Sports psychologist Dr. Jerry Lynch is the author of Let Them Play and the founder/director of Way of Champions, a consulting group geared toward âmastering the inner gameâ for peak sports performance. The parent of four athletic kids, he has over thirty-five years of experience as a sports psychologist, coach, athlete and teacher. Drawing on his work with Olympic, NBA and NCAA champions, he transforms the lives of parents, coaches and youth athletes. Dr. Lynch has been on CBS, NBC and PBS and in the New York Times, Oprah magazine and Sports Illustrated. He received his doctorate in psychology from Penn State University and did post-doctoral work in several areas. Dr. Lynch is the author of 11 books in as many as 10 languages on coaching, leadership, spirituality of sport, warrior spirit, peak performance and sports psychology. He has DVD’s on the Way of the Champion as well as CD sets on Performance in Athletics. Please visit him online at www.wayofchampions.com
When my 5-year-old son was playing soccer, the parents got together and requested that the coach resign. They were unhappy with the way he treated their children. He was yelling at the kids, benching the kids who weren’t good players and generally making the experience so unpleasant that the children didn’t want to come. Unfortunately, this is all too common and our children are suffering. The impressive thing in this instance was that despite the fact that some of the parents were friends with the coach, they had the courage to stand up to him and protect their children. There are rules on how to play various sports, but there are no rules on healthy behavior for parents and coaches. Some people need their children to be star athletes in order to feed their own egos and the child’s needs get overshadowed. It is possible to learn how to parent your athletic child in a way that helps them perform at higher levels, be happy and actually have fun! Please join us Thursday to learn how.
