THE ROLE OF THE PARENTS OF TENNIS PLAYERS

The role of the parents of tennis players

Since I m Tennis coach I saw many very good young players fail just because one cause: the parents. This article is not about attacking parents but trying to give to them a different point of view.

First of all I want to say that I m also father so I know what does it mean to be parent. During all my live as a coach I saw, I am seeing and will see parents, who push their kids to play tennis like professionals, imagine about them as the next Nº 1 of the world and putting on them tons of expectations, obligations and pressure as a 10 or 12 or 14 years old kids. Time to time just coming to my mind the question: what were they doing when they were 10 years old? When I ask this question to the parents they typically answer…I was playing something. (football, tennis, or whatever) . Then I remark them: so you mean YOU WERE PLAYING, with all the meaning of the word “playing”. This mean, play with friend, naturally, enjoying the moment and NOT LIKE SMALL PROFESSIONALS!

Something wrong we are doing, believe me, if a kid is suffering in a tennis court just because this kid, the only thing is trying to do, is make the parents feel happy. Sometime ago, in a mental session with a player I asked him: for why are you playing tennis? The answer was awesome: I play to achieve my Father’s dream. How many kids, consciously or unconsciously are playing just to meet the parents’ expectations? Do they live to complete the parents’ life? My question for all the parents is: you have kids to achieve your goals? You are not able to achieve your goals for yourself?

As I said, this is not an offense against parents, unfortunately there is no Parent School, nobody taught us how to be parents. We are learning with the experience. I don’t want to tell you how to be good Parents, I don’t have even the authority, because, for sure, as a father I made a lot of mistakes too.