When Your Child Isn't the Star

When I was coaching pro basketball, our franchise had a simple phrase we came back to all the time. We, not me. We didn’t care who scored as long as we scored. We didn’t care who got the stop, as long as we got the stop. The focus was always on the group, not the individual.

That mindset is easy to agree with in theory. It gets harder when you are a parent sitting in the bleachers watching your own child.

Most of us carry hopes and dreams for our kids. We want them to do well. We want them to grow. We want them to feel confident and valued. So when they are not the leading scorer, not the starter, or not the player getting the most attention, it can create some quiet (or sometimes not so quiet) tension inside of us.

When a child is not in a starring role, it naturally brings up questions about what we really want them to get out of this experience. For some families that turns into conversations about goals, and for others it leads back to the values they want to pass along. Research suggests that goals connected to the process of learning and improving tend to have a more positive impact than goals focused only on performance and results. That does not mean outcomes are irrelevant, but it does mean growth often continues even when recognition does not.

A couple of years ago, one of my sons was trying out for a travel team. The organizer told me he had been selected for Team A, but that Team A was loaded with good players. He explained that if my son stayed on that team, he probably would not play as much as he would on Team B.

My first thought was that Team A sounded like a great place for him to be. He would practice with strong players during the week, and when he did get in, he would be competing against kids who could really play. He already had the ball in his hands a lot on his school team, and I felt like this could help him learn how to compete, adjust, and find ways to help the group.So he stayed on Team A, and early in the season he did not play very much. In my opinion, it made sense. Those kids were good, and he was still figuring out how to fit in. He was frustrated at times, and I understood why. I told him that the players ahead of him were strong, that his coach was fair, and that his job was to keep competing and figure out how to help the team in the ways the coach was asking.

Over the course of the season, I watched him lean into that. He kept working, and little by little he earned more minutes. By the end of the year, without me saying a word to the coach, the coach came up to me and told me how much my son had grown and how well he was playing.

He never became the star of the team. He never became the focal point. He just became more valuable.

On the long drive home after the last game of the season, I asked him what he thought about the year. He said it was frustrating at first to be on the bench because he wanted to play, but once he started working harder and improving his defense, rebounding, and decision making, he started playing more and it became a lot more fun.

That answer meant more to me than any stat line ever could.

In a game like basketball, most of the time the ball is not in your hands. Half of the game happens on defense, and even on offense only one player can be handling the ball at a time. That means there are many ways to help a team that never show up in the box score. Learning how to stay active, compete, communicate, and stay connected to the play even when you are not the focus builds habits that coaches value and teammates depend on.

Over the years, I have coached plenty of players who were not the most talented on their teams early on. What often separated the ones who kept improving was that they stayed invested in the process. They enjoyed playing.

They kept adding skills that helped the group. They did not measure every game by how many points they scored. Over time, that approach opened doors that early success alone never could.I have also seen players who were given a lot of freedom early, who had the ball a great deal and were clearly gifted, but who never had to develop habits that supported the team. When the competition increased later, that lack of growth became a real obstacle.

This is where parents have more influence than we sometimes realize. If the focus at home stays on learning, competing, and being a good teammate, kids are more likely to find meaning in the less visible parts of the game. If the focus stays on standing out, it becomes harder to stay connected when the role changes.

And roles always change.

What kids learn about being part of something bigger than themselves does not stay in the gym. It carries into classrooms, jobs, families, and friendships. Learning how to contribute when you are not the center of attention is a skill that serves them long after the season ends.

On most teams, most kids are not the star. That is simply the nature of team sports. If we help our kids see value in their role, whatever that role looks like in a given season, we give them a better chance to grow, to enjoy the experience, and to keep improving over time.

The team will not be perfect, and the season will not be either. But learning how to compete and contribute within that reality can shape who they become long after the season ends.

Reflection Question:

When your child’s role is smaller than you hoped, what do you want them to be learning during that season?