The Sports Life: When Your Kid Handles It Better Than You Do

This weekend, my son, a senior, a captain and a leader on a track team that earned a trip to Nike Nationals, found himself on the receiving end of a coach’s anger. There was a breakdown in communication around a college visit. It wasn’t malicious. It wasn’t careless. It was human. Still, the response was loud, public and sharp. AND in front of teammates.

As a parent, that moment landed hard. I was mad ...

I felt protective. I felt angry. I replayed the scene in my head more times than I can count. I wanted to step in, set the record straight and demand better. I wanted to remind the world who my son is: deeply committed, accountable and respected in that space.

And then I watched him handle it.

He didn’t spiral. He didn’t trash his coach. He didn’t make excuses or shrink himself. He took responsibility for the miscommunication, acknowledged the moment and moved forward. He understood something that took me longer to get to: this wasn’t about his worth, effort or leadership. This was about a coach who may have been carrying something heavy and let it spill in the wrong direction.

That clarity didn’t make what happened okay, but it did give him peace.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth for many sports parents: sometimes our kids handle adversity better than we do. Especially the kids who have been tested, pushed, disappointed, and stretched over years of competition. They know who they are. They’ve earned their confidence the hard way. They don’t need every situation to be fair to stay grounded.

What they do need is support that doesn’t inflame the moment, which is exactly what I was prepared to give him.

So what does that look like?

• It looks like listening before reacting.
  It looks like letting your child tell the story without layering your own emotions on top of it.
  It looks like separating disrespect from discomfort.
  It looks like trusting the resilience you’ve helped build over years of early mornings, tough losses and quiet persistence.

As parents, our instinct is to protect. That instinct comes from love. The challenge is knowing when protection means intervention, and when it means restraint.

My son didn’t need me to fix this. He needed me to believe him when he said, “I’m okay.” He needed space to handle the situation with maturity and perspective. He needed to know that one hard moment doesn’t define a season, a relationship or a legacy.

Youth sports are emotional. Coaches are human. Kids are learning how to advocate, communicate and recover in real time. None of it is clean. None of it is perfect. Even though we want it to be!

And sometimes the greatest growth comes from moments that make us uncomfortable, especially the ones where we realize our kids are stronger than we think.

That’s hard to watch.

And it’s also something to be proud of.