I was talking to a friend of mine who is very involved in the running of the local soccer club. The club has made many changes over the past two years much having to do with helping kids realize the value of learning the fundamentals and cross training to improve their soccer performances. He told me that he has met with resistance many steps of the way.



He went on to say that he was shocked because he was asked to turn this program into a top program in the state. A while back the soccer commissioner for the state of Wisconsin told his committee that he had seen my friend's system and programming and thought that it should be the template for all youth programs in the state of Wisconsin.

His committee came back to him and said that even though the program looked good they were going to decide against using it because it was different than what they were used to and it would involve some work. Hmmm

So the decision was brought back to keep the existing program as is because they did not want to change it and they were afraid of the work and the possible negative response from parents. Hmmm again.

My thought is, bring in a professional to improve a program and get out of the way. We've gotten to the point where our opinion matters too much. At least we think so. How many times have we hurt our kids chances of really getting better and achieving levels that we never thought possible for them because we couldn't understand or agree with something. You don't have to understand it.

I believe that our job as parents is to help our kids by helping them make the right choices. Once we feel that we have made the right choices we need to give the people who we have entrusted with our children's futures the opportunity to do their jobs.

Are you a helicopter parent who is always hovering or are you a parent who is willing to live by your choices and relax and get out of the way? Even though we may be well meaning parents, we can't know everything about our children. We need help. We would all do ourselves a favor to realize that and let things just happen.

Long live faith and intelligence,

Fred Nicklaus