Parenting in TENNIS - My experiences and learnings

PATIENCE  -The key Mantra

It was 2016. I was prepping up for a tennis match – Not to play, but to watch.

Yes, I must mentally prepare myself to watch the match, as it was my son playing. It was a national level tennis tournament for U-14 years category.

I sat on a wooden bench close to the court. The boys were warming up inside the court. Few others were gathered to watch the same match. My eyes were fixed on the court, anxiously waiting for the match to commence.

The referee entered the court and positioned himself at the net at the centre of the court and tossed a coin. The coin fell flat on the ground. It was a head. The referee had a word with the winner of the toss to decide on who gets to serve first. My son’s opponent chose to serve.

All was set. The players moved apart, sipped few drops of water from their bottles and ran to their positions on the respective sides of the court, and the MATCH BEGAN.

I got up from my bench and started to wander as the match was in progress. The opponent was playing well, but I believed my son could win if he was focused and played with his fullest potential possible. Well, this sounds simple but very hard to execute. Expecting a 11-year-old boy to maintain his focus and play flawlessly throughout the match was clearly asking enough of him. That is unfair. But I knew very little that time. I was not thinking deep. I wanted him to play hard, make no mistakes, hit all the balls flat to the baseline, no double faults.

So, there I was leaning to the fence, looking closely at my son. There were few long rallies, not very impressive ones. I noticed that he is returning the balls short, making it easier for the opponent to hit winners left and right. I got furious. After every ball, my son looked at me. It has become a habit by now, still trying to avoid. Every time he looked at me, I stared at him. I made movements with my hands asking him to hit hard. But these body languages did not seem to help. He got very frustrated at my reaction. The game was getting worse. He was making lot of errors, was not moving fast in the court, missed the balls that came his way, his service was also not working in his favour. Overall, nothing was going good and he lost the first set 3-6.

It is disheartening when we lose a match that we are supposed to win. The match was not over yet. My son still had a chance to make it right. Ideally, I should have encouraged him, motivated him and given him the confidence that he could still win. But, no. Unfortunately, I did not do that. I left the place frustrated leaving my husband behind at the venue.

I went to my room and buried myself with the messages and mails for distraction. In next 45 minutes I got a message in my phone from mu husband “He won. Three sets. 3-6,6-0,6-1”.

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We as parents generally have high expectations from our children, especially when we have an ambitious goal set for them, in this case, becoming a professional tennis player. My son is highly passionate about tennis. He loves to play tennis.

We registered him in a tennis academy. When he started to show improvement in his game and was getting more involved with the sport, my husband and I decided to take it to the next level, to give him more exposure, to increase his coaching sessions and to let him play tournaments at state and national level, just as all other ambitious parents of ambitious kids.

The whole process was a roller coaster ride. In this chaotic schedule of coaching sessions, academics and tournaments it becomes extremely important for us to understand and empathise with the child’s physical and mental pressures.

But when we ourselves are under tremendous pressure to expect the unrealistic results from our kids, how do we manage to ease their state of mind? This is where few of us fail drastically! I have failed many times in different situations. It took me six years to understand this, and I am still learning.

I accompanied my son to all the classes and tournaments. Basically, I was with him all the time. My complete attention was on him.

“ Is he doing his warm-up properly, is he skipping with the rope for the required counts, is he stretching his legs and arms well before entering the court? In the court is he doing the rallies well with his partner. Is he hitting the balls to the baseline? Is he always on toes, is he moving well? After the practice, is he doing his warm-down as instructed by the coach.”

For a year or so, everything seemed to go well and hopefully right. But times change, kids change and so their thoughts.

They do not want to be noticed all the time, they do not want to be micromanaged. My son was also going through this phase where he wanted some space, did not want to be observed and monitored. But I guess I chose to ignore this.      

For me the only thing that mattered was to ensure that he is focused, in-spite of being flocked by his friends, and if I find him getting involved in a chat I get annoyed, lose my temper and release my anger on him after he is out from his coaching session. But, later in the day when I am relaxed and linger about the incident I realize that I overreacted. I put myself under immense stress in the wake of monitoring my son. This turmoil gets converted into anger and outburst on my son which clearly is not right. He should enjoy the game, he should have fun, not fear while playing. 

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Tennis was just another sport for me, until my son started playing. As the days passed by, I got more exposed to the game through my son and I began to enjoy the whole process of training. I liked to watch the students play in the tennis academy.

During this period, I developed quite a few preconceived notions about the game. I believed that -

❌All balls should be hit to the baseline

❌All balls to be returned flat

❌No ball should be lifted or raised much above the net

❌Should always play aggressive shots

So whenever I found my son playing any differently, I would give instructions from outside
the court to play hard and flat, irrespective of him having a coach to guide and correct him.

But over a period of time I understood that I was WRONG. All shots cannot be or need not be hit flat. Tennis has evolved, it is not the same. The game requires variety.  After interacting with coaches and after watching many tennis matches, I could understand and appreciate the nuances of the game. When I knew that I was ignorant about few areas of the game, I took a back seat and gave him some space. His coach is training him well.

I later learnt various ways of hitting the ball like Top spin and short cross courts.  

Sometimes my son intentionally hits a short cross court as part of a strategy and I misinterpret that. He later gives a valid reason for choosing that shot, that I could not even think of.

We are no better than the Coaches. Coaches are professionals, and they know the inside-out of the game. So, I decided not to interfere with the technical aspects of the game.
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Children grow, they mature, they think; but we ignore the changes and still treat them as kids. I guess the problem lies there. We must evolve along with them. There is so much to learn from them, and I believe we should be open to that.

Sometimes we should be tough, sometimes soft!

Sometimes we should control them, sometimes let them loose!

Sometimes micromanage, sometimes give them their space.

The challenge is in knowing when to do what. It is highly complicated, but I am in the process of understanding and figuring out the ways to handle different situations.

In these six years of my experience, I have learnt few things.

Tasks that kids cannot do at the age of 12, they can do at 14. We should just make sure they are putting in the necessary hard work and going in the right direction to attain their respective level at their respective age.

Expectations must be realistic. The efforts should not be result oriented, but performance oriented.

Should never compare with other kids in the same group. Each one is different from the other.

Most importantly ----

Patience, Patience and more patience!!!

-       is the only mantra I can think of right now.

The journey is still on. Life is going to throw more tests and trials in the path. I just hope I handle the situations better, be more patient and give my son the needed attention and the needed space, yet not lose focus of the goal that we as a family have set together.