Working together to support young high performers - 'A conversation with Danny and Kate Cowley'

In this episode sporting parents Danny and Kate Cowley join Gordon MacLelland to discuss the value of working together as a parent team to support a young high performing athlete.

Together, Danny and Kate offer a dual perspective as coaches, educators, parents, and lifelong learners. Their daughter, a youth international footballer, and their son an ex gymnast have given them valuable insight into the experiences of young people navigating elite sport.

They bring a wealth of lived experience to the show with Danny a highly respected professional football manager and Kate a former international athlete, both with backgrounds in education.

During the conversation they discuss amongst other things:

• The importance of context with no one-size-fits-all approach to sports parenting
• Having distinct parent roles matter based on relationships with the child and individual strengths and weaknesses
• The importance of proactive and clear communication between clubs, coaches, teachers, parents and children
• Understanding the nuances of feedback
• Recognising mistakes, setbacks, and disappointment are normal and vital for development
• Helping to build confidence by reinforcing hard work and repetition and highlighting evidence of progress
• The continuous balancing act of tough love vs unhealthy pressure
• Focussing more on role modelling over lecturing

Both Danny and Kate share a passion for sport, education, and supporting young people to reach their potential both on and off the field.

Having been together since childhood, their shared love of sport has shaped both their personal and professional journeys. They began their careers working together at The FitzWimarc School, one of the UK’s top-performing secondary schools, where they combined their experience in teaching, coaching, and athlete development to help students grow and succeed.

Danny has since built a respected career in professional football management, recognised for his people-focused approach and commitment to developing players and teams. His time at clubs including Lincoln City, Huddersfield Town, and Portsmouth has been defined by an emphasis on teamwork, learning, and creating positive environments.

Kate’s career has also been in high-performance sport and education. A former senior international athlete supported by the National Lottery’s Podium Potential programme, she has worked across elite sport and athlete development.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:12

Welcome to season seven of the Parents in Sport Podcast. I'm your host, Gordon Maclelland. I'm delighted to be joined today by husband and wife team Danny and Kate Cowley. Thank you for joining us on the show. Pleasure.

Speaker 0:27

Thank you.

Speaker 1 0:28

Yeah, excited about this one. We're going to be talking about how we all uh work together to support young high performers. We all bring different, I guess, backgrounds into this space. Uh, I obviously know a little bit more about you both, but maybe our listeners won't. So I'm going to give you uh first go on this. Can you just tell all our listeners a little bit about yourselves, your background and and where you are today?

Speaker 0:54

Oh hi guys. Yeah, so we um we've come at sport from lots of different angles. So both of us are uh trained PE teachers. Um I was previously an international athlete and and Danny had a good um semi-professional career in football. Um we Danny has become um a manager in in um the professional game. So we have kind of lived within the football bubble, shall we say, since what year did you become professional? Was it 2018?

Speaker 2 1:27

Um yeah, 2016, yeah. So I've been lucky enough to manage uh for 17 seasons now, so yeah, and and had the pleasure of managing in eight of the top nine divisions. So we've kind of lived the different levels, and like Kate said, really, yeah, we've kind of come come from sport in all different angles as as teachers professionally um playing the game and then then obviously also coaching and managing and and now obviously as a as a as a parent. And and out of all of the roles, definitely the parenting bit is that is the toughest for sure.

Speaker 1 2:01

Brilliant. Well, I mean that's that's what we've got to sort of bring to this, I guess. That we've got, I guess, hopefully, quite a lot of expertise there. We've got quite a lot of knowledge there, we've probably got an awful lot of experience there. Um, let's look at it from a sports parenting perspective. Do you think that's always been a good thing? Uh, do you think there's been times where it's made no difference? Do you think there's maybe been times where um there's been clashes in what we brought to it, but then obviously our kids may be very different to us as well, or they may be similar?

Speaker 2:37

Yeah, I think probably we're we're very fortunate that you know Danny's been very much hands-on with the children, especially probably Bella with her with her football, and she's been very receptive to having a parent coaching her, and I I appreciate that's not always the same for everyone. Um probably if I was more hands-on with her, we will probably would clash, you know, because we've probably got quite similar personalities. Um and I think she I'll be honest, with with Danny, she hangs on his every word, so she's got this level of respect that that works particularly well. Um, but I don't know about you know the the children are very, very different. I don't like to discuss them too much, but they're they're very different entities. We've got one that's very, very driven. Um she's very so self-motivated, a fantastic learner. Um, and then there's George on the other side who live and breathes football, uh sport in general, wants to try everything, and everything is about fun, which is really amazing. I it we've got two real different perspectives um of our our sport experiences.

Speaker 2 3:48

Yeah, I I think I think for us sport has always been a really big part of our lives. Um it's been you know, we've been so fortunate to do something to wake up every day and do something that you love. Um, and of course, when you you find a real passion, then naturally I think you want to share this with your with with your children. I think from a young age, really, you know, the the the modern the modern day house has so many different distractions, doesn't it, when the children are young and you have so many different toys and computer games. And I think we've always been really um, or I've definitely been really mindful of I used to try to always get rid of all the the distractions and just leave the the sports equipment out so that they could uh they could hopefully find find find the same fun and love that that we've been able to find in our sport. And really our only ambition was really just uh keep trying to expose our children to as many different activities and sports as we could so that hopefully they could then find something that they that they really enjoyed and that and that they love.

Speaker 1 4:49

Yeah, do you know you can tell our sort of PE teaching background there? I found some pictures the other day and I was throwing a softball at my one-year-old in the high chair, and if it stayed on the bib, we were celebrating, you know. I mean, it was absolutely mad, but you can just tell. I I was very much like you, and I think that does present some challenges today for people removing, you know, maybe some of the technology distractions from young kids, but I think that's a wider society thing in getting kids moving and involved and hopefully finding um something that they love. I just want to touch on something that you said there because Kate, I know you're passionate about this, and I completely agree with you. We've got to be really careful in our work that context is absolutely everything because every family is different, every kid is different, every tolerance level is different, and we can't just put everybody in the same box, we can have some general themes, but then there's got to be room for manoeuvre. And it was interesting hearing what you said there that perhaps if you'd over-egged your role with your daughter, there may have been a clash, but actually, luckily for you, most of the stuff Danny wants to land, you can do it through that. So, actually, there could even be a case of in some houses you may be better working out where your strengths lie with your kids and then adapting accordingly.

Speaker 6:10

Yeah, definitely. And and like we say, the the two children we have to approach completely different ways, you know. They what what motivates Isabella would probably fall on deaf ears with George and and and vice versa, you know. So, yeah, I'd agree that context is everything. Um and yeah, and having a real understanding of the individual obviously really helps, and that's where it's really difficult. And like what you're saying, when you go to talk to other parents, you don't have that level of understanding of what makes them tick. You know, some some clubs, you know, they will say the most important thing that you as a parent should do when you get in the car is ask if they had fun. Now, if I asked Bella that as the first question, she would look at me like, Are you having a laugh? You know, so so we've now over the years, I don't really talk about anything tech tactical or technical with the football, that's dad's role. Um, I'm more I probably would say more life coach, more the minute more the other side of of the um story.

Speaker 2 7:10

So I think would you agree that's yeah, I I just think with with young people, you you just have to uh try to understand, especially as the young person goes through their through through their childhood, you have this small sweet spot as a parent, don't you, where you are the key influencer, and I don't know where so you you have the you have the most influence on them, and that probably I don't know for our children probably lasted somewhere between five and eleven, I would say, where you can really have a real a real influent, a real influence on them, and then it moves at 11 to maybe their peers, and then then maybe then to teachers or coaches, and I think you're always trying to understand, you know, when you've got a really key message that you want you you you're trying to get across to your to your child, who is the best person to deliver that message, and and a lot of times for for parents, I can really feel their frustrations because you know they they whole wholeheartedly just have their child's best interests at heart, but so and they sometimes have incredible advice that they want to give their child, but their child is just not ready to receive it from them in that moment at that time. So I think as a parent you've got to be really mindful, like you said, of context, you've got to be really mindful of how you say it, what you say, and most importantly when you say it, because sometimes when the emotion's high, which often it can be just after a game or training, then it's it's not the right time to deliver that message, and sometimes you have to hold that message and wait. Sometimes it doesn't matter how important the message is and how how right the message is, if it comes from you, it just won't land. So then sometimes you have to use the coach and you have to have good communication with the coach to be able to say, look, I think this is something that will really help Bella, it can't come from me. Would you be able to deliver it in your words? And this can be this can this can I think that this can be really powerful, and it's always I I I really think that you know, having worked in some brilliant schools and seen some brilliant schools, the best schools for me, it's always the relationship between the pupil, the parent, and the teacher, and that triangle is so important. And in football clubs, it's no different. It's the it's the it's the player, it's the parent, and it's the club. And I think the mistakes that football clubs that I've worked at have had in the past is that they've tried to exclude the parent and that they've almost felt nervous at the parent, and the feeling's been to keep the parent at at arm's distance, and to me, this is this is the wrong way to go about things. I I I always believe that communication is is paramount, it's so important, and if communication is not higher than the parent and the club, then there can be a misunderstanding and a lack of understanding. It's normally the lack of understanding that creates the the problems. So for me, I encourage all of my academy coaches to over-communicate the amount of time, you know, the amount of times I've been stood watching us watching Bella in a session with the parents, and we're watching training, and the coach is delivering a brilliant training session, but I'm listening to the parents' rhetoric, and my fear is that all of the great work that the coach has done during the session is going to be undone within within the first two minutes of the car journey home.

Speaker 1 10:31

Yeah. And that's what we've got to have, and and I think that's the thing, and you know, that that's ultimately the space we've ended up in, and we've we've got no three days till next March in terms of delivery, because it's how do we make sense of that world from a parent's perspective? How do we make it unique to every family? But also one of the skills you'll remember this, when we did coaching and teaching and our education, nobody ever gave us some help on how you work with parents. We just got older and uglier and told, actually, well, I got older and ugly. Obviously, that's not everybody, but you then just get told, actually, now you've got a job of giving somebody some bad news, or actually now you're telling them something difficult, or now you've got to have a crucial conversation with them. And I think that's actually moved and evolved even more now, where I think it's even more uncomfortable. I think we've gone from having no communication to a bit of communication, and now a fear of, well, what can I say and what can't I say? And working in a lot of these top clubs, it's like, well, where do we draw the line? Because everybody wants honesty. I was in a top WSL club recently, and the parents said to me, they said, Oh, I want the coaches to be honest with me. And now I've got I go in quite a lot, to be fair, and I've known them for a lot of years, so I can pretty much say any at just about anything, and we get on really well. And I closed my laptop and I said, We've got a bit of a problem then, because we're demanding honesty. We can't fire off late-night emails full of Sauvignon Blanc and accost them in the car park and then start spreading negative vibes with every other parent because somebody's giving us some honest feedback, and I think that's really hard then, because then it's like, well, we can't have people not being honest with us, and I'm like, Well, no, we can't, but then you realise it's everybody's role to try and be really good at doing what they need to do for the young person, yeah.

Speaker 2 12:30

I I think from from my experience with with parents is that they really want honesty until the coach gives them real honesty, and then I think they find it really hard to digest, which I I don't think is a problem. I think this is human nature, right? We're we're parents, we we love our children dearly, um, and it's really hard sometimes because the emotion is so high because of the nature of the relationship, it's sometimes really hard to take negative feedback from somebody else about your child, and um yeah, I think that this is and and this is why for me the importance of communication is everything. So if it's at the end of a training session for the coach to do the debrief with the children, with the children and the pair parents in earshot, so that the coach can convey what the major messaging has been during the session, then for the best parents, then when they get back on in the car with their child, they then consolidate this learning with their child. And we all know how we all understand how learning works. The learning goes into the short-term memory of the young child, you then have to keep replicating, you have to keep reaffirming so that the the transfer of learning goes to the long-term memory, and this can happen via the the coach in the next session, but also the parent on the journey home. So I think that this in itself can be really powerful, and then if the communication is really regular, and I know that this can be time-consuming and energy consuming for the coaches, I totally respect that, but if it can be really regular, then there's no surprises, and then the next piece of uh I suppose the next part of the the skill and the development is to try to, you know, feedback is coming in a leaf sport, and it's coming in all different forms, and it's not it's nothing to be scared of that everybody has to understand that this is part of the journey and this is part of learning, and that actually we have to reframe feedback because even when it can be critical and it can be blunt and it can be to the point, this can be a this is a this can be wonderful for the young player. And trying to get the young player and the parents to thrive on the fact that okay, this is where the child is at, this is what they can do, this this is this these are all the good things that they're doing, and this is the next to get to the next step in their journey, this is what they need, this is this is how they need to keep improving.

Speaker 1 14:58

Yeah, and I'm all I'm always conscious of this, and and and this is where I think it's really difficult because we've got we can bring some elements of understanding feedback, the realities of the sporting world, what is actually normal, that there's not really many shocks for us. You sort of know what what's coming next. And how do we make people as comfortable as they can be with that this is normal, but let's talk about it now before we hit pressure points, but actually an understanding, because I think there are even elements on if parents do watch training, like you say as well, or they watch certain sessions, is what are they actually seeing? You know, alluded to the thing you're talking about and rhetoric and conversations that go on and parental peer pressure stood watching. You know, I've seen I saw a session where lots of kids were failing. Now, coaches were trying loads of new stuff that the kids had never seen before. And it took me a while. I'm stood there and I'm thinking, oh god, not great. Start. And then I thought, like, hang on, I haven't really seen this before. This is totally new. They all look slightly baffled, and there was a lot of mistakes. Now it got better as the session went on, admittedly. I walked down to the end of the because I generally try to stand on my own and keep myself to myself because of the role that the because of the role that I'm in. But I walked down to the end and it was like, Gordon, what did you make of that worst session in the world? And it's like, well, what do you mean the worst session in the world? Well, did you see how many mistakes there were? And it it it was just a and it wasn't a deliberate thing. It was like, well, well, but we don't want a perfect session because if it's perfect, they're not getting any better. But it that was just uh something that I think is easier for us to understand if you've coached and done it, than actually if you're just turning up blind and you don't get that environment, that that's how you know ultimately we learn, we raise young performers. Now, Kay, I want to bring you in here because I want to think about uh things that worked for you, your sport, your background. Have you had any stuff that that sort of really worked for you that maybe hasn't worked with the kids? Or do you think there's some stuff that you deem as really important that's an integral part of this?

Speaker 17:10

Yeah, if I reflect back now on my childhood, I can just remember my child was very chaotic. We were I was one of four children, we were all very much involved in sport, but I don't think I was ever really confident in my own ability. I don't think I ever really had the belief in what I could have gone on to achieve. And if I I met Danny when I was 16, and if I'm honest, I'd unfortunately I'd lost my dad when I was kind of 14. Um and it was probably Danny actually made me have far more belief in what I could do. Um I also I also lived kind of all my sporting activities were on the doorstep, so you know, I I kind of fell into the hands of of coaches and they did a really good job. But then I went to university and started understanding what underpins elite performance and all about the physiological side and biomechanics, and at that point I started thinking, okay, actually I've not done this ever in my training or I've not done this, and then I started to add those elements and saw that I improved quite quickly. Um and I kind of feel that if I had more belief in my ability when I was younger, I would have sought those opportunities earlier. So I probably would have looked, or perhaps there might be some other coaches a bit further afield that might be able to stretch me that little bit more. Um so I would say that for the children, I'm very much try to make them feel one, really comfortable in their own skin, um, and two run their own race. So just focus on on what they're doing. So another thing, I there's lots of metrics that I've worked to for through the children kind of one, you know, you run your own race, and the comparison can be the theft of all joy. Um so I would say probably it's really important to be mindful of where you're where you are at, talent-wise and ability-wise. Um goal setting up for me is really huge, you know, to make sure that you kind of uh you've got aspirations rather than just going through the motions. So I would say um that was probably a learning that I would have taken from my childhood. Um can you think of anything else from your No, I think you're right.

Speaker 2 19:30

I think it's always it's it's it's always nice to be self-aware enough to know where you are today, to have clarity over where you want to go, and you kind of have a start point and then you have a have a destination where you would like to go. And then once you know that start point and you know the destination, then the stepping stone and how you stepping stones and how you layer that become that much clearer. And yeah, I I think what Kate said, like confidence is such a fragile commodity, and we just try to be can-do like for my children. Yeah, you can do that, you can do that, yeah, absolutely, 100% you can do that, and just to have that and to give them that that that belief um that anything is possible as human beings, only we decide our destiny. Nobody else, not any other person in the whole world gets that privilege other than us. So if you want to do something, then yeah, commit to it, yeah, really go for it, give it everything you've got. And for young people, I I and I think this is a really good advice for coaches and for parents. Um, focus on what they can do. Like, as coaches in this country, historically, we have been caught up in continually trying to coach the players what they can't do. Yeah, and let's just put all of our energies in what they can do, make what they can do into super strengths, yeah, absolutely. And and then, yeah, from a team perspective, tactically organise a team to avoid what they can't do. And you know, of course, we have to try to improve all aspects of their of their of their game, but always if we put enough energy into what into what they can do, and really for our children, um what we try to do, and and by the way, we don't always get it right, and probably get it right probably get it wrong more than we get it right, but just to try to have that, give them giddy up, get up and go. So every day, get up and go, giddy up, and then if you start the day like that, and then you also have that feeling of never give up and go to the end, then kind of if you get a start right and the end right, then the bit in the middle, I don't know, my feeling is it'll work itself out.

Speaker 1 21:38

Yeah, and I think there's an element of role modelling there, isn't there? I think this is integral. I say to parents, you are massively important, whether you realise it or not, in a lot of cases, our role modelling and how we set the tone um can be just as important because if our kids don't want to listen to us, you can guarantee they're still watching us and they're still seeing how we go about things and thinking, okay, well, maybe they're Doing it, so I'd better do it. And I I think some of the things you've you've touched on about three or four different things there, just in that last bit. I want to go to you, Kate, first on the confidence piece, raising confidence in young people. And then, Danny, if you can share anything further, I just think from the professor, because you've had teams who've done amazingly, won promotions, uh, won some big cup games, and then you've had teams who've been in real slumps as well, and that's at the top of the game. How do we, you know, Kate, how are you building confidence in young people? Danny, do you think it's the same in building that confidence with with professional players, older players as well? Kate.

Speaker 22:36

Yeah, I think I just want to kind of allude to what Danny says that you you just need to instill in the children they are in complete control of where they take their abilities. And I'm I will always just say to the children, hard work will beat talent when talent doesn't work hard. And and I think having lived the school life, um I think that that is just so evident. We've we've taught many a children that are ultra-talented but just didn't have the giddy up to utilise their natural abilities. And and also I'll probably reflect there were some children who were really unbelievable athletes, but didn't have the parental support either. And I always think for any child, you owe it to them children that really wanted to make something of what they had, but just fell short because they didn't have the parental support, and you know, it's probably easier in in Essex, everything's quite accessible. You can use public transport, so you'd think, oh well, well, you know, that can be down to the children to be self-sufficient, but in lots of areas, and especially kind of if you look at the female football game, you know, to to get to the top, you need really supportive parents who are able to transport you all over the country if you want to kind of compete against people of a similar ability. So yeah, I think for me, all of those all of those um experiences have made me really uh hone in on making sure you try hard. And then if you try hard, I think your confidence level will naturally keep increasing because you know you you'll reap the benefits of hard work, and and as soon as you see and you you get a return, you know, the world you're oyster. You start to think bigger and dream bigger. Um, so I think that yeah, the the basis for me is hard work builds confidence.

Speaker 1 24:27

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you you know, and you can coin American phrases, can't you doing the reps because the reality is you have confidence when you know you can do it. It's a bit like if I go on the golf course this week and I know I haven't played and really know that I'm gonna be in trouble. If I'd actually been out every day, I probably would have had a greater confidence in stud over some of the shots that you encountered. And I do think that there's definitely that for young people. I think also reminding them, I we always think this in some of the setback stuff, just reminding them of when they've overcome obstacles and adversities in the past. Because at that point, you know, when kids are struggling a bit, they tend to narrow in on the world, don't they? There was that brilliant clip from the Olympics with uh Fred Siriak's and Andrea afterwards when she was disappointed. She said, Well, it just wasn't meant to be. And Fred was brilliant with it. He said, Well, hang on, it wasn't meant to be today, you know, and she won a bronze medal sort of two days earlier. And that and I think the point is kids do narrow in, but actually, if we can remind them of the bigger picture, things they've done before, that stuff that reinforces their belief, it probably gives them a that bit of a shot to move forward again and and keep moving forward. But it's it's inevitable. I think the other thing is it's inevitable, isn't it? We know there's going to be pain in sport, we know there's got to be some suffering, we know that there's gonna be disappointment, and the quicker we can just normalise that and tell everybody's tales and stories, the better with them because they may not want to hear it from us as parents, but my goodness, now, with all the clips we can pull up and all the Netflix documentaries and all the podcasts, everybody who's ever achieved anything is littered with all of the things that we're talking about. What's changed? I think is our reaction to it. We've got to normalize some of this a bit more again, rather than extreme reactions to supporting young people.

Speaker 2 26:21

Uh Kate says to our children all the time, fail forwards, fail forwards. And it only worry if you're not failing, because if you're not failing, you're probably not pushing yourself as far as you uh uh as as as hard as you could. And I think when when I look at when I look at the journey of a of a of a young sports person, um your relationship with failure has to be really, really good because guess what? Elite sport is coming. And if it has I I always say to the parents, the only the only players that I really worry about are the ones that have never failed, because you know at some point it's coming. So if you haven't in your your childhood been able to build up the resilience that you need to fail, then that that that can be really tough when it comes. And yeah, just don't like for me, just know that failing is part of the journey and it's okay. And actually, only worry when you're not failing because you're probably not living the life that you're capable of living if you're not failing, because you're probably living somewhere in the comfort zone.

Speaker 1 27:23

Yeah, absolutely. And that that's it, and again, that's you know, the absolute integral part of sessions is actually we want your kid to be all over the shop when they're developing. We don't want it to be a lovely straight line and everybody's disappearing into the sunset, and the world's a happy place because they don't get those experiences then. They don't pick up the character traits, the life skills they're gonna need. Because you can only pick those up by living them and actually going through them and thinking about how we navigate them, um, how we manage them. Uh, Danny, just going on the confidence one, anything bizarre that you've done just from all your years of management when teams are in a slump that you've sort of magicked up along the way that suddenly turns something round? Anything you tried many years back, maybe at Lincoln or before then or Huddersfield?

Speaker 2 28:10

I'm not sure I have a magic formula, unfortunately, but I do I do understand confidence and I do understand that it's a really fragile commodity, and it's something that's that's really really difficult to find but really easy to lose, um, and always to be mindful of the player's confidence. So whenever whenever I I uh provide feedback with a player and coming alluding back to your or coming back to the point that you alluded to earlier around honesty, and I do agree that once you have built the relationship with a player and the player knows that you have their best interests at heart, at that moment start coaching them. Don't coach them too early, because if you coach them before that relationship is built, then this can this can make a relationship very difficult moving forward. So you have to what's the saying, show them how much you care before you show them how much you know. Um, I think this is important, and when I look back to my best coaches or my best teachers, it's not what they taught me, it's always how they made me feel. So for any coaches, and that I always think this right, as a parent, you know, you're a coach, but as a as a coach, you're really just their football parent. That's what that's how I that's I coach my best when I feel like that with the per with the players, when I unequivocally have their best interests at heart and just want the best for them. And I think of them, what would I and I'm a better coach and a better teacher now having had children than I would have been before, just because of empathy, really, just because of an improvement in empathy and of having lived the journey with them and understanding young people more, having having lived lived through the journey with them. But for me, it's um yeah, you know, when you're coach, all you know, and sometimes you you know exactly what they need need to make them better. But if the timing's not right and they're full up with criticism, which you know, for in elite sport with social media, sometimes the player is full up with criticism on the Monday morning after the after the difficult defeat on the Saturday. You have to be mindful of that, and you have to you have to hold back, you have to time the conversation, and and sometimes, yeah, if you can make them feel good, then uh for me this is this is this is this is this is real coaching.

Speaker 1 30:35

Yeah, I I yeah, I I completely agree. I was I've got actually, and and part of season seven, which this is, we've got Brad Stolberg on the podcast, it's already recorded, he's just written a new book called The Way of Excellence, and they do some really cool stuff in America around uh performance, and we ended up with this thing that actually the probably the best coaches are demanding but loving. There's too much noise, there's too much noise out there at the moment, you know. And we had this joke about um, yeah, we're not going back to archaic 1980s coaching, but we're also not doing come by yarn off the other end when we're trying to raise performers. And where do you actually get that lovely sweet spot? And it's both because it goes back to relationship, knowing the person that you're coaching, once they know that we can be really demanding of them as long as that that care is there as well. And people run through brick walls, then for you, they'll do they'll do anything at that stage.

Speaker 2 31:32

Yeah, there's a really interesting uh uh research article, I think it's from from St. Mary's University, and it's around Olympians and successful Olympians, and they were looking through their childhood, through their coaching at any um any any any commonalities, and the only one that they could find, and this was a a group of elite athletes that had great British athletes that had meddled in Olympic sport, and the only thing they could find is parents, and they called it with really uh parents that gave their children tough love, and it interests me because from a coaching perspective, now we're encouraged player ownership. Um, you know, we live in a world now which is sharing and caring. You know, gone are the days when our parents would have gone to school, they would have, if they had been in trouble, they would have got the cane or they would have got they they they would have got the slipper. When we went to school, we'd have got screamed and shouted at. Now the young, the young person in today's society, the teacher can't write with a red pen because the red pen's too aggressive, so we have to write with a green pen. So as a consequence, they're a product of that environment. They then come into a leech sport. We have to be mindful of the journey that they've been on, but at the same time, for me, I I I tough love. I mean, Bella says Bella, whenever Bella does, and she doesn't, she she's only she's only very young, but whenever Bella speaks about her journey, she'll often say, Yeah, dad gives me tough love, which pretty much is her way of saying, My dad is pretty pretty hard on me, and he's pretty demanding, and he he he he he squeezes me a lot, and it's not always it's not always easy in this relationship.

Speaker 33:13

I think it's healthy expectations rather than unhealthy pressure. That's the balance, yeah.

Speaker 1 33:19

Okay, yeah. Do you want to just expand on that a bit, Kate?

Speaker 33:24

Just a little bit, yeah, just on that, because that's you can have it, you can have expectations which come from your belief in their ability, yeah. And you know, sometimes as a parent or a coach, you hold them in high esteem, and if you know they're not performing to that level, yeah, you can be harsh on them because that's where you expect them to perform. Um, but also adding unhealthy pressure for expectations that are just not in their control, for example, or just totally unrealistic, that can cause burnout, and we know the psychological impact of that.

Speaker 2 34:00

You're just setting them up to fail, aren't you? That that that and that that can be that that could be that can be dangerous.

Speaker 1 34:05

And I think that's yeah, and that's a that's a sliding scale as well. Again, amazing. I'm glad, okay. This will be brilliant if we ever do Eddie talks or see you and do it. But actually, that expectations and reality one needs to slide up and down. Because actually it's a current point in time, like we've already alluded to, that the expectations have to be close to the current reality. You know, if your players are coming back from injury, regardless of whether it's the biggest game of the season, your expectations should be in a different place from when they're 100% fit or different environments they're going in. And I think you're right. I think the pressure for young players or young athletes comes when the level of expectations on them just get too far away from the current reality of where we are. And the other side of this we found is that the parents' worst behaviour also happens at this time as well, in terms of how they support. Because if they were expecting to turn up and expecting to see something and it doesn't quite materialise, then the sheer shock of that changes all the emotion and and whatever else almost come out in their dialogue, don't they?

Speaker 2 35:16

You know, it can be quite toxic, some of the things that are said, and it it's a it's the basis of their frustrations coming coming through their well, well, what what always happens, doesn't it, that when you you for the young player or for the parent, they go in with an expectation, so they think this is going to be reality, this is what's gonna happen, and then actually the they are their expectation and reality are quite different, and disappointment lies between. Yeah, and this is this is always something that then you know you have to, and this is why sport for me is so is so brilliant because yeah it teaches you about life, it teaches you about it teaches you about winning and how to win, hopefully with humility, it teaches you how to fail, and and but but doing so um you know and and keeping your dignity, and this this this is why this is why I love sport, and this is why for for Kate and I really it wasn't about I didn't I didn't want my children to go into sport when they started and that they were kicking a ball around the the lounge as a as a as a two or three-year-old. It wasn't with the ambition of them going into elite sport, it was knowing all of the life lessons that they're gonna they're gonna pick up along the way.

Speaker 1 36:30

Yeah, uh absolutely I'm 100% with you on that. Um I just while we've got a uh hopefully some expertise uh on the pod this morning, I just want to go back to that bit around what we talked about tough love, realities, performance. Because what we've started trying to say to parents is you can use modern day society as an excuse, you can use the negative bits of technology as an excuse, you can use modern day parenting as an excuse. I don't know if you guys would like to hear this, but guess how we were all described in the national media a few weeks ago? Sunday morning, thought, brilliant, hard week, get a coffee, here we go. Uh, to be described as raising the softest, most entitled generation of kids today whose expectations are not grounded in any form of reality whatsoever. And I sat there and I thought, fascinating. So we've all got lumped into the same thing. So I was there, and I lost my dad recently, and I was thinking then about elements of what did they do that was better than what I do, but only in supporting performance. This is the key to this. We're talking about supporting performance here, we're not talking about parenting, we're not talking about society, but you've got all that noise going on over here, but fundamentally, what it takes to be a good performer hasn't really changed. And at the highest end, we may know more. There may be better ways of doing things that we've done in the past, but what we can't do is jump from one system all the way off to the other end, which is generally the narrative that we're seeing, because it's not realistic.

Speaker 38:11

No, because it's interesting when you look at the coaching world, how we've just said, you know, it's education and coaching has become much softer, shall we say, um, a bit fluffy around the edges. But actually, if you then talk about technology, that's more toxic than anything our generation probably were ever exposed to. So, in some respects, when with Isabella, for instance, and she was she, you know, she had this dream of playing as a professional footballer, we were very much like, right, she's gonna need some resilience because that that's a really hard world to go into, and we've lived that social media where for our family it's a very fickle space with a lot of opinion with no context, and so you have to build up a thick skin to be able to deal with that. But actually, the environment in which you know we've discussed their going through the education and the coaching is so soft that the parents almost need to work on those those things.

Speaker 2 39:09

It doesn't prepare you, does it? For for me, Bella at about 14 or 15. I can remember the conversation in the car. She said to me, I want to be a professional footballer, and it's the first time that she had said that. And at the time she was playing multi-sports, whether she was playing football, cricket, and playing grassroots with boys, not in the academy, because we'd kind of travelled with my job, so we'd she'd already had sorts of I've done I've done the same as well, let's be clear, because I think it's really good.

Speaker 1 39:37

My daughter's still playing alongside boys on a Sunday now whilst being part of it, and it's it's great. There's a massive plus in that.

Speaker 2 39:45

100%, 100%. But I remember the car the car journey, she says, I really want to be a professional footballer. And I went, Oh, okay. And it was the first time it then having digested that information, it was right, okay. If you want to do this, I'm gonna start coaching you towards the player that you're capable of being then, and we're gonna go from this to this. Are you okay with it? Are you okay with the because it's gonna be a change of dynamic because prior to that it was I used to, I'll be honest, I loved every every my favourite part of the week would be watching Bella or Jules play football on a Sunday when there was no pressure, they were there just for fun, and we were just playing, and and it came to that point where okay, you want to do this more seriously, this is fine, this is what it's gonna look like. And Bella's always been, to be fair, incredibly, incredibly coachable. She that's always been, I would say, her major skill is being emotionally mature and and being coachable. So it's always it, but but I turn the dial on that off the back of that conversation. I turn the dial, and to be fair to her, she's she and I don't get always get it right because guess what? I'm I'm really good at giving advice to other parents, but I'm not so good, I'm not so good at uh at giving myself advice and getting it right with my own children because of course you have this you have this emotion involved, don't you?

Speaker 1 41:11

Yeah, absolutely. And I I'll publicly say that once again for those of that hear me speak, that I live this constant battle of talking about this, and then the reality of what it actually looks like at home is is it can be very, very different, but I'm happy to admit that. Um yeah, I think the finding that balance, like well, like you say there, Bella moved the dial because she decided that's what she wants to do. And I don't want young players or young athletes to come to me at 18 and say, Gordon, um, the world doesn't look like I thought it was going to look. I'm absolutely adamant that I won't let that happen, either as an educationalist, a parent, or as a coach. And I think then we've got to be brave, not archaic, like I said, not archaic behaviour, not abusive, not creating really bad environments. But we also have to be realistic about what we need to see if kids, and I say this to their parents as well, if kids are saying they want to be a professional player, well, actually, we've got to be quite demanding of quite a few things then, and they can't just say it and then none of their behaviours and their approach reflect what it's going to look like. Because I thought the whole point of this is we're trying to create young players who are ready to actually cope with the world that they're going into. It's like anything.

Speaker 2 42:38

Well, I think you can make a really good point. Uh God, I think you make a really good point. You just get made me think really is I suppose what we want, because you go back the point you made about about your dad and about the parenting that you had, it's like old school values, but with new methods, maybe. Maybe this is this is what we're trying to trying to work towards. I don't know.

Speaker 1 42:58

Yeah, I thought I think, yeah, I think yeah, and I think that look, I do think there's some things I did uh you know, I did better, you know. And and I would never talk ill of my dad, but we did joke towards the end when I said it's amazing that the first time you said you loved me was when I got an England trial playing rugby at under 19. But but but but the flip side of that, however, was that he never criticized either. So that has to be counteracted, never got involved, never overdid it, but never criticised. But then the other side of that was you still didn't feel like anything was good enough. So by the end, when we reflected, we had a good chat. But I do think there were some things he did where I think actually that probably aided performance. I look at some of the stuff that I've sort of let go, and I'm like, you great coward, you could have done more at home on this and actually had more of a battle. And I do battle sometimes, but I have thought hang on a minute, hang on a minute. This this might not be a great choice here.

Speaker 2 43:58

Yeah, from where I see. You sound like you're doing a pretty good job.

Speaker 1 44:03

That's my daughter, Daddy. It'll look it'll look very right. Um last uh I suppose just conscious of time, last um last bit, I we've you've alluded to this. It I think we all agree that sport still remains one of these sort of safest vehicles to equip our children with this wide range of character and life skills that ultimately will allow them to thrive in whatever walk of life they go into. Um so even if they don't make it as professional athletes or achieve some of the things they want, we're hoping that the whole experience, what they've picked up, will allow them to thrive in whatever they end up doing. How do you bring some of those to life at home? Because otherwise they do just become words on a wall. We see that with teenage kids, they're just a word. How do you bring some of those things that are important? The I guess the whole commitment piece, the motivation, resilience, communicating well when you need support, self-organisation, independence, good decisions that you make around it, all these things that we know young people need. What do you guys do to support that? Or has Bella sort of taken that on herself? Do you nudge it? Do you highlight it a bit?

Speaker 2 45:22

Yeah, saying that that Kate has done incredibly well with with our with our little boy George, really, because George is he he is a quirky little boy and he he's got this incredible giddy up and get up and go, he's so enthusiastic about everything he does. It whatever he does, he tries to do to the best of his ability. And I'm always trying to work out has he got incredible self-confidence or a complete lack of self-awareness, but um I uh either way, he is um he he has this unbelievable quality, and it is all Kate's doing because she has an this amazing relationship with him, and he literally is such a mummy's boy, he like he don't mummy in everything she says, but he has this wonderful ability just to be himself, and he's got and and so I always know is that it's that he has got this real incredible self-confidence just to be himself, and he will not be, he will not conform to society, he will not do what he thinks his friends want him to do just to make him popular, he will do exactly what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. And if that means singing in the choir and standing up or doing um, you know, he he he was just he just with with his with his previous school actually because he just moved schools, but he was Joseph in Joseph in a Technicolor dream coat, wasn't he? And he he he he he sung his heart out doing that, and he has um yeah, he has this quality just to be himself, and I don't know, I can't just say that it's this one thing that that that Kate has done to give him that confidence, but I do think it it is that feeling of can-do and that can do attitude. Yeah, you can do that, you can do that, go for it. Don't worry about what anyone else thinks, you just be you and keep making sure that you turn up, give it your very best with all your energy and all your enthusiasm, and whatever room you walk into, make that room a better place. And I think that's always kind of the advice that that you've given him, and yeah, of course, we're all biased about our children, right? For sure. And you know what? I absolutely celebrate that. I I I listen to so many parents on the sideline that just want to wax lyrical about their child, and being honest, how I deal with that, I I always try to tell them how good they are before they do, because I always think it comes better from me than from them. But I think to celebrate this, because if we, you know, we you know, we live a much better life if we see the best in people, and if we can see the very best in people, and listen, if we can't see the very best in our children, what chance have any of us got? So, yeah, for me, you know, to parents, it would always be, yeah, absolutely, see the best in them, tell them that they can, and uh yeah, and when they do fail, because guess what? It's inevitable and it will happen, just be there for them, create a soft landing, pick them up, push them, push them forward again, tell them to go again and uh and giddy up and go again. Exactly that.

Speaker 1 48:26

Okay, anything from you to to finish off?

Speaker 48:29

Yeah, I'm just thinking about more probably Bella because she's a bit older, so she's probably had more experiences, but actually there was a lot of her school life which she had success, which would have been off of the back of her sporting experiences. You know, even I remember we went to St George's Park and I think it was a BBC Essex interview, and we just thrust her in front of the camera and she didn't know what she was doing, but she coped with it, and we didn't tell her anything about it before and after. She I can't believe you made me do that. But then when we watched back and reflected on it, I think she took some confidence from it, you know. I actually, and I said, Well, and not many 14-year-olds would have been able to do that and speak coherently to adults. I said, So, yeah, and I think a lot of a lot of our children's um maturity comes off of the back of our transient life. They've had to make new friends, so it's hard to so we attribute quite because that can be deemed quite negative that you know you're up in sticks and you're leaving friends. We always we're as a family, we've always hone honed in on positives, so we take the positive out of every environment of every experience. And I think for us, I think for the children, they've developed as much from moving from school and different environments as they have from their sports. I think probably they work alongside each other. And for example, Isabella last week went into a senior environment, um, she trained with Portsmouth Football Club, and she just went in completely unfazed. You know, she went in in her Arsenal kit, didn't worry. She didn't want to put a Portsmouth kit on or anything like that. She was just comfortable in her own skin, and she and it's those things that you then reflect back on in a couple of weeks' time. So when you did that, you should take confidence in the fact that you you didn't worry that you didn't have long socks or would they wear shimpads, you just got on with it. So I think it's kind of a good thing to do as a parent is to reflect on something that's happened, you know, a week or two down the line actually hone in on the actual skills that were displayed there. Um, because it uh we're very process oriented as people, aren't we? And we kind of we we don't look at the outcome of something, we look at all of the different skills and and um yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2 50:45

Keep seeing what keep seeing the best in them, keep seeing what they can do, try try keep avoiding what they can't do, keep seeing what they can do, and I I just believe that yeah, this is this is a really good way to live.

Speaker 1 50:57

Brilliant. Thank you guys, what a great way to end. Thank you for joining us on the show. Uh hopefully uh we might be able to revisit this a few years down the line. Things may have changed a little bit by the goodness.

Speaker 2 51:10

Golden, if you work it out, if you work parenting out, if you could just give us a call and let us know, we'd uh we'd be really appreciative of that, mate.

Speaker 1 51:17

Yeah, likewise, and and I think that's been the beauty of this. Hopefully, we've brought to life uh some of the challenges, some of the realities uh in today's show. Um, but yeah, thanks guys, thanks once again, and hopefully we will speak again soon.

Speaker 51:31

Oh, brilliant. Thanks, Gordon.

Speaker 1 51:33

Thank you for listening. Check us out at momentsport.co.uk