1. Coach Wade addresses parents, guardians, and supporters, urging them to clarify how they want to show up for their athlete after the athlete completes vision work.

2. He invites supporters to define a personal “north star” for their role—who they want to be during the athlete’s successes, struggles, and moments of anger or lashing out—so their reactions aren’t dictated by the athlete’s behavior.

3. He recommends writing answers by hand in a notebook and, if applicable, integrating spiritual or religious practices like prayer or meditation.

4. He emphasizes there is no single right approach (hands-on or hands-off depends on age and stage),

5. He encourages listening without escalating conflict, and suggests using the written vision as an anchor to return to during difficult moments as part of an ongoing growth process.

Coach Wade here. So athletes, hopefully you've done your vision for your play, your fun and your work. And now parents, guardians, supporters... I want you to consider how you can be supporting your athletes. So you might want to watch the first video about the vision work I've suggested they do. And if they've done that work, I think it's definitely great if they'll share with you, for you to see what their vision is.

In this video, I want to talk to you specifically as the parent, the guardian, the supporter, the person who is behind the athlete, cheering them on, supporting them, sometimes perhaps challenging them to maybe engage more, sometimes just observing and cheering them on and trying to balance that. And so without giving you a specific sense of how I think it should be, what I want invite you to do is consider... what do you want it to be like?

Who do you want to be to your athlete? What do you want that to be like where you are that supportive parent guardian, that supporter of them? And what does that look like? And who do you want to be in relationship to them regardless of where they are? So some days they're going to have good days and they're going to be really focused and they're going to get great results and it's going to be very easy

to be the supporter that you want to be of your athlete. And on other days they're going to struggle. They're going to have tough days, and they're going to be looking to you. Sometimes they might be fighting with you, they might be bickering at you, they might be complaining about their sport. And those are also going to be the things we look at.

Who do you want to be in relation to them? As far as you being able to choose who you are without being determined by how they're acting. So maybe as a different way to look at it, as a parent sometimes we know there's situations that our children will do that they kind of put us in situations where we're a little embarrassed, we're not feeling great, we're feeling like, okay, everybody's watching.

But then the question becomes, okay, who am I going to be as this child's parent or guardian in relation to this situation? Am I going to be the yeller? Am I going to be the screamer? Am I going to be the scolder? Am I going to be, whatever it is? Who do I want to be in that? And so I'm going to encourage you that this short bit of work here can help you get clear about this and create a vision that allows you to have as a bit of a north star or guiding principle.

And I certainly encourage you, and I'll do this with all this work, anytime you're doing vision work, if you have a certain code or spiritual beliefs or religious beliefs that guide you, I encourage you to tap into those. So if you want to say a prayer before you do this, if you want to meditate on this, whatever it is.

This is life. This is meant to be the most sacred things we do of our relationships with our children and those sort of things. So I encourage you to bring that in as well. So I'm going to just invite you to consider something very basic and as I told the athlete, this will be helpful for you to either write on a piece of paper or if you can get a composition journal, just a composition notebook or a notebook, a great place for you to write in there, writing with our hands...

As opposed to typing is usually a better form of learning. There's been a lot of research done on that and the connection between the brain and the hand and us writing it. So what I want you to think about, and I'm just going to use the word supporter, that could be a parent, that could be a guardian, it could be a friend.

If you could choose how you show up for your athlete, what do you want that to look like? And there's a few situations that I find are very common. So first of all, when they are in their good space and they're winning and they're celebrating and they're happy, who do you want to be to them? Do you want to be that person that celebrates with them and / or the person who cheers them on?

The person who compliments them? The person who points them out to others and gives them recognition? Who do you want to be in relationship to your athlete's success and their happiness? Do you want to be somebody who's part of helping them plan that? Do you want to be somebody that's looking with them at their goals and at their timelines and their plans?

And are you that person that's maybe helping them create that success by supporting them and. Saying, okay, hey, don't forget to, you know, put out your clothes or don't forget to do the thing that you do, or whatever it might be? And again, there's no right or wrong answer. You might say, I want to be the parent that is more hands off that allows them to do their thing and take ownership of their journey, depending on their age or their stage, or you might say...

Actually at this stage, I want to be that parent that's doing it with them. Or maybe they're really young and like, well, actually I just want to be the parent that they just have to show up and I'm going to help 'em with the other things. So again, I don't have a right or wrong answer here. Ultimately, most of us want our kids to eventually, of course, become adults and do their own thing, but everybody's at different stages. And certainly one of the things that I've been

able to tune into and watching my daughter's journey is my daughter, like many athletes today is involved in so many things with school, with grades, with AP classes, with all these things. So sometimes even though there's a part of me that says, ah, she should be able to do that, then I think, wait, she's working.... she's involved in this club... she's doing this other thing. You know what I can without resentment, give to her and support her journey and be that person. So again, who do you want to be in relationship to support them when they're doing well? Second question, and again, you can just write about this, you can pause at any time you want. Who do you want to be in relationship to them when they're struggling? When they're perhaps feeling a little overwhelmed... or they didn't get the result they wanted in the match... or they didn't get the partner that they wanted, if it's, let's say beach volleyball. If it's indoor volleyball or another sport, they didn't get the spot on the roster that they wanted or they got injured or just things aren't going well or according to plan. Who do you want to be in relationship to them?

Do you want to be a little bit of their friend? Do you want to be a little bit of the mentor? Do you want to be the person that just kind of holds up a mirror to them and says, Hey, yeah, I see you're struggling. What do you think? Here's what's going on. Do you want to be the person that just asks them the questions and helps them come to their own solutions?

Again, no specific answer here, that's right or wrong, just something to help you look at how you continue to form and evolve that relationship with your athlete or your child. And then finally, who do you want to be to your child when they lash out or when they're completely just down and they're mad and they're upset and they're ticked off... who do you want to be in relationship to that?

Because if you've been in the sports journey long enough at some point, or just any relationship for that matter, we as people get irrational, we blame people for things. People will sometimes criticize us for things that weren't our fault. And who do you want to be in relationship to that?

Do you want to be the person that fights back? Do you want to be the person that says, you can't talk to me like that? No! And then, and yells back, if they curse that curses back? Do you want to be the person that kind of just absorbs it and allows it, but then says nothing? Do you want to be the person that allows 'em a little bit of wiggle room, but then also says, Hey, here's what's going on.

Well, let's look at this. Do you want to be the person that asks just simply what's wrong? Clearly, something seems to be off because you're attacking me. I don't think I've done anything unless you want to tell me. Did I do something that I'm not aware of? I definitely find in my case, the more I can let an athlete, a worker in the business work I do.

A child of ours when they're really upset, at least for me, getting in the battle with them and going head to head usually doesn't work very well. And especially if they're a competitive athlete like I am or like you might be. If your kid's kind of like you, that's often not a good thing. And sometimes just letting them...

just share all their frustrations and just listening and not in any way owning it. Like, Hey, you want to blame me? That's fine. You can blame me. But that's. Not my stuff. That's your stuff as I like to tell. And my wife and I like to tell our kids like, we already went through college. We already went through high school.

These are your things and we're happy to share perspective if you want, but if you just want to, you know, get mad or blame us or whatever, okay, we're not going to fight you. But we're also not going to take ownership of that as if it's ours. So just think about that. And I just say this because sometimes we want to write these things down

now, because later when the storm comes, we want to have an anchor and sometimes things won't go according to plan. We want to be able to look back at our vision and say, ah, man, I wanted to be that person. And in fact, I'm going to clarify this specifically. When this person does this, my child does this, I want to be this person.

I, okay, and I'm going to try that again and I might have to go back to it. And it's a growth process. But this is something that I know I've done with both of our children over the years. It's led me to grow. It's led me to realize at times when I'm wrong. It's led me to realize when I'm making it about me as opposed to about them.

And then other times it's just been about, no, hey, this is your journey and now you're blaming me for something. And it's just been for me to let it be and let them sort it out and not fix it. But just be that support that they could feel safe enough to lash out and share their frustration.

And me just listen and then see who they come back as an hour later, a day later when they gather their senses. So I encourage you to go ahead and answer these questions. If you have questions on this, please let me know. I look forward to helping you be the supporter for your athlete that you most want to be as you help them on their journey towards their goals and dreams.