Tennis Parenting is hard
The journey of junior tennis is full of ups and downs and everywhere in between. The roller coaster of emotions and turmoil is unavoidable. When dealing with players that are growing up and competing, and trying to handle everything from the court to socially to school pressures, it can get pretty nutty. It’s as if you have to remove all logic, rationale, and accountability just to understand them. I try to help parents approach it where you’re no longer raising a normal child, you’re raising a tennis player. This can get confusing, because there are different paths you have to go down that are less instinctive and ones you have to learn. Specifically in regard to rescuing them. In life, of course, there is a lot of pain and suffering that we try to keep them from, on the tennis court we need them to feel it and learn from it, not run to their aid if they are upset or crying. They are never in real danger during competition or practice. The instinct is to help, but the question is are you actually helping? This is just one small example of discussions and topics that are addressed. All parents and players are different. Each length of the journey is different. Trust the process, keep perspective, and remember that as hard as it is it will all be worth it!
Common Discussions
Specialization in tennis is one of the top things I am asked about from ages 8-12 or so. Let’s approach it from a skill point of view. Tennis is an anticipatory sport, which means that you have to be able to use visual cues to be able to read and react before things happen. There are other sports that require this same skill and therefore allows you to cross train. Skill set wise tennis favors early development for sure, but sampling other sports for a while and growing passion for tennis is important. So, part of the equation with choosing tennis full time needs to be the players desire to do so, allowing them to try different things, and simultaneously making sure they are hitting the parameters in tennis needed to be successful. The most interesting debate that I have heard is Tiger vs Federer. Tiger specialized from birth, and Federer played many sports till around 14. Both are legends. From my point of view there are a number of intrapersonal and interpersonal skills that you gain from other sports and having a more generalized approach, versus specializing too early, makes a lot of sense.
It’s not an exact science but by breaking down the time spent is where we find the answer. What do the hours look like? What are they doing during that time? Their age could even be the number of hours a week they play. Structured play needs to be probably around 75% of that, and they need to find a few hours to play on their own having fun, setting up their own practices and matches with self-discovery workouts.
I always say you cannot burn out until you have caught fire. If they love playing, let them play. As parents you want to dangle the carrot in front of them as much as possible though. Burn out comes from tediousness and a lack of joy in what they are doing, so coaches and parents have a responsibility to keep them stimulated. Controlling the on-court time is your job as the manager, and the program they are following is the job of the coaches. Keep it fresh, keep it fun!
The absolute plague of the UTR/WTN is real and rampant. Players below a 8-9 UTR shouldn’t even look at it at all. Below a 6 shouldn’t even exist! Back to the topic. The numbers are often misconstrued and players are way too aware of them. I hear this all the time, “I play a 4.32.” I can’t think of something less healthy as a competitor. There are some metrics to it, sure. They give a glimpse into someone’s level, but that number is based on a range of results. The difference between a 3-4 UTR could literally be fundamental milestones like learning how to serve better. I don’t think in that developmental stage there should be a label on kids. On top of all of this, you as parents get completely wrapped up in it as well. If your player is a 5 and they play a 6 you already think they will lose. The tournament hasn’t even started yet and parents and player have already lost mentally. Again, I can’t think of something more unhealthy. Be aware of it but do not make it part of your lifestyle and culture.
Tennis Parenting Survivors
A couple messages from families I have worked with for many years. All securing their college tennis dreams! With dedication, trust, and commitment, everyone will reach their goals! Everyone has their own tough journey and ups and downs. In the end, its all worth it!
Chris and Sue Shannon
Aly, Summer, and Kylie – All D1 College Tennis
We have known Coach John for 7 years. He has worked with all 3 of our girls, most notably Aly who he coached to a top 10 National Ranking, secured a Division One scholarship to SEC powerhouse University of Tennessee and win multiple Gold, Silver and Bronze balls.
John is a great technical coach as well as strategist but his biggest attribute is his relations with his students and the trust his players have in his opinions and teachings.
Tennis can be very stressful for players and parents. John always brings a sense of calm and perspective that is critical when communicating before, during and after tournaments as well as practice.
Colin Santos
Harper Santos
College of Charleston
Coach John’s commitment to our daughter and our family was unwavering as he helped us navigate the emotional stress of competitive junior tennis. He stood by us during the challenging teenage years, helping our family through the emotional highs and lows and was always there through thick and thin—ultimately guiding her to earn a D1 college scholarship.
Tennis Parenting Hot Topics
Parenting is hard. Tennis parenting is harder. As parents, it’s almost impossible to be objective and remain indifferent to the ups and downs tennis brings. You love your child, you want them to do well, and that can bring an entire range of emotions. Trying not to rescue them is hard. You have to always remember that they need a large amount of failure and setback to become their best self. In relation to their successes and failures, how to handle can bring tough questions with tough answers. Let’s go over some potential road blocks and topics. Some may be hard to hear, but all of them are to get some dialogue going for us to discuss. All information is solely to guide you, and to find more comfort on the long journey.
“Will my kid be great?”
I hear this question a lot with younger players and parents just starting out. It’s a really tough one to answer because there are so many factors involved. I’m not a huge fan of the word “potential” and prefer the word “ability” because you can answer the question easier. Does he/she have potential versus Does he/she have ability? Even in reading that back you can see that one is based on the present and is right in front of us and the other is set in the future and based on “if’s”. I just think when it comes to fortune telling, it’s impossible. When it comes to looking at the statistics surrounding youth sports, we can somewhat find some parameters for being successful. If they love tennis, work hard, and enjoy competing, they are certainly going to have a great start. If they are lazy, don’t listen, don’t love what they do, then certainly you are in for disaster. We do know is that if the player has played other sports alongside tennis, they’re most likely going to have an advantage. The science behind this is pretty straightforward. Sampling sports and cross training can aid in learning skills that overlap which can help young athletes pick up things faster, especially with anticipatory sports like tennis. Genetics do play a role as well. Hopefully you’re not saying “oh no” right now. There is also around a 50% success rate of a player reaching a high level if their parents were high-level athletes, too. Which to me just means they understand the journey better and don’t create or add as many roadblocks. My advice is pretty simple. Give your kids an opportunity to be successful by putting them in an environment to thrive, breed their passion for all sports and competitions, and let them fall in love with what they gravitate towards. The junior tennis journey is tough enough, so loving it has to be a prerequisite!
“They don’t want us to watch at tournaments…”
This comes up in every single player’s journey. At some point, they don’t want you watching them and can even get very adamant that you are the root cause of their anxiousness and or high stress levels. The hard part is there could be some truth to this, and with a coach present, you should be able to come up with great boundaries and plans for everybody to feel comfortable at a tournament. Most of the time, players feel judged by their parents, and that can be a catalyst for overstimulation and anxiety. I usually tend to err on the side of parents can do whatever they would like to do, and the child doesn’t have much say in it because they are not the ones paying the bills or sacrificing the time and effort to get them to tournaments. So if a player has an irrational take on what’s going on, I try to nip it in the bud pretty quickly and tell the parents that they can go watch as much as they want. If something is happening where parents are causing too much stress and having unnecessary conversations before and after matches, then we just need to shut those down. Moral of the story – go watch them, get to a point where they enjoy having you there and you enjoy watching them play whether they win, lose, or play great, or have a meltdown.
College tennis-Can they do it?
The college tennis question to me is a resounding yes they can. What college, what level, and what the journey looks like could be a big variable. Let’s start with the big dream. If we work backwards, an 18-year-old men’s tennis player entering at the D1 level needs to be around a 13 UTR, and women’s around a 10. These numbers I’m talking about are for a top 40 D1 school. There are a lot of D1 schools that even a D2 or D3 school would easily be able to beat, and that’s probably an entirely different topic. So going back to working backwards at 18 years old, to be between a 12 and 13 UTR, that means as a sophomore, you need to be around a 10 in the men’s and 8 1/2 to 9 UTR in women’s. So if we go back even more when you’re in eighth grade, you need to be between a 7 to 8 UTR in women’s and an 8 to 9 UTR in men’s. From my experience, the maximum UTR point jump that somebody can make after reaching a 7 UTR is about one full point a year. Remember what I said, though, everybody’s journey and variables could be quite different. Somebody that decides to homeschool or has homeschooled the whole time, has a time advantage. Players that have injuries or are later starters could have some setbacks, but also might have a more fresh perspective on the grind. There can be many different factors that play into what it will look like before somebody is signing their national letter of intent to go to a school. We certainly do know that if somebody wants to play college tennis, there is a school for everybody. I think that everybody sets their sights on the big dream schools, which is completely normal, but there are thousands of colleges with great teams that provide great experiences.
What to say, When to say it…
The best thing you can do is let your kids come to you and bring up topics in relation to tennis. There are certainly times you can be casual about it and have a nice conversation, but you do have to be careful. Age and level is a big factor too. Often times there is a heavy mismatch when it comes to the energy of your child and the energy you are bringing. For example: They come off a match and they are tired, maybe beat up a bit by the match, and as parents we want to come in immediately and talk and have a higher energy level. Of course they will withdraw from the conversation and undoubtedly the parent gets upset. Another example is quite a bit simpler to understand which is you have not seen your child all day long because they have been at practice from 7 till 5pm and you were at work, so when you see them you want to talk and know what’s going on with their day etc. Again this energy almost always is not matched. They are exhausted. They are teenagers (they don’t want to talk to you). They are decompressing. Let them! Athletes do need time to decompress. Learning to separate “normal kid” and “tennis player” is something I always encourage because the boundaries are a little bit different.
Wondering how practice went…
Very simply, stop asking about practice. Completely. Most of the time parents have an expectation and are waiting for that to be met by the feedback of the player. “I played great, against a great player, all the coaches loved me, nothing went wrong.” Yeah that isn’t going to happen. Who they practiced against, what the practice was, what coach they were with, did they win or lose, and on and on…DOES NOT MATTER. So stop thinking that it does. However, I will give you some leniency on one thing though. The program, and the coaches need to be good. If they are consistently around poor coaching and poor players that do not have the same goals etc, then you need to make some adjustments. What you want to know is that they received tough quality coaching, they were pushed and educated, and if hey worked hard. Great questions if you need to know something or just really need to talk would be: Did you work hard today? What did you learn today? What is your coach’s fav Starbucks order so I can grab one for him? (jk) And just remember, these conversations are almost all pre-teen years because teenagers don’t want to talk to you at all. Once they are in their search for identity and independence their AirPods are in before they even get to the car! If you have questions or concerns talk to the coaches directly. It will save your sanity.
Tournaments and how to handle the stress…
Tournament stress is real. For everyone. As parents we want to watch our kids play, and simultaneously see the product that we have paid to produce. If the product and the expectations are not close then emotions can get high. This is the same for the players as well. Spending weeks training hard, tough practices, playing good or bad, and their personal expectations are on the forefront of their mind. Let alone them managing yours. All this is happening inside everyone’s heads, and usually in the car ride to the site and then comes the aftermath after the matches. “Im hoping you did a lot of work on your serve last week so you don’t double fault like last time”. These comments come out a lot. Make sure that your conversations are productive and ask yourself before any comment “Is this going to help?” Specific results are not what careers are built on. Careers are built on a consistent tournament play and results over time. Try to always look at the macro of everything and stay big picture. My greatest recommendation is that you travel with a coach as often as possible or have them take the players. Although a more epensive route, the value far exceeds the price.
Just because something is true, doesn’t mean its useful…
Be careful pointing out the obvious. “You double faulted a lot” does not help. Players know. Please refer to the coaches on anything tennis related and vent to them. A lot of times there is a need to vent our frustrations and the only one around is your child. Try to stick to things that are character based. Did they compete and fight well, did they act professionally, and did they represent your family and coaches respectfully? Those things are not tennis. They are foundational and about the character traits of the player, which of course is directly related to you as parents.
Teenage years…
As players enter their teenage years, it can become challenging for parents to support them. The attitude changes alone can be rough. Teenagers are navigating the world of tennis while also trying to establish their own independence and identity. Their need for personal space and emotional growth can also be difficult for coaches to manage. The key is to separate tennis from family dynamics and utilize the coaching staff to facilitate communication and outreach. This will help alleviate the strain on both parents and coaches, allowing them to support the players in the best way possible. Through coaching over thousands of teenagers, I understand the unique challenges and dynamics of teenage athletes. It can be head scratching at best. I’m happy to offer guidance and support every step of the way.
Coaching Culture vs Home Culture
This is an interesting topic and important. There are a couple ways to discuss this as well. If you have a tough coach, then the parents can’t be tough tennis parents. It has to balance and this is how it should be. If the coach is soft, then the parents usually start to chime in and be the ones that are tough. You want the coach to be the driving tennis force, not the other way around. When it comes to the culture the coach is trying to instill in the player versus their culture at home there is often mismatches as well. For example: A player is being taught to work harder and ownership of their life is put on the forefront. Coaches want them to do things for themselves, and stop leaning on people to do things for them that they can do. Then as soon as they get home, mom and dad do everything for them. I’ve even seen parents carry their kids tennis bags, and it kills me. Make sure the culture you are creating at home for them matches the values of being a high level athlete that knows ownership and responsibility.