Sunday, June 10, 2012

Some Internal Coaching Conflict

I've mentioned in previous posts that I'm a Little League Baseball coach. I've coached my son's team for three years now. And I have to admit there have been moments during the past three years where I have felt conflicted about my role as coach. When these moments of conflict arise I usually pull out Robert Bly's The Sibling Society to try and understand the source of the conflict. The quote below spoke to me:

"Most adults have been slow to grasp how perfectionist the changed Interior Judge of their children is, and how savage. The Judge is more perfectionist than ever, but now there is not enough fame or popularity in the world do satisfy it. For parents to try to encourage the development of their children is natural, but now there is something desperate in it for both the parents and children. If a teenager is not invited to the dance, she may try suicide. A high school boy, scoffed at, may retreat behind his computer for ten years."--Pg. xii,

And this one:

"In a Sibling Society, it is hard to know how to approach one's children, what values to try to teach them, what to stand up for, what to go along with; it is especially hard to know where your children are."--Pg.xiii

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