15/10/2025
💙 Showing Up Right - From “Sensei Daddy” 💙
🎯 Lessons from both sides of the mats, to help your kids thrive
💭 As a Coach, I’ve seen all kinds of parenting styles over the years and hundreds of students I’ve had the privilege to coach. I’m not here to criticise or comment on any specific parenting style, but I’ve seen a lot of what does, and what doesn’t work. I thought I would share this insight with you all, with 10 easy Do and Don’ts.
✅ So here’s the stuff you definitely should do!
🏆 Share in their achievements, be on the journey with them and celebrate their successes
🥋 Encourage discipline - motivation gives out, but discipline sees you through
💙 Ride their emotions with them -buzzing or reflective, sit with them in it, let them feel it and process it
💪 Treat training as a commitment, the same as anything else. Their commitment has to match their goals
👏 Show up, whenever you can, to support them. It’s not always physically possible, but make sure they know you’ve got their backs
😪 Help dust them off, ready to go again. A bad match doesn’t have to be a bad competition, day, week, month or year
🤔 Take time to empathise with them, it’s not as easy as it looks!
🙌 Realise that you, coach, and kid are on the same team - working towards the same goals
💧 Help them be prepared physically (water, kit, etc) and emotionally
👊 Build a strong rapport with your coaching team, the kids can feel it, the most you trust and respect us, the more they do
⛔️ And now the other stuff, the please don’t do the following
😠 Use coach as a disciplinarian - we want little ones to be excited to see us, not worried
📢 Coach from the sidelines - let the coaching team do their jobs
🤚 Be harsh or critical - (especially on the drive home) the coaching team will manage performance, be their parent
🤬 Be disrespectful - to coaches, officials, or anyone else - you’re setting the standards they will follow
🤷♂️ Disregard coaching advice - this teaches them to do the same, if you disagree, discuss it with the coaches quietly
🥱 Be excuse-oriented, progress and results tend to be mutually exclusive
🚨 Encourage cheating or foul play - it reflects badly on everyone, and it teaches acceptance of “I can’t win” by normalising adverse behaviours
🤕 Wrap your kids in cotton wool, a decent coaching team is working alongside safeguarding guidance and best practice - you have to let the youngsters face adversity and fail, so that they can learn to get back up, to progress, and to win
🫣 Be comparative. Telling your kid they’re better than someone else increases ego. Telling them they’re worse than someone else reduces their self worth. Focus on their journey and progress, nobody else’s
😂 Mock or joke at the expense of the child, whether that’s mocking the sport or discipline, or your kid’s performance, or someone else’s - it teaches them that participation or failure comes with shame
🫶 If you’re reading this and think you’ve spotted yourself doing some of those things. I’m not just Coach, I’m a competitor’s Dad, too. I promise we’ve all misstepped in trying to support our kids. We’ve all had moments of disappointment or flashes or frustration. Having them doesn’t make you bad. Getting it wrong doesn’t make you bad. Refusing to acknowledge or correct them does. I certainly misstepped with Leo, and I’m sure I will with Kaida - different kids have different personalities, strengths, weaknesses, communication styles and training preferences. All I can really hope for is that I don’t repeat the *same* mistakes, and that she grows the same love for it 🙏
💙 Remember our 5Cs, Compassion. For yourself and others. We have all gotten it wrong. Be kind to yourself, be kind to your kids. Our other underpinning C is Community. Seek strength, resolution, and regulation from the other parents, and from your Coaching team - we’re here just as much for you as we are for the kids.
🥰 Some of you will remember, five or so years ago, when Leo was very small but trying his very best to respect the Dojo, and me as his Sensei - when he would wait to speak to me after class and when it was his turn to speak would start with “erm… Sensei Daddy”.
💭 Well I thought I would throw back to that. Because it was adorable, and our kids grow up so quickly. It doesn’t seem five minutes ago he was doing his first LightCon, and now we’re on our way to Germany in a couple of weeks for his first International tournament. It’s made me feel reflective, so I decided to share this with you all. Like any parent, I’d love to hear his tiny voice, coach his first competition, do it all over again. Don’t taint those memories and experiences with a crippling desperation to win.
💬 What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts below 👇
