The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s updated release: How to Attract a College Athletic Scholarship.
College standout Steve Johnson provides his view on college tennis. Special e-Book price is $1.99
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Three Phases of Athletic Development
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
THE THREE PHASES OF ATHLETE DEVELOPMENT
Once you’ve discovered which type of tennis parent you want to be, the next step is to identify which phase of development best categorizes your child’s current level. All too often, parents have an unrealistic view of their child’s current phase of development. This is a result of the parent’s lack of awareness of the developmental process.
Due to personality profiles, growth development schedules, and maturity levels, I don’t like to pigeon-hole athletes based on their age. At each level, customization is encouraged. It is very common to find mature 9-year-olds in phase 3 and immature 17-year-olds in phase 1. Customization is the key.
The Introductory Phase:
In this stage of the game, children are sampling many sports. The primary objective is enjoyment while developing sound fundamentals.
Special Note: I’m a firm believer that proper motor programming is essential. Allowing a child to groove poor mechanics only to spend thousands of wasted dollars, hours, and tears fixing them later doesn’t make sense. You can still laugh and have fun while developing world-class strokes.
The Developmental Phase:
Also known as the intermediate phase. In this stage, tennis is the main hobby. Social clinics are the norm. Specialized training has begun and juniors are experiencing sectional tournament play.
Special Note: This is when the parents, uneducated in the process unintentionally push talented athletes away from the sport by allowing them to train like a hobbyist and then expect the child to be getting championship results.
The Break-Through Phase:
In this stage, athletes are dedicated to the sport and are engaged in full-time training. Each component of the game is developed as the athlete begins to invest in the future. Players begin to look towards National level or ITF level events to secure a college tennis scholarship at a major university.
Special Note: This is when a shift from hardware development (strokes and athleticism) to software development (mental and emotional) is most often needed.
Tennis Parent Job Description
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
INTRODUCTION TO THE TENNIS PARENT’S JOB DESCRIPTION
“The parent is the architect of their child’s tennis career.”
Experts agree that there is a great need for an organizational blueprint for tennis parents, as well as parents of athletes in every chosen sport. Until now, the role of the tennis parent has been controversial and mysterious. The ultimate quest of The Tennis Parent’s Bible is to empower the tennis parent by defining their role. In my experience, a large percentage of the parents that I have worked with were optimistic and willing to learn about the tennis developmental process; while a small percentage of the tennis parents were perfectionists, pessimistic, and unwilling to consider the possibility that their methods were counterproductive toward the athletic growth of their child.
“If you’re a bit of a perfectionist, this book is aimed at making you a “Recovering Perfectionists.”
Serious harmful consequences result from well-intended perfectionists’ imposing their beliefs and actions on their children, which ultimately poisons their children with negativity and an unwillingness to accept change which stunts their growth.
Listed below are the three types of tennis parents. The first group probably wouldn’t even pick up a book like this because their ego wouldn’t allow them to possibly be proven wrong – of course, they already know all there is to know. The second and third type of tennis parent shares my interest in raising athletic royalty. Let’s take a peek at the three types of tennis parents to see where you fit in.
Three Types of Tennis Parent’s
1) The Under Involved Parent:
- The only sports they are passionate about are their own.
- 100% sure that they already know it all and aren’t interested in learning more.
- Unaware of the life lessons learned through sports.
- Seek zero accountability for their child’s growth.
- Oblivious towards their children’s personal desires.
- Unable to attend weekend tournaments due to their heavy social calendar.
- Unwilling to spend money on their child’s tennis.
- Views their child’s sports as an inconvenience and a waste of time.
2) The CEO Facilitator Parent:
- Educated about the process of raising athletic royalty.
- Realizes that commitment demands long, mid, and short term goal setting.
- Understands the positive emotional demands of the parent and athlete.
- Understands the logistical organizational demands of the parents/player/encourage.
- Understands the lesson, clinics, sparring, and tournament scheduling demands.
- Understands the invaluable life lessons learned through participating in sports.
3) The Over Involved Parent:
- Places too much emphasis on winning every drill, practice set, and match.
- Attempts to coach the athlete with no real coaching background.
- Overly negative, pessimistic, and critical.
- Seeks a return on their financial investment.
- Over-reacts to errors and losses.
- Live vicariously through their child’s success.
- Obsessed with the game and how it benefits their personal “agenda.”
A family’s moral code and developmental climate have a lifelong effect on the athlete, whether the parents know it or not. Because parents and coaches are so influential in shaping their young athletes, I urge you to take an optimistic approach to raising athletic royalty. It is my hope that by reading this book you’ll fall into the CEO facilitator role of a world-class tennis parent.
The Tennis Parent Mission Statement:
“I vow to create a positive experience for my child by providing optimistic emotional guidance, logistical, organizational & financial support as I oversee my child’s entourage of coaches.”
Tennis Competition
The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s updated release: How to Attract a College Athletic Scholarship.
College standout Steve Johnson provides his view on college tennis. Special e-Book price is $1.99
To Order Click Here
Tennis Elite
The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s updated release: How to Attract a College Athletic Scholarship.
College standout Steve Johnson provides his view on college tennis. Special e-Book price is $1.99
To Order Click Here
Positive Tennis
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
POSITIVE VERSUS NEGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY
“Guidance from a coach or parent with a negative mindset is extremely toxic to a child.”
Exposing and destroying pessimistic beliefs and attitudes is an integral part of my daily mission, both personally and professionally. It’s your job as the tennis parent to eliminate these poisons from your athlete’s world.
Sadly, it’s often a parent, sibling, friend, or coach that’s feeding the negative beliefs and pessimistic attitudes. It is in your best interest to remedy this issue or remove the negative source(s) from the child’s tennis entourage.
Parents, just as it is your duty to remove negative psychology, it is your responsibility to teach positive psychology. Teach belief and confidence, find their motivational buttons, develop their desire and hunger for mastering the game, and teach them to embrace the challenge. These positive life lessons are part of raising athletic royalty. If you teach the love of the game and the benefits of commitment, your athlete will progress seamlessly through the losses, technical difficulties, injuries, and bad luck that come with athletics.
Allow the tennis teachers to teach, the coaches to coach and the trainers to train because as you know now, the tennis parent’s job description is far too comprehensive to micro-manage each entourage’s role.
Mind-Sets: Fixed versus Growth
Similar to the two sides of psychology, there are also two mindsets. Coaches often see students with either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. While the athlete’s genetic predisposition is undoubtedly present, it’s most often the nurtured opinions of their parents, siblings, and coaches that set their outlook.
- A person with a debilitating fixed mindset truly believes that they cannot change. They are extremely rigid, view the world as black or white, and are uninterested in change. Their unwillingness to accept new challenges often results in remaining average at best.
- A person with a growth mindset believes that their opinions, outlooks, attitudes, and abilities can and will change throughout their lives. Growth mindset individuals are more willing and open to accept change in the name of progress/improvement.
“Raising athletic royalty is a direction, not a destination.
What you choose to teach your children now will live on for generations to come.”
I find that parents who encourage both positive psychology and a growth mindset are developing much more than a future athlete, they are developing future leaders.
Training Periodization
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
INTELLIGENT TRAINING BLUNDERS
Being Oblivious to Periodization
Parents are often so blinded by winning that they unknowingly sabotage their child’s success. This is especially true in the beginner and intermediate levels of competition. Understanding when to train the different elements of your child’s game is called periodization. It’s based on the upcoming tournament schedule.
Asking your child to bulk up in the gym, run five miles, or to dismantle and fix a flawed stroke a day or two before a big event are samples of poor periodization training. Adding an unfamiliar element the day of a match also falls into this category.
An essential parental skill is choosing your battles. It is important to understand when to put your foot down and pick a battle. Starting a war right before a scheduled lesson will pull your child into the wrong mental state and surely destroy any hopes of a productive session. It is also a waste of your money. Likewise, choosing to battle the day of a scheduled match is a sure-fire way to drain your youngster’s emotional batteries and sabotage the actual peak performance you are seeking.
Neglecting Smart Work
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
INTELLIGENT TRAINING BLUNDERS
Neglecting Smart Work
Great coaches have the ability to zero in on player’s weakness long before players or parents even know it exists. High IQ coaches are a bit like fortune-tellers who can read the future. We see mechanical –structural damage the days leading up to an event and we know which components will surely crack under the strains of stressful competition.
If your child has some major holes in their game, please don’t continually send them off to competition. The opponent doesn’t have to beat your child because they’ve come to the game broken. That’s a little like sending a battleship off to war with structural holes in its hull. That majestic ship’s going to sink all by itself.
Encouraging “One Set Wonders”
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
INTELLIGENT TRAINING BLUNDERS
Encouraging “One Set Wonders”
First of all, I congratulate any juniors that actually play full practice matches. Across the country, most juniors hit for 20 minutes, maybe finish a set and then leave. They become accustomed to being “one set wonders!” This is especially true in the intermediate levels of junior tennis.
Winning those tough three-set tournament matches require practicing whole matches. Rehearsing the art of closing out full matches versus a single set will improve their mental toughness. If time is of the essence, I recommend that players play 3-sets, starting at 2-2 instead of the typical one set routine. Handling the stress of closing out the set is a big advantage.
“There is a huge difference between mechanical confidence and competitive confidence.”
Group Tennis Training Value?
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
INTELLIGENT TRAINING BLUNDERS
Putting Them in the Crowd to Get Ahead of the Crowd?
In my opinion, group clinics, or academies are terrific for intermediate players seeking repetition, socialization, and tons of fun. Although it may be cheaper, large group training isn’t always in your athlete’s best developmental interest.
I’ve found that the top players spend about 20 percent of their time in group situations. Top players at an academy usually are sparing or working with a private coach. When is that last time you saw a phenom in a large group standing in line to hit one forehand every five minutes?
“To get your child ahead of the crowd, why would you put them in the crowd?”
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