This century has seen a number of movements whose members demand the ear and acceptance of all members of society.
In the early 2000s we were introduced to the ‘Me Too’ movement with its slogan “Empowerment Through Empathy”.
In 2015, South Africa met with the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ movement, which sought to “bring out into the open institutional racism in university life in South Africa and Britain” and demanding to “decolonise education”.
This was swiftly followed by ‘Fees Must Fall’ (a more obvious call sign) while around that time we saw the strong ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement (interestingly followed by ‘Blue Lives Matter’ and ‘Red Lives Matter’).
Each was a call for society to respect the position of the underdog, the forsaken, the untouchables, the disrespected.
It would appear that there are more such (unofficial) movements rising up in schools around the world.
One common one is ‘My Child Must Play’ where individual parents strongly advocate, even demand, that their precious (or rather precocious) child must play on a school team, with often no other or better reason than she is the child of this particular vocal parent.
Coaches are confronted by parents demanding “why isn’t my kid playing more” when there are many vital reasons.
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Not every child can play all the time. Each child must learn specific key lessons, be they about teamwork, humility, discipline.
They need to learn on and off the court to take responsibility; they need to learn to show up for practice; they need to learn to help others set up and take down at practices.
What such parents do not realise or understand is that their slogan should really be adjusted to state ‘My Child Must Fall’ or better still ‘My Child Must Fail’.
Every child needs to learn about failure, about not making the team, about not playing every minute of the match.
They need to learn what it feels like not to be selected to make them appreciate more the significance of being selected.
They need to understand that even on the bench, not playing, there are valuable lessons for the child to learn, seeing the game from a different perspective, showing their support for the team.
Parents need to learn that children are learning many life lessons on the sports field or court; a child may be the star player but if she is violating the code of conduct off (or worse, on) the court, then she has to learn key lessons for the workplace.
We may add that ‘My Child Must Play’ movement has very close links to ‘My Child Matters’.
Of course, our child does matter. We naturally want the best for our child. It matters for her self-esteem that she is selected.
However, what parents do not realise or understand is that there is another movement, which actually has much stronger claims and more justifiable demands entitled ‘Every Child Matters’. More than that, they need to understand that ‘Real Values Matter’.
Then too, members of these movements are also strong supporters of the movement ‘Coaches Must Listen’.
Let us be clear: there is also no place for any such movement.
Very often the parent who is behind such a movement has no experience of coaching, no ability in playing, no interest in other children, no understanding of the role of sport in schools, no respect for the efforts made by the coach in extremely provocative and often toxic environments.
Parents need to respect the coach. If parents do not respect the coach, what chance is there of the child respecting the coach.
A parent who was asked why he sat alone at games and practices told them “Because I don’t want to hear grown men and women bash kids or their coaches.
I can watch my kid play and let the coach coach.” Another respected parent wrote passionately, perceptively, powerfully and poignantly that “parents need to allow the coach to coach. And not pitch a fit if their precious melon isn’t given court time at a game because they’re being disciplined by the coach”. Preach it strong, sister!
We may learn much from the child who reminisced that “One time I was late for practice and coach made me run laps. My dad was the coach. And he drove me to practice”! We need new movements, such as ‘Let Coaches Coach’ as well as ‘All Children Matter’. If we do not let our children fall; if we do not let our coaches coach; if we do not recognise that all children matter, then we will find our children saying to their friends, “My mother is so immature and ignorant – I’m so embarrassed. I wish she would shut up” and we know what the friend will rightfully say: “Me too”. No matter!
