I’ve found so much joy — and challenge to my own thinking — through reading books.
So, with a little more intention, I’m going to profile a book each Sunday and explore one or two of its lessons through the lens of sport parenting and the adults who influence young people in sport.
Travelling north towards Auckland today, I found myself thinking again about my recent time with Professor Grant Schofield.
Our conversation was full of insight, research, and Grant’s genuine curiosity around finding preventative solutions that help us “build health that lasts a lifetime.”
The first book is Grant’s Choose Your Hard.
This book made so much sense to me. It challenges us to think more intentionally about the choices we make and what a life well lived really looks like.
Grant’s knowledge, experiences, and willingness to share his own journey left me reflecting on what matters most to me — and inspired me to explore a few new challenges of my own.
Well worth a read for anyone who, as Neil from Peak Fitness would say, “values their health as their real wealth”.
Want to read it? You can find Choose Your Hard directly through Grant here:
Choose Your Hard — Professor Grant Schofield
But one of Grant’s underlying messages also got me thinking about sport.
Are we the fence at the top of the cliff — or the ambulance at the bottom?
A term I’ve used for years in coaching is front-loading.
Quite simply, it means having the intention to explore potential situations before they suddenly appear.
Sport gives our kids plenty of them:
Selection — or non-selection.
Winning — or losing.
Mistakes — or moments of brilliance.
Not playing in the position they want.
Conflict with a teammate.
Not connecting with a coach.
Facing a much stronger opponent.
Injury or time away from playing.
Sitting on the bench when they expected to play.
Importantly, these aren’t all negative experiences.
Success can create just as much emotion as disappointment — and emotion can quickly influence behaviour, decisions, and perspective.
So rather than waiting for the moment to arrive, what if we occasionally explored it beforehand?
How might this feel?
How do you want to respond if it happens?
For example:
FEEL:
I miss selection for the first team. I’m gutted — particularly because some of my friends made it.
RESPONSE:
I’ll give myself some time to be disappointed. Then I’ll get stuck into the second team, contribute there, and keep working. Things can change.
Nothing complicated.
Keep it real. Keep it relaxed.
Start by exploring the things they’re excited about achieving. Let them imagine those possibilities.
And then perhaps ask:
“And what if it doesn’t quite go to plan?”
Because when we haven’t had some of these conversations beforehand, we can find ourselves trying to reason through everything in the heat of the moment.
Or worse, we move into rescue mode.
We contact the coach.
Question the selection.
Try to fix the problem.
Remove the discomfort.
Yet some of the greatest learning available to our kids sits inside that discomfort.
One of the ideas I took from Grant’s book is that a good life isn’t necessarily created by avoiding the hard things. Often, it’s about becoming better equipped to choose and navigate the hard that is worth doing.
Maybe sport gives our kids a wonderful place to practise exactly that.
And perhaps our role isn’t always to rescue them from what happens next.
Sometimes it’s to help prepare them for it.
So, as parents in sport — are we doing enough at the top of the cliff before we find ourselves racing to the bottom?