Equus

Sometimes athletes' parents push too hard

Friday, May 25, 2012 By Tessa Gorchesky

Athletes are told to be perfect and strive to be better but challenged to believe they are trying their best. Passion and love for a sport should make the stress of the game non-existent. However, some parents are a main factor in the pressure to achieve. They show up to all the events to watch as their child competes. However while watching, they make small critiques as they compare their star child to the others. I was about 10 when I began diving – to live for the feeling of throwing myself from a height, twisting and turning and then landing as tight and precise as I could. I didn’t have a coach or an instructor. But my dad got me a trampoline when I was four, to be able to get used to learning the activity. My dad noticed my love for diving and wanted me to pursue it, not knowing that my love for the sport would be affected by persistent criticism. This made me want to try harder and be better, even if it was hard. Because my dad worked hard to get me noticed the things that could happen if people noticed, such as colleges. When I moved to Cody, I joined the Filly swim and diving team. I thought to myself, I need to learn the correct form of the sport I love so much. My dad was right there with encouragement and help. As the season went on, I learned better form, better technique and brand new dives. With a smile on my face and some bruises on my back the season started well. Though more encouragement came from my parents, there also was many small critiques. There were questions such as: Why I can’t do any better? Why do I have days I give up easier than others? Why am I not number one at every meet? Times like this reflect back onto the young memories of going out on the trampoline with the sprinkler and doing flips and turns then acting like I was falling into water. When the sport was to me just fun out on the trampoline. It seems as if they began to take the sport more seriously than I had –not the love of the sport but the scores and the place I earned. It was hard to listen to the critique and apply it, when the enjoyment of the sport was more fun. Sometimes I fell short of perfection and the evaluations became stronger. The need to be flawless competed with the desire to perform. It’s not like I didn’t try or that I didn’t want it. But with the motivation from my parents I pushed to be stronger. Just because a child has a hard day and isn’t feeling on top, doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. It doesn’t mean they aren’t doing their best. It means they shouldn’t be compared with other competitors. After all, parents are the ones who say, “I don’t care about every other person. You are the one I want to succeed.”