Coach Jason (33:05.269)
Yeah, well said. also go easy on yourself, right? I’m not the perfect parent. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I’ve been working with kids for 20 years. I obviously have my own. I fail all the time, all the time. But I think that there’s no such thing as a perfect parent. What you want to be is a consistent parent. It’s like working out. I try my best to work out every day, but there’s going to be one of those days where I just don’t feel like getting out of bed. I’m going to have those hard moments. And sometimes it’s okay.

Jonathan (33:16.706)
Haha.

Coach Jason (33:33.419)
but I try my best to show up each and every day, because we know that discipline and consistency leads to the outcome that we all long for, that we all complain about and want and fight for. But all of that, in order to achieve those things, it’s done in the quiet of consistency and discipline. And I think that’s what we need to be for our children.

Jonathan (33:53.837)
All right, last two questions before we get you out of here. These are some of my favorite questions to ask every single week. What have I not asked you about that you think parents need to know the answer to?

Coach Jason (33:55.819)
Sure. Sure.

Coach Jason (34:04.577)
What have you not asked me about that I, okay, so I think the one is, I mentioned this a little bit earlier is what do you want your child to get out of any experience that they’re having? And I think that should really guide how you are a coach or a mentor or some form of stability for them in that moment. So if I, for example, sign my children up for gymnastics, what do I want to have my kids get out of that experience? For some of us, want my kids shows that she has a talent.

she wants to do this competitively, I am going to encourage her to do this competitively. And that means my expectations goes up. I’m going to push her harder. I’m going to make sure she’s doing what she needs to do. And if she makes a commitment, she better see it through. But that’s what I set those expectations with my child. If I just want my child to get in shape and to just be in a space where she can maybe make some friends and to have a positive self image, then that’s it.

And if she doesn’t want to go into competition and even though she has the talent, that’s not something that she feels like she wants to do, well then I’m going to respect that as well. I am going to be really clear about what my kids are going to get out of this experience. And that’s going to govern everything, not just my, even my interactions with them, but my, way I interact with the coaches, the way I interact with other parents at the, I am going to govern it based on what I want my children to get out of this experience. And I’m not going to judge anybody else.

Jonathan (35:28.812)
I love that last thing. We had a lot of parents listening to this who don’t have a clue what they’re doing. They’re just walking through this. They have a kid who loves this sport. They want to play and they want to. They want to support their kid as well as possible. How would you encourage that parent this week as they walk through all the stress that comes with you sports?

Coach Jason (35:48.233)
So this is what I do on a personal level. I tell my kids that daddy’s also figuring this out too. I don’t have all the answers and I want to be on this journey with, and I think I am transparent with my girls. Now they’re 11 and eight, they’re a little bit older, so I can have these conversations with them. I think you’re having that conversation with yourself until they can understand it. So I had a lot of self-talk, which is like, go easy Jay, you’re figuring this out. There’s no perfect answer here.

you know, just put one foot in front of the other. But once my kids got older, and this comes to everything, this even comes to, you know, discipline and consequences and, you know, I sometimes don’t choose the right words. I don’t provide the right emotion. I think it’s important to acknowledge that to kids. Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. And I think saying to them like, you know, how does this feel to you? You know, how do you want to move forward with this? And this is kind of what I’m thinking. And you almost try to make it.

a team effort, you know, no pun intended, but that’s the way I feel like this needs to be. And when you screw up, I always say to my, I’ll wake up the next day and I’ll say, you know, daddy, daddy doesn’t regret what I said, but I regret how I said it. And daddy could have been more calm or I could have been more open to what you were trying to say. And I’m sorry. And tomorrow I’m going to try to be better. And I give you the chance to also call daddy on it. So if you think that I can be better, you can let me know.

And that has led to the most amazing relationship that I could ever imagine with my children. To the point, Jonathan, when my dad comes and sees me with my children, he says, well, where the heck was this when I was raising you? You know, who thought about raising kids like that? Acknowledging when you mess up to your kids. He’s like, man, what a novel idea. And I’m so glad, but you know, each generation hopefully evolves and gets a little bit better and.

You know, I’m still learning, like I said, but that’s my biggest takeaway and that’s what I would impart to all the parents listening.

Jonathan (37:44.526)
Coach Jason, thanks for being with us. really appreciate it today.

Coach Jason (37:46.943)
Yes, sir. Thank you, Jonathan. Thanks for having me.

– Jonathan Carone, Healthy Sports Parent Podcast

Link to podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0RqHPIadOYT84xHtH90wLy?si=niHhjCUFToiMK-tvtsmBbA
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