The air in the classroom was thick with tension. The mixture of anxiety and anticipation created a low hum that resonated off the four walls. The teacher stood up, approached the overhead projector and a hush spread. The classroom transformed into the area of intense competition. A flick of a switch revealed "Weekly Algebra Test - Question 1) 12x2-9x-35=0; solve for x". Suddenly, without warning all of the parents who had been standing in the back of the room burst loose with a variety of suggestions at the top of their lungs. One father would run back and forth to his daughter's desk, yelling "factor into binomial pairs ". A mother found a chair to stand on and was screaming "use the quadratic formula" while jumping up and down. Another father had cupped his hands to intensify his voice exclaiming, “complete the square" over and over again. It was obvious that the decibel level was well above and recommended standard, but the participants seemed so intent that the excitement of the moment outweighed and othe

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As 11-year-old Adam Volpei kicked the soccer ball into the goal Sunday morning, his mom, squirming in her chair, gave him gave two thumbs up and quietly said, "Woo!" It was about all she could do to celebrate at the American Youth Soccer Organization soccer game at Arroyo Seco Junior High Sunday morning. It was Silent Sunday and parents and coaches were supposed to hold their tongues.

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An angry soccer mom who left her teenage daughter alongside an interstate was ticketed for neglect, Lincoln police said Tuesday. Police spokeswoman Katherine Finnell confirmed this account from police reports....

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Instead of focusing exclusively on the scoreboard, Responsible Sports Parents can take a Mastery Approach to sports, where success is tied not just to wins and losses, but also to mastering physical and mental skills. That way, win or lose, children still can gain life lessons from sports.

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English football has a huge decision to make, and it needs to make it now. It is 41 years since we won the World Cup and England have reached only two significant semi-finals since then. Our players are technically inferior, the Barclays Premier League is filled with foreigners and our children are not coming through our youth football system with anything like the skills of their counterparts in many other countries. It's nice to hear that England has the same propblems that we do here in the States and that Koach Karl has been on the right track for 30 years!...

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During the 2004 spring season, Goldstein (a doctoral student in sports psychology at the University of Maryland) surveyed 340 parents of 8- to 15-year-old youth league soccer players of various skill levels in the Washington area. He found that 52.9 percent of parents reported experiencing anger during a match, mostly toward a referee or their child's own team. Discourteous opponents, hostile remarks or gestures, coaches and illegal play were among other irritants.

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As parents, we don many hats and play different roles in our children’s lives. We provide for their needs, guide them when they are lost, teach them new skills, become their sources of comfort and support when life gets tough on them, and discipline them when they misbehave. The list seems endless, but there is one thing for certain; all are driven by the intention to give them our best as well as bring out the best in them.

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As Responsible Sports Parents, we try to keep our children's "Emotional Tanks" full. What do we mean by this? A person's "Emotional Tank" is like a car's gas tank. When it's full we can go anywhere we want to; when it's empty we can't go at all.

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"A doctor has prescribed an ACL playing brace for my U17G to wear when on the pitch"...We just keep having the same thing over and over. I guess parents are willing to sacrifice even the health and well being of their own kids for God only knows what.

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For parents who want their kids to embrace sports as a path to lifelong fitness and fun, the trend calls for new vigilance. Here are some early-warning signs that your child may be burning out.

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"They need constant reinforcement and support," says Johnson, co-author of the parent guide "Don't Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money." "They never really forge intimate relationships with their peers. ... They don't have judgment. They can't take criticism." What do many of these students have in common? Their parents were over involved in their children's classrooms, usually from an early age. (If you apply this also in their Soccer games –you can see the correlation)

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Hightlight of some of the more common sports parenting myths so that parents and coaches can get a better lay of the land when it comes to working with their kids.

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“As a parent you have the most powerful and long-lasting influence on your child. As you understand and apply the following eight concepts, you support your child’s sports and lifelong success. They are called “winning practices” for a reason. Athletes must first understand a key concept or technique. Then they must implement it and continue to practice it until the skill becomes second nature. So it is with these eight winning practices for parenting your athlete.

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