Your Kid Isn't Playing. Now What?

Hello everyone, Hector here…

My dad never once told me what he was thinking during those months.

I was at the University of Memphis. Freshman year, I was a starter…8 goals, All-Conference, Freshman Athlete of the University…you name it. And then the next season came, and I was on the bench. Watching. Warming up, stretching, checking the coach's face every time he looked down the line…and not getting called.

My parents were 2,000+ miles away in Caracas. So all they had was a phone call.

And here's the thing I didn't appreciate until years later: they never asked me, "Why isn't the coach playing you?" They never told me to transfer. They never offered to email anybody. My parents, the same ones who did a 10-hour round-trip drive just to watch me play as a kid, and never complained about it, not ONE time, never once made me feel like I was a problem that needed to be fixed.

They would just ask me how training went. And if I gave everything.

That's it.

Two weeks ago I wrote an email to the kid who got dropped to the 2nd team. A lot of you replied…and a lot of those replies were not from kids. They were from parents.

So today, this one is for you. The parent.

First, let me say the thing nobody says out loud

It hurts you more than it hurts them.

I've had thousands of conversations with parents over these last 8 years, and I'm telling you…this is the one that breaks people. Not losing. Not a bad tournament. Watching your kid stand on that sideline in a clean uniform.

Because that kid is the person you love the most in this world. You've paid for the club, you've driven the miles, you've watched them cry in the car. And now you have to sit there, in the bleachers, and do NOTHING while they hurt.

I get it. I'm not a parent myself… but I've been blessed with two who taught me a lot, and I have watched many parents live this from about 20 feet away.

And I have to be honest with you: this is where most of us mess it up. Not out of ego. Out of love. That's what makes it so hard.

Adversity is not the problem. It's the whole point.

I know…you probably think I'm crazy for saying this while your kid is hurting. But hear me out…

Nothing about your child's character is going to be built in the season where everything goes their way.

Their resilience, their work ethic, their ability to be told "no" and keep showing up- that gets built HERE. In the season that sucks. There is no other classroom for it. You cannot buy it, you cannot schedule it, and you definitely cannot protect them from it.

So when you step in and fix it- the email to the coach, the phone call, the "we're leaving this club" conversation- I know it feels like love. But what your kid learns is: somebody else is responsible for my playing time. And when things get hard, I get pulled out.

That lesson doesn't stay in soccer. It follows them to their first job, their first hard relationship, their first real setback at 25 years old.

Let it hurt a little. Stay right next to them while it does. That's the whole job.

So what do you actually DO? Four things.

1. Be the ride, not the referee. The car after the game is sacred ground. Don't open with analysis. Don't open with the coach. Try this instead: "I love watching you play." Period. Then put music on and let them talk if they want to talk. Nine out of ten times, they will…just not in the first 10 minutes. And please…don't complain about the ref or the coach in front of them. They are always observing and learning. Whatever you model on that drive home is what they'll do the next time life benches them.

2. Praise the effort. Go over the moon for the effort. Not the minutes. Not the goals. Not the team level. If the only thing that elicits a reaction from you is results, then results become their identity, and results are exactly what they don't control right now. So catch them doing the hard stuff: the extra 20 minutes on the wall, the way they warmed up their teammate, the fact that they went to training at all on a day they wanted to quit. Praise THAT loudly.

3. Give them the two lists. Sit down with them and make it real. Two columns.

Things I can't control: the coach's decision. The lineup. Who's ahead of me. What other parents say.

Things I can control: being the first one at practice and the last one to leave. My attitude on the bench. My body language when I get subbed out. My energy in the small-sided games. Whether I train on my own. Whether I'm a great teammate. Whether I ask the coach, respectfully, what I need to improve.

And then say the part that changes everything: you can't control the coach's decision…but almost everything on that second list is what the coach's decision is made out of.

That's not sugarcoating. That's the actual mechanism. Nobody gets minutes handed to them because they're sad about not having them.

4. Tell them the truth: they are in total control of changing this. Not the outcome. The response. And the response is what eventually moves the outcome.

Pure and raw honesty, though, for both of you: they might do all of this for a month and still be on that bench. That happens. That is not proof it didn't work. Their job is to become undeniable and to keep their belief that their time will come. Your job is to keep believing it out loud when they can't.

To you, the parent reading this: everything you do and say right now matters, and it will leave a mark. You don't have to have the perfect words. Sometimes they just need you there with a big smile, praising the effort and not complaining to the refs.

And to you, the kid, if you are reading this, remember that you can run, move, use your legs. You are alive, you are here, you are breathing…so do something about it. This is not happening TO you. I promise you it's happening FOR you. You just can't see it yet.

Always More,

Hector