Don’t Demand Me As A Coach, Encourage Me As A Fan. Words From Your Son

Encourage me in any school or extra-school activity. Don’t demand of me as a coach, just become my fan.  Although your intentions are the best for me, I feel that you drown me and you end up canceling me.

I don’t want you to become my coach, because many times I feel unbearable pressure from you. An obligation that does nothing but block and paralyze me. I just need you to support me: encourage me, lift me up at each fall and celebrate my little triumphs.

For my safety and self esteem, encourage me

Take care of each of your words that you use while growing not just a simple result, exhibition or sample, but my personality. Encourage me assertively, with positive words. Don’t hurt me with phrases that will only frustrate me.

Don’t hurt me by demanding success from me, when I’m just looking to have fun while I’m training. Do not make me feel diminished, much less compare me. I am me, with strengths and weaknesses, with or without talents. Please don’t create unnecessary evil while I’m trying to socialize.

Again, cheer me on like you’re a fan. It highlights each of my successes and achievements, no matter how small. Feed my self-esteem and security. Load my backpack with motivational elements, make sure to boost my abilities.

I simply ask you, Mommy or Daddy, to accompany me and support me without placing your wishes and frustrations on me. Well, I am just a child in the process of formation and development. Take into account what you ask of me, according to my abilities and skills.

Encourage me without hurting or distressing me

Of course I understand that you want the best for me and that you only dream of seeing me shine. Likewise, I just want to see you happy and be a part of that great event in life. However, when you adopt the cold, cruel and demanding stance of the coach, you kill my soul and my heart.

Not for less, because all I need is a fanatic to drool when talking about me. Let him know how to recognize and highlight my effort and dedication. Obviously I don’t need to be vilely criticized or made to feel useless or incompetent.

Undoubtedly, I do not mean that you deceive and encourage me, perhaps missing the truth. I do not want to be immersed in a lie or lose self-criticism. I just want to be a full and happy child, socializing and having fun while learning by playing.

As you can tell, I do not plan to be the best, but just to be what I am: no more and no less than a simple happy and cheerful common child. That little one who came to color your grayer days. The being that, showing off its incomparable smell of life, loaded your mornings with reasons to move on.

Invest in me, encourage me!

Make me feel good about everything I bravely undertake. Don’t downgrade any of the activities that grab my attention, feel good at, or just entertain me. Give me the freedom to choose, but also give me the freedom of action.

So invest in me and encourage me. Even understanding that I will not become a Lionel Messi, Rafael Nadal, Nadia Comeneci or Gabriela Sabatini, I ask you to please believe in me. Let me be, maybe I’m not just looking to be a loot of gold or a silver medal.

Behind my extra-school activity there are other needs and, why not, as many satisfactions. Not every goal or objective obeys a table of positions, the many converted or the result of a sporting match.

Believe me, thanks to what I am so passionate about, there is so much more. The possibility of interacting with peers, learning about a topic, introducing myself to the world of rules and having fun. For this reason, I will ask you once again and forever: do not demand me as a coach, encourage me as a fan.