"Parenting is often 'undisciplined squads of emotion' - a conversation with Richard Shorter

In today's episode, I'm thrilled to welcome back Richard Shorter, also known as 'Non-Perfect Dad', for a deep-dive conversation that every sports parent needs to hear. Rich brings his unique perspective as both a Baptist minister and a "conversation architect" who works with sports organisations, schools, and families to navigate the complex world of sports parenting.

We explore the challenging emotional landscape parents face when supporting young athletes - from managing our own reactions on the sidelines to making tough decisions about how much to push or protect. I share some personal stories about parenting my own kids in sport, and Rich offers brilliant insights about what he calls the "undisciplined squads of emotion" that we all face as sports parents.

Key Timestamps: 

🎯14:20 - "Parents are still allowed to choose how they parent within an ethical safeguarding framework" - Rich challenges some common assumptions about sports parenting

🏆 27:45 - "I made a parenting choice that I didn't want to mortgage my future relationship with my kids" - I share my personal philosophy on youth sport development and the choices we make as parents

⚡ 32:15 - We tackle the complex reality of balancing performance aspirations with maintaining healthy parent-child relationships Whether you're a parent, coach, or working in youth sport, this conversation offers practical insights and honest reflections on how we can better support young athletes while preserving what matters most - our relationships with them.

Connect with Richard: Email: [e-mail] Website: nonperfectdad.co.uk

If you would like to have more conversations like these then you might want to join my leanring group - 'The Guild of Ecological Explorers' - https://www.patreon.com/join/thetalentequation

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-talent-equation-podcast--2186775/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, Stewart here before we get into today's podcast,
I wonder if I can ask you to do me
a favor. I'm hoping that I can get the podcast
to grow to a wider audience. But further it goes,
the more people that it can impact. I often get
letters of messages on social media from many of the
listeners who often talk to me about the impact it's
had on them and the people that they work with.
Sometimes that impact goes as far as family members and

(00:23):
relationships that you hold. I'm hoping that I can get
that message out call wider audience. Now. Obviously, the more
people that listen, the more impact the show can have,
but also the more people that subscribe and download, then
that helps me to invest in the show and put
out more content. As you know, my podcasting of late's
been a little bit sporadic, say the least, and that's
partly due to the fact that I've just been struggling

(00:43):
with capacity. Now I'm hoping to be able to enlist
some help so that I can improve the quality and
improve the amount of podcasts I put out there. But
I can only do that with your help. To please
share it far and wide, you know, use social media
if you want to use your networks through WhatsApp or
other messaging channels that you use, or even if you're
face to pay with people, conferences, seminars, those sorts of places,
let them know about it, encourage them to sign up

(01:04):
and listen. Now, I've got loads of ideas for a
new ways to take the show. I want to bring
on new co hosts other than the world famous Flow
the Dog. I want to do some live streamed episodes
that people can interact with and do Q and as
live Q and a's, and I'm also thinking about doing
live podcasts from conferences as well as bringing on some
big name guests. But I can only do that with
your support. Every single subscription is a massive benefit. Now,

(01:26):
if you want to go a bit further than that,
then there is a Patreon page, and if you go
to the Patreon page, there's opportunities for you to buy
me the equivalent of a cup of coffee. If you're
are to do then that's amazing and that's massively supportive,
but it's not essential. The main thing is if you
could just take the time to share it on your
social media channels or share the episode with somebody that

(01:46):
you know and if you find some value in it,
then pass it on to others and pay it forward.
And if you can do that, I'd be enormously grateful.
Thanks in advance via support.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Welcome to the Townent Equation Podcast. If you are passionate
about helping young people to leash their potential and want
to find ways to do that better, then you've come
to the right place. The Talent Equation podcast seeks to
answer the important questions facing parents, coaches, and talent developers

(02:17):
as they try to help young people become the best
they can be. This is a series of unscripted, unpolished
conversations between people at the razor's edge of the talent
community who are prepared to share their knowledge, experiences and
challenges in an effort to help others get better faster. Listen, reflect,

(02:38):
and don't forget to join the discussion at the Talent
Equation dot co dot uk. Enjoy the show.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Right we were in the middle of a brewing conversation
to press with forwards that it's been a long time.
Well over to you, Richard Shorter, non perfect Dad. Great
to have you back on the show.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
May It's been brilliant. I've really appreciated talent equation and
Stud's support over the years, and yeah, we do have
some great conversations. So I'm glad you've found that little
red button.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
We've done the plastic thing and we started chatting and
the next thing you know, we're up an hour in
and we're having an amazing conversation and having presserable ridiculous right.
So here we are, welcome back to it. We've we've
narrowed our time. We're going to be super focused, quick rechat.
I remember how long it was since you were last
gone far too long, but a little bit about you
and what's been going on, just to catch everybody.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Up well, So managed Richard short hour were two hats.
I'm a Baptist church minister in the heartland of Essex
in Upminster, and I run well, I'm the non perfect dad.
A non perfect dad has the privilege of going into schools,
sports organizations to help parents, coaches and young people have
better conversations within each other, within that kind of athletic

(04:03):
triangle they technically call it on LinkedIn. I call myself
a conversation architect, and all that simply means there's lots
of architects get in touch with me and say what
buildings have you designed recently? So it doesn't cut of backfires,
but that is genuinely I want to help there be
better conversations, not just better thinking, but actually practically into behavior.

(04:23):
Does that what does that look like, What does it
look like to give kids better experiences in their sports journey?
What does it look like to be collaborative between parent,
coach and young person. And how do we help those
conversations happen in a more honest, helpful way which helps
the kid take their sport as far as they can
both in personal development and helps institutions and parents take

(04:47):
what they already want to do. I believe most institutions
and parents really want to help their kids thrive as
human beings. And yet sometimes some of that pressure, some
of the cultural misunderstand around sport and high performance get
in the way of those conversations being helpful and useful
for young people.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
And we're definitely going to touch on that because that's
a big area that we want to talk about today,
a little bit about some of the narratives of performance.
But before I jump into that, a number of years ago,
one of the things that brought us together, amongst many things.
You've written a great book called Conversations for the Journey,
and I just wanted to let you know that I

(05:27):
know writing books in the labor of love, and I've
threatened to do one several times and never quite made it.
So although I'm very close and very close, so watch
this space, but that book's actually been really beneficial to
me in so many ways, and our conversations that we've
had subsequently, you know, either like this or when we've

(05:47):
recorded or when we haven't recorded it as generally have
been super beneficial because you know, as you know, I coach,
coach my kids. I've got young I've booked two young
young well young, they're gaining increasingly old now seventeen thirteen,
you know, moving their way through the various different worlds
of sport and physical activity and having the trials and

(06:09):
tribulations and the inevitable challenges that come their way, and
in particular with my son, who's you know, starting to
now branch into the idea of how do I go
down a career routes and all these sorts of things.
We've had an awful lot of car journeys, and we've
had an awful lot of those kinds of conversations, and
many of the insights in your book have popped into
my mind during some of those more difficult moments, you know,

(06:32):
where we've had that disappointing moment, or we've had some
behavioral issues that need to be addressed. Most recently. In fact,
I'll just tell you very quick story because I think
it's useful. Hopefully, my son pushing now. He wants to
get into the first team, you know, and he'd be
quite a young players against first team and play at

(06:54):
national league level. But he's right on the edge, right
on the edge. And he had a game where I
was the coach on the sideline and he'd made he'd
actually played pretty well, but then made a couple of
mistakes later on in the game and he basically a
stop it's threw his stick away. He got officer, get
me off, get me off on rubbish, and then stood

(07:15):
on the bench and I was like, wow, crazy, I'm
not sure you would have done that if anybody else
had been stood here on sideline. You're taking advantage of
the fact that I'm here, So I needless to say,
our conversation on the way home is an interesting one,
but I had a number of things in I had
you in my head when I was having that conversation
about how do I handle this discussion? Now, I won't
be I'll be honest with you. It was a tough conversation,

(07:35):
you know, but it wasn't. It wasn't in any way
a right. This is the kind of conversation you're going
to dread. It was a conversation around I just want
you to reflect on some of your behavior, and I
want you to reflect on how you think that's that
would have, you know, come across to anybody observing. I
think you also want to think about, you know, whether
you would have done something like that if somebody else

(07:56):
had been here and just he thought that you want
to just go away with them stand there, you know,
he took it to be fair here. The interesting thing though,
a few weeks later he'd managed to do really well
and he was on the edge of selection for the
first team, and he was really excited about it, and
a few players had said to him, look, you know,
you might get in here, and he was getting pretty
keen and he didn't make it, and the coach gave

(08:18):
him some feedback on a WhatsApp and a number of
different things, But one of the things was I was
watching that day when you grew your stick and got
off a sideline, and I've got a bit of a
question about your mentality and whether you're ready for this level.
Now talk about a lesson learned, but it was really interesting,
nonetheless about and so afterwards, you know, instead of meters

(08:40):
saying I told you so, that again had another moment
where it was more a question of so what do
we now do with that? How do we channel that
forwards to then work out how the way we're going
to operate going forward knowing that there's always a pair
of eyes on you every single moment for all time,
and you're being evaluated all the time when you go
down this journey towards performance. So just an interesting lesson

(09:02):
that we learned there about well, I learned a little
bit about, you know, the conversations that we need to
have with our kids as we're traveling to and from places.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
But the fact that you didn't say I told you
so in that stories, I think probably I can't tell
you how hard it was, mate, I know, and I
think this is because that I told you so is
the kind of that that inner teen of you wanting
to win the conversation. I told you point, dad knows something,
and I think that is for me. That's the crux

(09:31):
of the whole sport parent journey is how we regulate ourselves,
not to say we're not emotional, like you say, acknowledging
I really wanted to say that, and it's a very
normal response of very normal reaction. It's not doesn't make
you a bad parent for wanting to get to kind
of have some proof in the bank with your child
that you are wise and all powerful. But the challenge

(09:52):
is how do we are sports posts And it's the
same for coaches, how do we be the adults in
the room to be the most helpful to the young
people that we're working with. In that One of the
things that doesn't sit comfortably with him is that I'm
profoundly dyslexic and I really love poetry, and those two
things like don't tie up particularly well. But in ts
Eliot's Four Quarters, he talks about like conversations, and one

(10:16):
of the phrases he uses when trying to articulate, he
talks about an undisciplined squad. Undisciplined squads of emotion undisciplined
squads of emotion, And I think like the crux of
being a sports parent is how do you roll with
those undisciplined squads of emotion that are inside you doing
all sorts of things like, oh, no, did the coach

(10:36):
see that? What does the coach think of you? What
does the coach think of me as your parent that
I let you you do that? Why did my child
let themselves down? Do they not realize if you can
master most of the time, because no one's perfect hence
nonperfect dad, if you can master those undisciplined squads of
emotions or at least roll with them in a way
that you can continue to be helpful with your child

(10:58):
and their coach in those play And it's because it's
the same thing about, oh, my child's not being selected.
I'm going to message that coach, I'm going to talk
to that coach. Part of me wants to ask you,
how did you respond to that coaches see Did you
go and talk to the coach? There's another undisciplined squad
of emotion going. Do I talk to them? Do I not?
What's the best thing to do? My son took a
year out last year and went to Australia, went to
play for a very famous team in Sydney in their

(11:21):
cults program, and they looked after them horrendously. And the
only two things that helped us as parents get through
one Russell earnshaw son was at the club as well,
so Rusty and I were able to go because you're
also having this experience and my son is, so we
knew it wasn't personal, and my son knew it wasn't
personal because he was able to see other players were
getting treated worse, worse than him, but just really unprofessional environment,

(11:41):
really unfair and unkind to a bunch of lads the
other side of the world. And I had so many
undisciplined squads of emotion rolling through me, like how do
I support my son? Do we message the club do,
what do we do about it? How do I be
the adult in the room to help another adult because
he was eighteen at the time, processes, especially when he

(12:01):
would ring us at the end of his day, which
was the start of our day, all in a fluster,
understandably upset, wanting to offload, and then that would torpedo
our day because we'd be worried about our son or
he'd ring us first thing in the morning or his morning,
which would be our last thing at night, saying I
haven't slept, really anxious, I don't know how today's going
to go, and then I'd have to try and go
to bed on those undisciplined squads of emotion. And yet

(12:23):
like leaning in on all the non perfect AD stuff
to try and be helpful. I think I was helpful.
I think there were definitely conversations that I weren't as
helpful as I could have been. But for me, that
is the crux of what I'm trying to do at
Non Perfect AD is to try and help parents and
coaches think about the practical ways in which they might
be helpful in those moments when they want to lean
in on old habits that would be unhelpful, well meaning,

(12:45):
but unhelpful.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, And that was why it was so useful for me.
And you know, when you've written a book like that,
and it was a while ago when you wrote that,
you know, it's easy to forget some of those things.
But some of those things a conversation that we've had
and the conversations in the book have been really useful.
They've and and again often we do things like storytelling
like we're just doing now, or we share sharing experiences

(13:09):
or whatever it is, and those things have actually stayed
with me, you know, from a learning standpoint, more so
than you know, if I would just have done some
something you know, we've gone to an online workshop, had
done a course or something like that. It was interesting
because because those things have really been quite powerful. But
equally the thing for me was, I like this idea
of squonsive emotion. And that's the problem. You see it

(13:31):
too easily. I think it would be very easily easy
to be to be to respond purely based on your
emotional response, which may or may not be something positive.
What you're able to do is you kept me or
your teachings, I suppose, kept me mindful of where my

(13:52):
state was. Something that Mark Bennett and I talk about
a lot is understanding your state and then understanding what's
what a way of approaching this and so being a
bit more mindful of the way you're going to approach
the conversation rather than just launching into it with whatever
emerges from, you know, kind of that emotional world that
you know, sometimes it's brilliant, but other times it can

(14:14):
be I know, for me, anyway. You know, if I
just purely and simply go with that sort of that
emotional side of me, yeah, that can be hit and miss.
Let's put it that way.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
One of the games I like to play with people
because I think you know, doing my sessions, we try
and have lots of conversations. And one of the things
I like to say is like, make here's a conversation.
Your child's just been dropped, or your child hasn't been
selected for the first team, or they've they've been released
from this Catwan football club. Whatever. Now make this conversation.
Buddy up with someone in the room. One of you
play the child, one of you be the adult, will
swap it over. Now, make this the worst conversation possible,

(14:50):
Like be the worst kind of parent that you can
be in that moment. Because then that's fun and people
enjoy playing the caricature. It gives people permission maybe to
what mirror some of the behaviors they know they have done,
but because it's in a playful game, they don't feel
shamed or anything like that. What is fascinating from those conversations,
as well as the kind of laughter as we feedback

(15:11):
what people said, well, that's it, there's no dinner, all
that money I've invested, you know, people kind of come
up with really extremes. Is people start to see the
thread of oh, yeah, that's that emotion completely unregulated. That's
like ten out of ten on regulation or zero out
of ten regulation, depending on how you do the scale.
But I recommize sometimes I'm a four or five on

(15:31):
that scale, what might I do differently? And then we
practice the conversation about how you might be really helpful
in there and helping people think that through. I did
a session for a cat On Academy football club recently
for the under elevens. Now some of those parents are
facing release. But it was a really sticky session because

(15:52):
not because the parents weren't engaged, because they were great parents,
but they hadn't really had any football trauma with their
kids yet. So there's me saying, oh, this is going
to be painful, going to hurt, but they didn't recognize
that yet. So at least in kind of playing those
games and working through that. And it was interesting that
the parents with older children had had moments of deep
pain with their older children, not necessarily on football, but

(16:13):
you know, not necessarily get the GCSE results they'd wanted
or whatever, and helping parents think like that, whereas sometimes
I think some of the parent education is out there
doesn't recognize that for some parents, they actually haven't had
that very painful moment of seeing their child heartbroken. The
thing I get emailed more about than anything else is

(16:34):
my child's out injured or my child's being dropped. Those
of the email what's your best advice. My child's really sad.
How do I stop them being sad? Because parents are
then experiencing for the first time their child in that
deep pit of despair and they want to try and
snap them out of it. Now, my advice is like, oh,
that sucks, and actually just make them a cup of tea,

(16:54):
check in with them, give them permission to speak to you,
but don't force them to speak to you. And if
they're still like this in two weeks time, then you
might want to contact the GP or someone at school
and try and get them to check in on them.
But it's okay that they're in that pit of despair.
But parents who haven't experienced that, particularly when you're like
talking to undred eleven parents, aren't ready to think about

(17:14):
those undisciplined squads of emotion and yet at least through
playing the game and having the conversation, you're starting to
prepare them to think about, oh, actually I could behave
like that. That is a possibility. Maybe that would be
more helpful, Maybe that wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Be Yeah, I mean, I like that idea about regulation.
Actually that's an interesting idea because what you're not wanting
to do is to not be an emotional being. It's
not as if we're going to try and be you know,
a kind of a month you know, and that's impossible.
And actually it's impossible because you're emotionally driven. Why, Because

(17:52):
these human beings are the most important things in the
world to you, You're bound to react in that way.
It's more about having the filter through which to have
the conversation. Sometimes, you see, for me, it's I mean,
I think, on the one hand, helping them through adversity.
I've had a number of moments in my kind of
parenting life, I suppose where I've had a decision to make,

(18:13):
you know, almost like which door do I go down?
You know, And one can be you know, because every
part of me is throw the arms around, you know,
and protect and hug and go after the people who've
caused the pain, and you know, and challenge and what
the hell and this, that and the other reminded me
of an interesting experience I had recently, which I'll tell

(18:36):
you about in a minute. But there's been other times
when I've gone, that's that my instinct. But what I've
actually done is gone, how can we use this? What
can we do? Let's reflect and think about why this
might have arrived and the reasons which and then sometimes
there's some honest reflection required. Weren't doing the training, weren't

(18:56):
being committed enough, weren't following through on what we said
we were going to do, all those sorts of things.
So there's something valuable to be to be, you know,
and no amount of my and in fact, I deliberately
try to sort of stay quite out of like my
kids lives in the sense of I want them to
make some decisions. Now, they're probably sometimes going to make
some decisions that aren't the rights ins and therefore they're

(19:17):
going to have to learn some hard lessons. But I
actually do believe that sometimes those hard lessons have real
profound value, more so than me just badgering them, You've
got to do this, You've got to do the other
because if they're doing it through compliance because I told
them to, I don't believe. I don't believe that's necessarily
going to give them the value. But it also means
I have to allow them sometimes to have hardship and
I believe that some of those life lessons are really

(19:39):
valuable for them and will stay with them and be
useful and resourceful. But then what I then do is
then then as the kind of coach alongside them and
act as a little bit of a guide to try
and say sometimes, right, yes, I'm obvious, I'm not that
hard that I'm not going to give them encouragement and
support and you know, and emotion and all you know, uh,

(20:01):
you know, and throw the arms around them. But there's
there's also times I say, yeah, we've also got to
look at this uncritically and honestly and then work out
if this is something you do not want to happen again,
and you also are deciding that you're still going to
pursue this track, what is it we can learn from
it to minimize the chances of reoccurrence. And let's also

(20:27):
consider what we're going to now do to go forward
and the things that we're going to you know, kind
of address and challenge and all those sorts of things.
That's sometimes a very difficult thing to do. But I
find that quite you know, And I found that a
number of times where because my protection is being kicked in.
So yeah, it's an interesting one. But that's because I

(20:48):
can regulate. Even though my instincts are saying, go after
the go after the people who created the hardship, and
rage against the machine, and and actually throw love and
affection around my child, I don't do all of that
because I believe there's some things that they can benefit from.
I do see a lot of people around me actually

(21:08):
who do everything they can to either prevent hardship occurring
for their kids, or when hardship does occur, go after
that people created the hardship, whoever they are, and kind
of like create that sort of snowplow to sort that. Actually,
I never had that difficulty again, and I fundamentally believe

(21:31):
that is actually going to create significant downstream problems for
that child. I find it extremely difficult to watch, and
I take a different approach, but you know, everyone's to
their own, you know.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Well, I think you ate two interesting points. Then one
is that everyone say their own because I think there's
we're in danger. I mean, I would agree with you
on what you've just said, and that would hopefully mirror
my own parenting as well. I lean very heavily on
motivational interviewing. It's not the only way of doing things,
but I find it very useful WA and it talks
about being a guide in conversations, and I find that

(22:05):
very helpful. And yet parents are still allowed to choose
how they parent within like an ethical safeguarding framework. And
I think there are kind of sound bites that happen
in the parent education world but that I feel are
ethical type sound bites but actually don't bear much resemblance

(22:26):
to reality and so become far easier for parents to ignore.
And the second thing I want to say is I
don't think like like, how you regulate yourself from those
moments is sometimes to have a bit of a script,
and so like the conversations for the journey is forty
short scripts that you could use, not prescriptively, but hopefully

(22:48):
as a starting point. And there's sometimes as a dad
that I lean in on a script because I know
I need to use words that I know are helpful.
Now they're probably not the best words. There might be
better words, but because I know inside me is the
bubble of emotion that I need to use a script
to help me calm down. And it's the same stuff
we tell kids with athletes, good breathing, give yourself a

(23:10):
bit of space, try and give yourself a minute to
calm down, and then and then for me, I might
lean in on a script, not because which is better
than just trying to go with the flow where you're
in that emotional kind of heightened state of arousal, as
it were. But the I think one of the challenges

(23:31):
around the ethics is, like I've seen quite a bit
on social media people saying parents can't want it as
much as their children, their children have got to want
it more, And partly one say yes, completely, parents can't
want it more than their children. And yet to I mean,
I'm not asking you to name will shame your children here,

(23:51):
but I definitely wanted my children to be able to
brush their teeth more than they wanted to be able
to brush their teeth. Because I'm an adult, I knew
the benefits of that daily hat twice daily habit, and
I knew the habit that you know, I knew the possible.
You knew what would come from them embodying that they
had no perception. Did I want my kids to get
certain gcse, he goes, No, not at all. I wanted

(24:11):
them to do their best because I knew that it
was a helpful gateway to the next stage of life.
I also knew that if they stuffed them all up,
that that wasn't going to hold them back either, because
there are plenty of other pasts, and I know plenty
of people who have not got any school qualifications have
gone on to lead brilliant, impacting lives in many, many,
many fields. But when I'm having a discussion about revision, yeah,

(24:34):
I've got to be honest with you. St to it.
There are times where I want my kids to revise
a lot more than they want to revise. I want
it more for them than they do. And then you
take somebody who might be in like a catwe football
academy who's playing on grass. I mean, when I played
football as a kid, the gold mouth was always a
swimming pool of mutt. I don't know about you, but
these kids who have this brilliant opportunity to experience high

(24:55):
level like football academies, rugby carders. They don't know what
that I don't know what a muddy gold mouth is blessed.
That's the wrong with that. But they've had such incredible opportunities.
And then to say to parents, you looking at all
this opportunity, you can't want it more than your kids. Now,
the challenge is is how that wanting then turns into
behavior and what that then looks like in behavior. And

(25:17):
you and I might say that if you want it
more than your kids and you're really push and really driven,
that has the potential to do some real harm to
your kid, real harm to your and your kid's relationship.
And yet sport is littered with people luke litter whose
parents clearly want it an awful lot, and they've made
it all the way to the top. And so when

(25:37):
we're giving parents this kind of ethical you can't want
it as much as your kids, they only have to
look around the winners of Olympic gold medals, premiership titles
and they go on their dad wanted it more than
they did for most of their life. Their dad, mum
wanted it more than they did. David Beckham's dad had
him drinking, Giddison having raw eggs every morning. He definitely
wanted it more than him. Lewis Hamilton's dad definitely wanted

(25:59):
it more than him during the process broke their relationship
early in his mid thirties. Did Lewis say, so, I'm
on board with the ethical decision to say, actually, at
certain point, the kid's got to drive it. But I
find it fascinating we're having this conversation after Luke Little
has won the World championship. Incredible, incredible performance, brilliant story,

(26:21):
and yet the little snippets that come out about his parents,
his parents are clearly very driven around his success. Now
I don't know them, I've not met them. That's not
a judgment on them, and it's their choice to do that,
and as a family of it, they must work that through.
But I would say the snippets of stories say that
his parents want it the same more at times more
than he does. And so we've got to be honest

(26:42):
with parents about what we're saying to them in parent education.
It is okay if you want it a bit more
than your kids. It's how that behavior then impacts and
what that looks like and is that what you're willing
to potentially sacrifice or not in that conversation.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
That's really interesting for people who are as obsessed with
the darts as we are. It's something that happens every
year over Christmas time and it's become a bit of
a Christmas tradition now in the UK the dance is
on and it's now even referred to on TV as
a dartsmouths for football dartsmouths, very football dartsmith anyway. So yeah,

(27:23):
this this like competition lasts for like three weeks or so,
the prelim before Christmas, and then then the finals have
done afterwards, and this teenage phenomenon. He got to the
final last year out of nowhere, Toper Cinderella story. We
love them, don't we, you know, came out of nowhere.
He didn't really come out of nowhere, but more or

(27:44):
less came out of nowhere, got to the final, was
leading in the final, didn't didn't manage to win it
at sixteen years old. And this year, at seventeen years old,
had beaten one of you know, one of the greatest
players that probably has ever played, and did so with
you know, a kind of smile on his face and
a gentle sense of polity. But it's gonna be really

(28:07):
interesting to watch what happens now with this young individual.
And I haven't really picked up the parental side, to
be honest, because I haven't sort of followed that side.
I was more following the sort of his journey and
his development and got entro awed by it.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
Well, there's there was on the BBC this week there
was his mum saying that eleven. She said to him,
you have to stop all sport and just focus on
darts like this, this is the thing we got to do.
He enjoyed his football. There's another professional saying that on
another newspaper, loosely newspaper, Daily Mail, which was reporting another

(28:40):
professional who was sixteen in the world at the time
beat Luke Little when he was twelve and he just
be he was twelve, which is amazing, and he remembers.
This is the quote from the newspaper from the professional.
I remember seeing his dad with him. He was dead
critical of him because he had just lost and I
was thinking, mate, he's twelve and I was top sixteen
one at the time. I said, give him a break
and his dad said, no, he needs to learn now.

(29:02):
That's straight feedback. Straight after competition. There are most coaches
in the world would argue that that kind of strong
feedback straight after competition is not the most healthy time
to give that, let alone to a twelve yeard. No,
I'm not. That's not how I would want to pair it.
I would want to, but then I'm not producing world champions,
and that's something that I'm quite happy with for all

(29:22):
sorts of reasons. And there's no way knowing that story
is completely true or not, so you know, I want
to put that out that I don't know the family,
but his dad is allowed to put him under loads
of pressure at twelve. I think there are consequences, potential
consequences for that, and I wish look little in his
family all the best, and I hope that as they

(29:42):
have to navigate some of those things as he turns
into a young adult, I hope that they have a
good support network around them to be able to navigate that.
The challenge is how many other twelve year olds have
been told that by their dad and never go on
to be a world champion? And what does that do
to those young people's confidence in You and I both
know that twelve thirteen, fourteen, we are hemorrhaging kids from

(30:02):
taking part in sport, and the way in which parents
and coaches talk to their kids is a significant contributory
factor to that decline. So for the Luke Nichols and
Lewis Hamilton's out there, for whom it enabled them to
go and win stuff, what is the what is the
fallout from that? In most family households. And when I

(30:25):
go into high performance environments, you can see the parents
who are looking at me when I'm saying think about
the long term relationship things like that, they just glaze over.
They're not thinking about that. They are thinking about the
success and the success only they are allowed to do that.
And so I think parent engagement has to be clever
and thought through about addressing these issues and helping parents

(30:46):
understand that. And I think most parents still want a
good kid out of this process, even if they want
them to be world champion or whatever kind of sport,
and helping give the kids a voice in that journey,
not to say I don't want pressure, to say actually,
I want healthy pressure of healthy moments. And my advice
to parents is let let the coaches navigate that you're

(31:07):
there as their harbor to love them to listen to
shape to have the difficult midweek conversations like, oh, let's
talk about the stick being thrown or whatever, But do
you want to chat about that but midweek, you know,
assuming that the fixture happens at a weekend. I just
like you say, we love a Cinderella story. And I
think if we're going to give parents advice, they can't

(31:28):
look on the back cup pages of the newspapers and
see that actually, those who are winning all these competitions,
their parents were completely different to the advice we were giving.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Well, and that's I suppose you make an important point,
which is and one of the reasons I like what
you do is you know, you don't moralize about the
right way to parents. What you do is you make
people aware of the pitfalls of certain approaches, the pros
and cons either way. You know, I've had the you know,
we've had that kitchen table conversation my wife and I

(31:57):
around you know, we're homember distinctly when she said to
me that I think is about eleven or twelve, Given
that everything you know and all the stuff you know
about talent development and coaching, shouldn't he be better than
he is? And I and I remember it distinctly. I'll
stay with me because you know, how do you answer that?

Speaker 3 (32:14):
Because he's your DNA and him I can only do
so much.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, thankfully he has plectically, he's got I liked it,
and he's got my game sense, but who knows the
the The thing I think that's interesting about that is
and this again from the ethical standpoints, And this is
why I think it's interesting. I was going to ask
you what some of those ethical soundbites are. He can't
want it more than you should. I don't believe. I

(32:42):
don't believe that's true, by the way, like you always
want everything more than the children do. Because to be fair,
given a choice, like would what you know, what would
my what would my son do? He'd probably play on PlayStation.
It's really enjoyable and it's really immediately gratifying. It's a
space of retreat and free them. And it's a place
where he can connect with his friends, and they can't

(33:02):
do that sometimes face to face, so it's a place
for him to be social now. And what I'm trying
to say though, is that he can't do that all
the time. Because he can't, there's going to be other
SI he's going to do some other things because that's
the rich tapestry of life, and when we do that,
we want to try and red that experience as good
as we possibly can. I made a parent in choice.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
I made a parent in choice.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
That's because I had read a lot of this and
I understood actually that there are very compelling narratives around
use developments, and they're driven often by survivorship bias. So
we see kids who become good as for nons, and
we look backwards retrospectively, right, what happened, and we go

(33:42):
that's the route. It happens all the time, and there's
no amount of articulating the alternative, and actually, more often
than not through narrative that seems to be able to
break through. But I'll continue to try. I made a
parent in choice that I didn't want to mortgage my
future relationship with my kids because I was going to

(34:08):
drive them towards something, even though I you know, and
I have thought about it since. What if I'm wrong?
What if this is wrong?

Speaker 3 (34:17):
You know?

Speaker 1 (34:17):
What if actually they wanted me to push them? What
if they needed me to push them? What if I
had to create structure and a regime of training and this,
that and the other that would have turned them into
phenomenons and then they would have gone on. For my
my choice was, if that's what it takes, I don't
want that because my bigger fear, my my biggest fear

(34:38):
was never that they wouldn't become some sort of elieing.
My biggest fear was that it would fundamentally change any
future relationship we might have. I would much rather my
kids look back and go My dad did everything he
could support, provide opportunity, be that kind of voice, be

(35:00):
that sometimes the challenge, sometimes the arm around the shoulder,
but was always there providing me with that and believed
in me and gave me the support of to whatever
I want to do. And then say I got here
because I was I had these experiences.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
It just I just got there.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Too much risk involved. And so if that then means
that they don't achieve whatever their so called potential leads
them to, well, so be it. You know, I fundamentally
don't believe you have to make that choice. By the way,
I do believe that there are benefits to this approach
that will come later later than traditionally. Seasy, Oh, I'm

(35:40):
not playing for England at under sixteen, so I can't
be any good. Hang on a second, look at sam
Ward didn't get into the England set up contil he
was twenty two right, twenty three right, but became one
of our top goal scorers. This in the world of
hockey for people who don't know that, right, So there
were roots for everybody, right, just because you're not here
for that. But unfortunately it is a very insidious world
there that's basically telling you, this is what you've got

(36:03):
to do to get to this point, to get to
this point, to get to this point, and it's younger
and younger and younger, and I don't particularly like it, no,
and I.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
It makes some poison. Yeah, And that's the same decision
we've made. And as I reflect the best bit of
Caleb's you're out for me, And there are lots of
good bits. And his grandma went to visit him, and
he was just a brilliant grandson. She was a brilliant grandma.
They had a great time together, you know, there's lots
of bits that were good. Were sitting down with his
mentor and his mentor's got a two year old and
the toddler was throwing the rugby ball around and we

(36:32):
were just sitting chatting and the mentor said to Caleb,
I said, do you wish you hadn't gone out with
that team then? And Caleb kind of took a long pause,
And when I wouldn't be the personnel I am today
if I hadn't had that really difficult set of experiences.
So if I knew what I knew before, I probably
would have made a different decision. But looking back on
it now, No, No, it was it was good for me.

(36:55):
It was the right thing to do. And I was like, wow,
that is cool, like like like if nurture in him
and not pushing him and not getting over involved in
the external stuff, but being there is his anchored, his
harbor and coaching him to be adaptable, coaching him to
have difficult conversations through that year at his pace, even
though for us it was like there was a lot
of sleepless nights about is he okay? And is he

(37:17):
doing all right? Actually, the outcome of that I'm thrilled with. Absolutely,
I'm absolutely through with. Our middle child is trying to
apply to driver school. That's a total drama and it's
a long, long process. And actually and somebody don't get
that process. Some people have already said to her, maybe
driver school's not for you, and she's like, oh, I've
quite take a year out. No, you're not taking a

(37:39):
year out. You're doing the next year of prep for
driver school. You know it takes three or four years.
This is not a year out. This is just the
next year of prep. Keep going. And that's not me pushing.
That's because I'm an adult, so I can see the
bigger picture. So I want that more for her and
at the same time going to help her reframe what
she wants because I know that's what deep down that
she wants and what I want for her. And yet

(37:59):
it's fast watching her say I don't want to make
it to the very top of this game. And I
suspect it's to say, a sport because most of the
top actors and actresses are really unhappy. And so it's
kind of fascinating thinking about, like listening to those stories
of people who make it up. Sure there are plenty
of who are happy, but those lots of people who
go on like the high performance podcasting, is that what

(38:21):
comes across quite clearly is often that they're pretty miserable.
Time at that very high performance environment. You know, it's
so so anybody who makes it, I wish them all
the best, and I hope they've got a great support
network around them, but not basing it on that that
survivor biased and acknowledging that as an adult, of course,
I want it more because I'm an adult, I see
more than a teenager does, or I want certain parts

(38:44):
of it more, and it's how my behavior is interact
And I think that's where good parent engagement like that,
just let's have this conversation in the worst possible way
is helping parents start to see and caricature what's happening,
because at the other end of the scale, Stewart, we
have schools who who are having more kids turn up
in nappies and not being able to tie shoelaces and

(39:05):
not being able to get themselves dressed. Because at the
other end of the scale, we have so many parents
who aren't willing to kind of do the hard bits
of parenting with their children have those difficult conversations. So
part of helping parents have conversations, I think we have
kind of two extremes in society now. We have those
who perhaps push really, really hard and then we have
those who are so afraid of upsetting their kid and

(39:25):
that their kids their best mate, and instead of actually
saying no, listen, tiger seelace is weird. Felt crow's amazing.
Let's face it, tiger shelace is a weird micro kind
of skill to have. There's no easy way. Some kids
get it in two seconds. Some kids it takes ages.
You have to have a persistent like you can nag them,

(39:45):
you can tell them off, you can bribe them, or
you could just slowly coach them. And that's so frustrated.
It's so hard to do that. And so what we're
seeing is parents less and less being willing to do this,
and we're seeing schools, bless them, having to pick up
on that. And I think that's so harsh. Because we
had a bunch of kids come to church for in
year four to put a Nativity on and I challenged

(40:06):
the parents not to film it because I was like,
just receive it, don't film it. They've prepared this for you,
Just receive it. In fairness to the parents. Parents took that.
Most of them took that on board and didn't film it.
Didn't tell them not to film. I just invited them
to think about like receiving it, and if Granny's not here,
then why don't they have a great conversation telling it
to Granny and re singing the songs to Granny. I
think Granny will probably prefer that one to one than

(40:26):
just see. But then when the kids came out, all
the parents are like waving to reassure their kid that
they're there, and I was like, these are year four
kids and they're just about to put on a Carol service,
Like they don't need reassurance that you're here. They're fine,
You're fine, And I just I was like, oh my word.
So that for me is at the other end of
the spectrum as well. It's that kind of like you say,

(40:48):
that kind of wrap it up in cotton wall snow plowing.
I don't want my kids to not think I'm not here,
so I'm just gonna wave at them. And of course,
no one wants their kid to be upset or feel
left out or feel like their parents comes from a
well meaning place, And yeah, I worry for this generation
of kids that either they've got kids parents who have
pushing them really, really hard, or they've got parents who
are just kind of I'm here, I'm here, don't worry

(41:09):
everything's going to be all right at every opportunity instead
of because most kids probably just want to go play
outside and chill out anyway and been very happy that
the parents aren't there.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
I mean that's the point. I mean, you can't protect
like you've just chosen to put out there with with
your son. I always sometimes think it's like it's a
bit pointless to sort of look backwards and say, do
you wish you hadn't? It happens, The question is you know,
what do we do with that? And I actually think
his response is you know, you probably wouldn't say this,
but I think his response is testament to you know,

(41:40):
the parents in choices that you've made in terms of
like who he is as a human and how he
can respond to these kinds of difficulties. I think if
he if he hadn't had the kinds of resources and
skills that you've provided him through your parenting and through
the guidance that you've given, I think he may have
that may have been a much more destructive experience for him.

(42:00):
My question with all of these things is, whenever you
have these sorts of difficult experiences, which are inevitable. By
the they are an inevitable part of life. You can't
necessarily choose whether they happen or not. What you can choose, though,
is how you deal with them, and you can. You
can choose to frame them in a certain way and
have them define you, or you can choose to frame

(42:20):
them in a different way. And that's been one of
the ways that I've been trying to articulate this to
my kids. I had a recent conversation my daughter where
she was basically talking about expectation, and she had a
feeling that I had very very high expectations for her,
and she didn't. She wasn't matching up to her her brother,
who was better at this than her. And I said,

(42:43):
but you've got your own strengths. And but the biggest
message was I said, the only thing I expect of you,
the only thing is that you try your hardest than
you do your best. I've said that since you were tiny.
Just try your hardest and do your best. That's all
I've ever said. Whatever that brings, in, whatever it brings,
I'm still going to love you forever, right, And so

(43:08):
I don't care what you do and what you achieve
I only care that you try your harders and do
your best than you're happy. And afterwards it was probably
one of those proper emotional after dinner type of conversation
and she said to me, she said, oh, thanks that
I really needed that. It was like a proper moment.
And then she toddled off like it was nothing. And
I'm left there just like, you know, crushed, Oh my god,

(43:31):
what happened? But anyway, look, I'm quiting.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Well. I think the challenge is that our kids pick
up stuff from us that is their misinterpreted. There's loads
of great research out there that says that, and then
there's the external factors as well. One of our children
had a terrible Year six SAX experience, but itse not
in the UK. There's a school testing system in year
six which is meant to be about how the schools

(43:54):
are doing, not about the individual children. But one of
my children they had a terrible Year six that's experience
where the teacher just put them all under so much
pressure from Dot one and then labeled a bunch of
them unable to do a handle the pressure, so put
them in a pressure group, which was just just really weird.

(44:14):
And then yeah, it was just it really frustrates us
because we spent the whole time SATs don't matter, it's
nothing to do with you. It's just about the school.
Just be chill. That was our messaging all the way through.
She was like, Oh, we've got to do those of
practical don' it's up to you. We won't any pressure
to do any of that. And then when they went
to secondary school, every teacher in year seven said, brilliant

(44:36):
kid does really really well. Can't handle exams. We're like, yeah,
we know, because in the year six they had this
adult experience, and as parents we've spent the last five
or six years helping them unpack that and work through that.
And there's nothing you can do as parents. They will
they will sometimes have brilliant coaches or teachers or whatever,
and you will have to deal with the fallout. That's
part of parenting. Go on later on in life to

(44:56):
have relationships and partners that some will thrive with, some
will will wound them, and you'll have to help them
nurture through that. And if you can continue to be
the adult in the room, have good spaces to offload.
Like you were saying about your frustration, you know, that's
where you do need to mate at the end of
the phone call. That's where particularly us blokes need to

(45:17):
get better at some of that stuff. I just really makeing,
Oh you won't believe what the club's dad or said.
Just vent to somebody, So when you have the conversation
with your kid, you're not venting your frustration through that conversation.
One of the fun things that I'll be playing around
with is scorecards recently, because I think everyone's a bit competitive,
aren't they, And I've got to don't be that sports
parent scorecard, which is a bit of a tongue in

(45:37):
cheek kind of because we all know that sports parent,
we've all seen them on the sideline. I've gone, don't
do that. So just trying to help parents reflect on
what that sports parents might look like, and just having
a bit of tongue in cheek playing because I like
I say, if parents want to wave with their kids
when they come in with the Nativity, that's their choice.
I'm just trying to help people think about like what
might be the impact of that, and how is that

(45:59):
being helpful or not helpful? And again, I think the
dangerous sports parenting isn't sound bite tea like there isn't.
Like I said, I leaning on some scripts, but I
wouldn't want to give parents this is the script to
turn your child into xerys, because it doesn't exist, because
every encounter is different. It's got to be led by
you and the child. And so I think institutions would

(46:19):
do well to think about some of the soundbites they're giving,
because parents just intuitively know when someone says you can't
want it more than your kid, they go, well, that's
a lot of rubbish particulately, but internally they go, well,
that's weird. Why are you saying that. I understand what
they mean by that is you can't put them under
multiple tons of pressure because you might break the relationship.
But actually you can put them under multiple tons of
pressure and still produce a world champion, even if your

(46:42):
relationship or that person is deeply unhappy as a result.
And I suspect their examples out there are people who
put their kids under tons of pressure and the kids
fine and happy as well, by the way I mean, I.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Suspect, by the way, there are ways of doing that
that don't require that kind of completely Yeah, it's not
a trade off. Listen, I'm conscious that we've we're run
up on time and you've got very important things to
do in the ministry, and it's my fault because I've
rambled on far too long for good being. So we're

(47:13):
definitely booking a part two because there's a million jumping
off points that you just put into my brain quick.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
You know.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
I wonder if people might have found value in this
conversation and might want to connect and reach out or
attend one of the multiple seminars webinars that you're doing.
And it may well be that there's a collaboration here
where we do more regular stuff like this. But anyway,
how do people get in touch?

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Thanks mate, Richard at non hyphen perfect dad dot co
dot uk, zbail address website. You can work it out
from that and then I'm on LinkedIn Richard. Sure, it
would be great to connect and have value and also
just come and challenge you or not if you know,
if there's stuff that we've said that he thinks a
fair misrepresentat you know, join join the conversation because that'll
give us a launch point for part two. We'd love
to hear people give give give an alternative view or

(47:57):
alternative understanding of this that would that help. I'll think
it as well, So thanks mate, thanks for your support
as ever. Yeah, I think we've both got brains that
jump off in lots of different places. Our mutual friends
guy who said he she says when she's talking to me,
she has to really keep me on the road because
she knows my brain has got a zinc. So between
the two of us, it's a good job we've got
a time constraight I think.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Anyway, thanks mate, and I'll speak to you again against
against you jeers mate, Bye.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Thanks for listening to the Talent Equation podcast. If you
like the show, then please consider supporting it by leaving
a review on your favorite podcast player, telling your friends
about it, or even becoming a hero and show your
appreciation by becoming a patron. Just head over to the
Talent Equation dot co dot uk and click on the
becoming a Patron puddon at the top of the page.