Where Our Children Play 2

We're talking about the Organization "Where Our Children Play" #whereourchildrenplay #childrensports #childrennutrition #movement #discipline #listening #tombrady #giannisantetokounmpo #milwaukeebucks #winner #failure #losing #support #confidence #movie #future #coaches #resources #needsupport

Episode Transcript

(00:19):
Good evening everybody, and welcome toanother edition of No Limits. We are
talking tonight with Joel Franco, whois the founder of Where Our Children Play.
Joel tell us a little bit aboutthe organization. Hi, thank you
so much for having me again.It's so good to be here. Well,

(00:44):
Where Our Children Play is a nonprofitorganization that is here to work with
kids in a variety of ways,and especially right now. One of the
things that we have set up isa training program for kids where we can
provide help to parents and children onhow to properly work with them and set

(01:11):
up plans and training sessions for them, per sport, per child. We
are connected. One of the thingsthat we're doing is is also is our
documentary film also called Where Our ChildrenPlay, which is based on us believing

(01:33):
that we need to bring the focusback in two kids in this crazy,
uth sports insane world, because ifwe don't do it for the kids,
who are we doing it for?That's right, that's right. So tell
us a little bit about like isyour program and internet program? Is it
based in like a certain city orwell, the beauty of our program is

(01:59):
that at the moment, it isa virtual program where we have my partner
in crime, Shelleian Miller, whois our expert in chief, where she
would meet with children, whether it'sin person because we can do it in

(02:20):
person too, or virtually, andhe would do an assessment of every child
so that the plan can fit thatparticular child, because there's nothing worse than
having, you know, spending afortune for programs like you can find that
most gyms or most out the facilitiesin around the country and the world.

(02:46):
But and it's like a one sizefits all because every every person needs a
different plan. So let alone everykid. You know, they come from
different backgrounds, they have done ornot done sports before, they have done
multiple sports or just one sport.So there's a lot that needs to that
goes into this. So she doesan assessment of the child to see where

(03:08):
they're at physically, and then thebeauty of it is that it's organic after
that because she doesn't just tell thekids, hey, have a banana or
do ten push ups. It literallygoes into details like what do you like,
what you don't like, what kindof schedule do you have, how

(03:30):
many practices a week do you do, how many games a week do you
have? You know what is yourschool out, what are your school hours?
Because all of those things, believeit or not, have a huge
impact on a child's mental facility andcapability to do whatever it is that they
want to do sports related because weseem to forget the kids or kids and

(03:54):
they have to still go to school, they still have to get some sleep,
they still have to do their homework, and all of a sudden,
we're adding twenty thirty extra hours forsports. That's borderline insanity. But what
we try to do with our programis for Shelene to really get to know
the kids so that she can workaround them. So then for the kids,

(04:16):
it doesn't become torture or one morething we have to do. It
becomes oh, I like this becauseShelene is listening to us, because oh
I can tell a look, Ican't do it today, can they do
it tomorrow? And that's where itbecomes organic because we adapt to the kid.
Then the kid doesn't feel oh mygod that they's twos and I have

(04:38):
to do two hours of whatever.It becomes part of their lives organically.
And then as we go we findthe soft the perfect spot, you know,
the soft spot. This is theschedule that's going to be. But
the beauty of it is that wework with a child, so the child
tells us what they need and whatthey can and can do. Like,

(05:00):
for example, say a child isso crazy busy they can only do half
an hour her session or half anhour I think, So she plans a
session they would only be half anhour. So because half an hour is
better than zerom, so we're ableto say, okay, so this particular
child for the next couple of monthscan only give it three times a week

(05:23):
half an hour. So now shesets up a schedule for them, a
plan that fits that half an hour'sschedule. And the beauty of it all
is it can be done at home. You don't have to go to a
gym. Now it's always you can. It's not a problem, but you
don't have to. And so thatmakes it so much more relaxed for the

(05:45):
kids, so much more like,oh I can do this, Oh I
can do this while I watch TV. You know, I can do this
while I take a break from homework. And we also try to explain to
them the why. To me,that's one of the things that has driven
me crazy, you know, asa coach, when I talk to other
coaches or hear from parents that theynever understand. Parents don't know why their

(06:10):
kids are doing certain things, andcoaches, oh, I don't have to
explain to myself. I can dowhatever I want. I say it,
they do it well. No,kids just like adult athletes too. It's
not no different. Just like whenwe are at work. You know,
if our boss tells us, heydo this because and it gives you a
reason, we function a lot better. We go okay, no problem,

(06:34):
that sounds good, that makes sense, or it doesn't make sense. Let
me ask you some questions. Andthat's what we want to do for the
kids. We want the kids tobe able to say, hey, why
am I doing a push up?Why am I doing a squad? Why
am I eating whatever? Because soand so, because you need energy,
because you need certain type of facts, because whatever it is, because you're

(06:58):
allergic to other things, so whenyou to compensate, whatever the reasons are.
But now they understand it, andthey still not like broccolis, but
they understand why they have to eatthem so and that's important too, because
like, oh okay, well theystink, but it's gonna make me a
better player. Is gonna make mea better athlete. Okay, let's stuck

(07:20):
it up and take it. MSo what age groups do you are you
primarily focusing on? I mean,is it real young kids or is it
high school? College? Adults?Even? Yes, adults even primarily right

(07:40):
now, we're focusing on like tento eighteen, because before ten years old,
the most important thing for a childis to just go out and play.
Go out to the park, goout to the yard, just some
monkey bars, do some crazy juslike we used to do as kids.

(08:01):
Just play whatever, shoot hoops,play soccer, do whatever. Right after
ten, it probably can start seeingthat. Okay, now we can.
We need to focus a little bit. That helps a lot. And because

(08:22):
our you know, even our moviefocuses on high school and below. Right
now we're focusing on that middle schoolor just pre middle school, middle school,
and high school. But the ideaworks for adults too. It's the
same, it's not different. Itwould just be at a different level,
of course, because an adult cando more things or different things. But

(08:45):
yeah, is there any particular sportssuch that you guys work with or that
you see come to you more frequentlythan some of the other sports right now?
Soccer. It's been soccer, soccer, soccer. But it does not
mean that we only focused on soccer. It's just what we've been getting a

(09:05):
lot of. Um, we focusedon any sport. He's just for whatever
reason, I don't know why,whatever reason, we're getting a lot of
soccer responses at the moment um.Maybe because it's in season, I don't
know. Um, But yeah,no, we focus on all sports.

(09:26):
So you talked about Charlene doing anassessment. What are what are her qualifications?
I guess to do the assessments,like what is her background, you
know, education likewise? I mean, I know she was supposed to be
on this show, so I'm puttingyou kind of on the spot. She
couldn't. She was having issues.We all understand week weeks and days like

(09:50):
that. But oh no, youdon't have to worry about that. Um,
Google, No, I'm kidding.No, no, no, I'm
kidding. I'm kidding. Um.But because she's not here, she deserved
that, so I had to giveher some a little bit of garbage.
No, obviously, No, she'ssuper highly qualified. What she has done

(10:15):
is she has worked in kinesiology foryears and years and years. She has
a master's degree on it. She'sworked with nutrition. She has basically worked
on these kind of things forever andever and ever. She went to Indiana
University for her master's degree. So, like I said, she is absolutely

(10:39):
incredibly qualified. One of the thingsthat for her, I guess her official
degree called Kinnesiology and Exercise Science.Okay, And like I said, she
both had a ba I'm sorry,a bachelor's degree and it masses degree from

(11:03):
Indiana U. So yeah, sothat's her biggest thing she has worked on.
You know, she does a lotof certifications in motor science and that
type of stuff. Okay, She'salways working to improve herself, getting license
after license after license. You knowshe wants to be is you know,

(11:26):
she's she's on top of the nutritionstuff. So yeah, I mean,
for her, it's anything that hasto do with nutrition and movement is what
really makes her happy. And workingwith kids of course, So how often,

(11:46):
because I would think since you're workingwith kids, especially like that,
especially in that ten age group,how often do you work with does she
work with parents and kids like ina session or is it just the you
know, the kids people people?You know, the parents are absolutely the
beauty of what we're trying to dois you said it. It's so important

(12:09):
the parents. The first meeting iswith the parents, especially at the younger
age is obviously in seventeen year oldis different than a ten year old.
But the idea is to be ableto work with the parents and the child,
not just the child. The childhas to lead the way. But

(12:31):
if we educate the child and weeducate the parent, the parent is also
going to understand what we're trying todo and what they don't know, because
most parents don't know anything about Idon't. I didn't when we started.
I'm not a doctor, so Iknew nothing about king eysiology. I mean,

(12:52):
I'm making movies and working on theprofit, not my kapte. But
why working with her and if youother people around the world, now you
start to learn and understand how wemove, what we need to do,
all the things that we do wrong. But it's you know, when you
talk to parents. If you tella parent, you know, Candy,

(13:15):
you are doing that wrong. Youare horrible. I can't believe you're doing
that. To go to your child. You're gonna look at me, You're
gonna turn me off. Right theleague Delete delete but if I come at
you and we go, hey,Candy and whatever the bob, we let's
work on this. You see youfavor your left side, or you favor

(13:35):
your right side, or you knowyour back is a little this looks a
little stiff, So let's do theseexercises and that's going to help you feel
better. Because whatever the thing isnow, you're gonna listen to me.
Right, you're gonna say, oh, let's let's try it. Let's figure

(13:56):
this out. Maybe they're right,So it's a different approach. We don't
want to be combative. It's notlike you're wrong. Don't need pizza,
don't have donuts. It's about andunderstanding. Okay, you love pizza and
you love donuts. Okay, don'thave pizza and donuts before a game or
before a practice. You're gonna fallasleep halfway through because you're gonna have a

(14:18):
burst of energy and then you're gonnacrash. So those are the kind of
but we need to explain it tothem because then we had a kid who
ate a lot of pizza before agame. That was his thing with his
family on Friday night. They willgo have pizza. Totally understandable. Nothing
wrong with it, But when youhave a game on Saturday morning, may

(14:41):
not be the best idea. Andhe used to and he would complain that,
yeah, I feel sleepy, Ifeel kind of lethargic. And she
then explained it to them. It'slike, well, because you had pizza
the night before, it's kind ofheavy. It takes a minute for it
to go down and to digest allof those things. It becomes a much
more conversation. So it's not likepizza bad. It's okay, pizza before

(15:09):
game is bad. How about yourpizza after a game, because then you
can you know, get the carbsand all of that, you can get
those back. Yeah, I said, the best idea obviously not, but
if you have to have pizza atleast, because for us, it's like
it's to change habits. So ifwe can get people to change their habits

(15:30):
even a little bit, a littlebit at the time, over years,
it's a lot. Hm. Youknow, it's kind of like when you
save money for a retirement, right, you don't save all of it in
one day. You put five bucks, ten bucks, one hundred bucks,
one thousand bucks, whatever it isthat you can put away over time and

(15:50):
over time oh, look I haveI don't know X amount of dollars that
I can then do something with myretirement. Same concept. If we start
to okay, maybe they have pizzafive days a week. Maybe by the
end of the first month of havingpizza three times a week, maybe ben
it's at one time a week.You see. So it's kind of like
becomes yeah, it a different wayof doing things, but slowly changing it

(16:19):
without forcing anything, just making themunderstay, try this, how about this?
How about you don't believe Okay,that's fine. How about you try
this for two days? You knowwhat I mean. It's like it becomes
something that and you know how itis, once you start to form a
habit, it's hard to go backto what you were doing before because now
you feel better and now you ohwait, I have more energy for this

(16:41):
game. I didn't feel sleepy.Maybe I shouldn't have pizza before the game.
So I ll will laugh at mebecause I always use a pizza or
the banana example, But it Imean, because that's really what it comes.
You know, like, oh,it is always say oh, have
a banana before a game, butthey don't explain why, right right,
exactly exactly So how long have youguys been How long has Where Our Children

(17:06):
Play been in existence? We've beenin existence for almost a year. Actually,
in July will be a year.So it's kind of exciting. I
can't believe where it's already been ayear. It's really exciting. Um and
we are actually about to I'm actuallygoing to go to Italy in a couple
of weeks and we're gonna we're tryingto open a open an office in Italy,

(17:32):
so it's gonna be really in Europe. So it's gonna be really exciting
to start working with other kids outsideof the United States too, So I'm
really really excited for that. Sowe've done a lot in a year.
It's been kind of a natty,very natty time, but any of new
businesses like that. Though starting it, we're starting something new and it's not

(17:53):
just something new, but it's somethingthat goes against the grain. It's something
that goes against people's philosoph The feesand because we don't we charge so little,
the people almost feel like, ohthat doesn't that can be, that
can be? They can be.And because the way we work is Lene
checks up on the kids every week, every couple of weeks to see okay

(18:15):
and the exercise is too hard.How's your eating? How's your schedule?
Have you noticed a difference with yourperiod if you're a girl, because we
don't realize how much that affects ornot just performance, which okay, that's
important, but not the end allbe all, but a person, you

(18:37):
know, if they broke up witha boyfriend or a girlfriend, if they
had a five with mom and dad, all those things make a difference in
a child. In a child performanceon the field and off the field,
and we have to pay attention tothose things. And I hate when coaches
tell me, oh, I onlycoach the field, who cares about the

(18:59):
other stuff. It's like, oh, especially it's true with adults, I
could not be true with young kids. It's even more so because an adult
can drive away, an adult cando something on their own, a twelve
year old can't. Right, Soyou need to have someone that listens to
them, makes them feel heard ona different level, not just like I

(19:25):
said, do push ups or dowhatever. It's more than that. It's
the whole person, so that wecan be there for them in a way
that they won't talk to their parentsbecause we all know that the way you
talk to coaches, it's not thesame way you talk to a parent,
and sometimes or a teacher is thesame thing. A lot of times kids
will tell you stuff that they won'ttell their parents, right, And most

(19:52):
of the time, Joel, Ihave to say though, in that instance,
my dad was a teacher, soI was kind of had the double
edged story. He was both.Then you were totally like, oh man,
you were you were clost yes,but it's you know, it's it's
like fascinating to me the stuff youknow, because I coach, I teach,

(20:12):
and the stuff that kids will tellyou, right, and you go,
whoa, they won't tell their parents, and and then you have to
work that fine balance, right,Okay, I need to tell the parents
because obviously this cannot you know whatever. It is like, you know,
but the fact that kids trust youand trust us becomes huge because the more

(20:37):
they trust you and the more theylisten to you, the more you can
help and the more you can bringthat relationship with the parents and the child
together, because if the child andthe parents don't work together, you can
spend a million dollars and nothing willchange, nothing will ever happen. You've
got to bring those two together andthen eventually, of course their coach.

(21:00):
Well, I would think like thealmost the whole family, because if there's
other brothers and sisters, they needto have the same influence because they have
Let's face it, if it's ayounger kid and they have an older sibling,
they're gonna look up to the oldersiblings. So the older sibling has
to be on the same page orthey're gonna revert back to old habits.

(21:21):
You have to have to buy inthe family, the whole family, absolutely.
And the beauty of it is thatparents need to be careful because if
they have more than one child,each child is different and each child needs
something else. One child may needthey need a little more strength, a
little more aggressive. Hey do this. Some kids like that, like a
schedule, like you need okay,from six to seven, prom seven to

(21:45):
eight, whatever it is. Somekids like to be leave me alone.
Hmm. Kids is in between,so you can't. So parents also need
to understand that each child is different. Yes, that's why I find what
you guys are doing is very interestingbecause you guys tailor it too the kid,
which is great. That's awesome.And it's the hard part. And

(22:07):
it's the hard part because it's mucheeser to have one size fits all m
instead of no, let's try towork the whole person too. So what
what do you want to achieve withwhere our children play? We want to
be able to change the dynamic andthe paradigm of your sports. We want

(22:30):
to be able to show that youdon't have to spend millions of dollars as
a parent to take your childs.We just play some basketball, some baseball,
some soccer. You don't have toYou really don't. You don't have
to grass. It's not always greenersomewhere else. Just because someone is spending

(22:51):
four or five hundred dollars a monthdoes not make it that they're doing better
than you. It's what you're doingthat matters more. And I think that
we need to not just empower thekids, because our goal is to obviously
number one, empower the kids.We need to listen to kids. We
need to be there for the kids. Kids are number one. It's they
are the ones doing it. Ihate when parents and coaches say we won

(23:12):
the game we are playing. Wehave a game, No, you don't,
the child does You just watch.As a coach, you coach,
but as a parent, you justsit there and that's it. You do
nothing. So I hate it whenparents do that. I of course I
catch myself because I mean it asin, we as a family have to

(23:33):
take you to a game. Butthen I realize, also, no,
but it's still the wrong thing tosay, because the way we speak is
just as important. A dear friendof mine and one of my mentor and
one of my inspirations for the movieand everything else. His name is Rid
Malby. He talks about words,how important words are all the time,

(23:56):
and that is so true. Whatwe say and how we say it is
key because kids will internalize. Thenit's like, no, you are not
playing. I am. I'm theone who's tired. I'm the one who
you just schedule five games in threedays. You do nothing, You just

(24:17):
drive me. So yeah, Sothat's one of the things we want to
achieve, is like the number oneof the kids, but number two is
also to educate and to make peoplerealize you can do it for a lot
less, a lot better, andat the same time, your child is
going to be a better person.You as a parent are going to have

(24:40):
a better relationship with your child,and then eventually you want to work with
coaches to show them what they cando and all they can do it better,
because to me, it's all aboutfinding solutions for people and connecting people
with other people who can show themsomething else that they're interested in, because

(25:00):
if you know them well, aprogram is as long as the child and
the parent one. I mean,we have preseason, we have in season,
we have obviously off season, um, depending on the sport obviously whatever
it is that they need to do. Like right now, we're we're setting

(25:22):
up hopefully in the next when Iget back from Italy, we're gonna set
up um our might the children thatwe have right now, UM, we're
gonna set them up. We're actuallygonna have a live session in person,
sorry, UM, so that shecan set up with for them, like
an off season program. That's gonnabe a little bit easier because we're want

(25:47):
to make sure she's here so shecan work with them, see where they
are from where they started, youknow, that kind of thing, and
then just have them set up forthem for the next couple of months,
especially because here in Vegas is sohot, there's a lot there are other
factors that we need to consider besidesjust a regular summer, because here,

(26:10):
you know, you have one hundredand fifteen hundred and twenty degree temperatures.
So there's a lot that needs tobe a few more things that maybe in
Alaska you wouldn't have to deal with, but in Alaska, because it's so
cold, you have to deal withother things. So that's why I'm saying
it becomes really depending on where weare. But because we are in Vegas
and the kids we're working with,most of them are here in Vegas at

(26:32):
the moment, then we have toadjust also for the temperature and all that.
I would think that would I wouldthink that would really depend, like
you're saying o otherwise, because somebodythat lives in like a dry heat place
like that, you'd have to drinkand because you could get dehydrated so quickly,
so they have to be drinking morethan someplace that's you know, not

(26:55):
as hot, that is so rusial. Because for example, I was just
in Spain with my kids and theywere breaking for water once maybe once and
a half, I mean literally forlike ten seconds. If you do that
here in Las Vegas, even inthe winter, because it is so dry.

(27:21):
You don't realize how dry it isand how much you sweat it because
you don't really sweat as much.At least you don't think you're sweating as
much because you're not as wet,so you don't feel wet because it evaporates
so quickly. So when that wouldnever work here, if you do one
water break in an hour, thesekids are gonna be dropping dead. But

(27:44):
you see, like the difference,Like, Okay, they can do it
there because it's a nice and seventyfive degrees. It's beautiful, nice little
breeze. No problem here. Youdo that, and you're gonna pick up
kids. You're gonna have to pickthem up and take them to the yard
because you can't do that when it'sone hundred degrees outside. You're gonna drop
dead. So that's what I mean. You have to adjust right, right.

(28:07):
So you you touched or briefly thatyou're creating a movie. Mhm.
Tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, that's like our pride and
joy. It's like we've been workingso hard on it and it's been an
incredible journey. One of the thingsthat you know, it's funny talking about

(28:30):
adjustments and we were talking about sayingwe before. It's like one of the
things that when we started editing themovie, we started making the same mistakes
that everybody else does, because eventhough we were talking about we want to
make sure it's a kids perspective,it's a kid's perspective, it's a kid's
movie. When we started to editit, we put the adults first automatically

(28:56):
without even thinking, right, andI was like, once we saw a
couple of I'm like, what arewe doing? But you know, because
we have to change too. It'sso ingrained in us of how it's supposed
to be that even we were madethe mistake to put the adults first,

(29:18):
and then we're like, oh mygod, that is so wrong. And
then of course we changed it,and now it's so much better because now
it is from the kid's perspective muchmuch, much more so than it was
before. But if we have tochange, we structure the film, and
we are making a movie about thatvery thing. Can you only imagine how
hard it is going to be tomake others change. So but that's to

(29:45):
me, it's the beauty of it, because we don't. It's not a
matter of you know, like thesedays. Everything is a fight. You
know. If you say to somebodyor somebody says, so you need to
drink water, people say, ahblah blah, you're w oh you're this,
You're dead, and I'm like,oh my god, it's just water,
you know. I mean, everythingbecomes like this fight, and it's

(30:07):
like, no, it's not afight. We just want to talk to
you. We just want to showyou. We just want to make you
understand that there is a different wayto do things that is better for your
child. It's not the only way. That's the thing that we want to
focus on. It's not the onlyway. It's one of the many different
things that you can do. Youknow. Putting kids to do fifty million

(30:30):
hours of exercises in it in aweek, it's insanity. These kids are
exhausted. My own child who lovessoccer, he plays soccer morning, noon
and night. He watch a soccermorning, noon and night. You know,
he had not by choice, buthe had five games last week because
he had playoffs for his school andthey played every day and it's a lot.

(30:53):
Whoever came up with that schedule iscomplete idiot, but whatever, so
he had, you know, becausethey won't they played three days straight and
then on the weekend he had twogames for his regular club. That's five
games. And I was like,oh my god, this is nuts.

(31:14):
But as any professional sport player,yeah, and he's thirteen, and what
am I gonna do tell him notto play in the final for his school
team, and that he's been dyingto play. Of course, right,
so, but by your see itas a parent, you have to like,
oh, that's nuts. And Iknew it was nuts. In fact,
the rest of the week off,he hasn't done a thing the rest

(31:38):
of the week this week because Ino no what I mean. On Saturday
night he went too bad. Itwas like seven o'clock and he hasn't he
slept for three days. He wasso burnt out that he had nothing like
he had to keep him home fromschool because he was starting having sword throws
and he couldn't wake up. Hewouldn't even eat between the heat the too

(32:00):
many games, and I knew that. I knew he was gonna burn out,
But like I said, I triedto tell him that, don't know,
I have to play, okay,and what are you gonna do?
Not let him play in the finalof his tournament. He's being with his
friends and his teammates. Of courseyou can't do that, right, But
this is the problem, Like,and I know he's gonna get burnt out

(32:24):
and all you can do is watchhim get burned out. But think about
all those parents who do that onpurpose, right, And that's what we're
trying to make people understand. Whatare you doing? You're gonna burn your
child at twelve? Yeah? Whyfor what? I mean? Like I
said, this was an ex extraordinaryevent that he had to do. Either

(32:45):
he had to find you know,this one week tournament whatever for his school,
middle school. But I would neverI don't even let him play two
games in a week, and usuallyunless it's a tournament, and then you
don't really have a choice because hewants to play with his friends. And
so I'm like, okay, butyou know, it's that kind of stuff,

(33:06):
like how can you you can't betweenschool and we're almost done here with
school. School ends here this week, not tomorrow, I'm sorry, Monday,
where it's the last day of schoolfor most of public schools. So
they're also crashing because of finals andassignments, so there's so much and then
it's just like the light goes off, right, and we really need to

(33:30):
pay attention to those type of stuff. And I think as kids they don't.
They think they're indestructible and they canjust keep going and going and going,
and they don't know how to listento their body. And I would
say most adults don't know how tolisten to their body until they're they're past
the point of it needing regeneration.And you know, rest I I we're

(33:52):
a society that wants to go,go, go, We want to be
on our phones, we want instantgratification. We're in we don't know how
to sometimes shut it down. AndI think what you guys are teaching,
you know, and listening to yourbody and the nutrition and stuff like that
is something that I guess I wishwhen I was younger, I would have

(34:14):
done something like that, because Ithink I would you know, I'd be
in a different point. Not thatI'm saying I regret anything, let's face
it, but you know, learningthings as an adult is harder than if
you would have learned them when wewere younger, because, like you said,
then they would have become a habitfrom back then. It's as an

(34:35):
adult it's really hard to change itis, and it's hard to accept change
because change it may still be easyby accepting it, to say oh,
I was doing something wrong because forwhatever reason, we are stuck with this
eagle garbage. And don't get mewrong, I make the mistakes too.
I wish I could say I'm perfect. I'm not, and I'm sure Shellne

(34:58):
does the same thing. But yeah, you we too. We have to
accept that they are better ways todo things. We have to accept that
our ways not the only way,and there's no reason to burn yourself out,
even as an adult. I mean, how many times do we go
to bed at midnight and our brainwon't shut off because we are so or

(35:19):
I have to check that my phone? Peeps? Who was it? I
have to watch? Oh I gotan email? I have? No,
you don't. Who's gonna be atmidnight? Nobody's paying attention to their phones
at midnight, so why are youlisten to it all? That's why so
many times I just put my phoneto charge and I don't touch it.
Well, if you think about it, if we go back to well,
at least I'm old enough to knowthe days before mobile phones, where we

(35:44):
would have one phone in the inthe house, and it was in ours,
was in our dining room, solike if you want to listen,
if you want to go talk toanybody, it was never private because anybody
in the house could be there.So times have definitely changed. I mean,
and I would say I was talkingwith I'll have to I want to
share. I was talking with oneof my coworkers earlier this week and in

(36:07):
the last nine months he's lost eightyfive pounds, which is phenomenal. And
part of it, he was sayingis he did not realize because he's a
year ago, he switched to adifferent role, and he didn't realize how
much stress he had and that hewas eating because he was stressed. You

(36:30):
tend to think, oh, Ineed to eat comfort foods, and I
want my comfort foods because I'm sostressed and I'm dealing with so many things,
and that that's one of the releasesthat us as adults use. But
if we would learn from as kidshow to better deal with stress and deal
with nutrition and stuff like that andnot use food is necessarily that same comfort

(36:54):
go to how much healthier we wouldbe as a society, or at least
know how to deal with your stressso that you don't get so stressed out.
So then yeah, you can't haveyour ice cream or your pizza or
whatever, the piece of candy,but you don't have that much of it
right now. You don't need it, but you can just really enjoy it.

(37:15):
Oh, I want to have someice cream today, because how many
people have that comfort food but don'treally enjoy it because it's no longer comforting.
It's just a habit. Yep.So even though they say this is
my comfort food, it really isn'tanymore. It doesn't even taste nice anymore
because you're so stressed out and peoplethen you have But you're right, the

(37:40):
biggest thing is we need to listento our bodies. You know, my
son the other day told me somethingbecause I told him I don't know what
he would finish the game Saturday andhe was dead and I and I told
him, it's like, you knowuf, you know you. We said,
you said that you're going to playthe other game, and he I've

(38:00):
walked the second game, but stillit's tired because you have to pay attention.
And he said to me, it'slike, can't I just be tired?
I said, I didn't say anythingabout you not being tired. I
instead of being franky, why don'tyou just tell me you're tired? Right?
But even as a parent, thinkabout the difference that can make in

(38:21):
a relationship with a parent and achild, that if you tell your child
it's okay to tell me you're tired, it's okay to tell me you don't
feel like playing or whatever. Mand my own kies know they can tell
me. And he still felt that, No, I can't tell him anything.
I said, tell me, you'resupposed to know you're tired right right

(38:43):
now? I can't because because youknow how it is. If the parents
said, oh you're tired, don'tplay, I'm wanna play, I'm gonna
play, you don't love me.You know, like you're like teenagers.
But if you open up to yourchild and you say, are you okay
to play? Are you tired?Because for whatever reason, as parents,
we think are like you said earlier, our child. It's not just a

(39:05):
child who thinks they're indestructible, it'sthe parents. You think the child is
indestructible. Yep. No, achild who gets panic attacks and she's twelve,
that should not be happening. AndI don't mean once in a while,
because that happens to all of it. We all have panic attacks once

(39:25):
in a while, right, Butwe're talking about a twelve year old who
gets regular panic attacks because of toomuch sport. That should not happen.
And that drives me crazy because it'slike this poor child. You're destroying that
child. The child will not behappy in a year or two once they

(39:47):
really can speak up, because youknow, she's still in that twelve year
old rangel. Mommy is the best, Daddy is the best. Wait till
they're thirteen or fourteen, and that'sthat. Mommy, you suck. Daddy,
you suck. I'll do whatever wantwell. I don't want to get
to that point with my children,so I do my best. And like
I said, I wish I wasbatting a thousand. I don't either.

(40:12):
But then you I catch myself andgo, oh crap, I should not
have said that. Oh crap.I'm sorry. Maya reset and we you
know, just like my son toldme the other day, can't I just
be tired? And I hadn't evensaid anything. Hmm. I was like,
of course you can't. For him, Absolutely good for him. But

(40:35):
we want that for every child.Yea, they don't be afraid of speaking
out because your parents are not gonnaeat you. Yes. Unfortunately, we
all know there's some parents who pushtoo hard. It push way too hard
mhm, borderline abusive mhmm. Obviouslythose parents we hope to reach. I

(40:57):
don't know. We do our best, right, but I mean, I
know plenty of parents who told methat I'm nuts, but I'm ridiculous,
I'm woke. I'm like, Ihate when people just like, no.
Has nothing to do with that,nothing to do with that. It has
to do with you as a parentworking with your child right against your child

(41:22):
with your child, and that's thekey. You gotta work together exactly well,
and you're still the authority figure.But that doesn't mean that your kids
don't have emotions and feelings and youknow, want to talk about those things.
And if if you push back onyour kids, they're not going to
feel that they can be open withyou. And if they can't be open

(41:45):
with you, if they're tired,what else are they not going to be
open with you about? Thank youexactly. And that's so important because we
can't put your child cannot be thebasketball player, the football player to swim
player or whatever player, because whathappens when they stop, And whether you

(42:06):
stop at twelve or you stop atforty, you will stop right. No
one plays forever mhm. So youcannot put that label on your child because
that child doesn't know who they areexcept a soccer player or a volleyable player,
a tennis player. And when theystop, the drop is monumental.

(42:31):
And these kids struggle like crazy oncethey stop playing for whatever the reason,
whether it's an injury or just theydon't feel like playing anymore. And now
who are they? Oh, Momand Daddy's not gonna love me because I
don't play anymore. Mom and daddyare gonna hate me. Mom and daddy
blah blah blah blah blah. Andthis is when horrible things happen. Well,

(42:53):
I'm gonna tie it back to recently. Many people know that the Milwaukee
Bucks exited out of the finals.They were the number one seed and they
lost in the first round of theplayoffs. And a reporter talked to Giannis
Andy Kumpo, who is the Greekfreak, the you know, number one

(43:15):
player, and they said your seasonwas a failure and he said, no,
it is not a failure. AndI loved how he said that,
and how he said you learn fromall your experiences and just because you lose
doesn't mean you don't learn or thatyou're a failure. And I think as

(43:36):
a society, we think that youhave to be number one and if you're
not number one, you're a failure. And that's not true. There are
so many people that can't be numberone. It's okay, exactly exactly.
So I mean, I really givehim a lot of credit because I thought
that was very good of him asa spokesperson, because a lot of people

(43:58):
look up to him, A lotof kids will look up to him.
For him to come out and andright that wrong that the meeting, you
know, the media person had personahad talked about. I really liked that
because I thought that was a goodmessage. You know, it's okay to
be wrong. I loved it becausewe seem to forget one key thing.

(44:19):
You gotta learn to win. Youcan't just win, and you gotta lose
before you win. So okay,So this season they got kicked out in
the first round in whatever many,five six games whatever was mhm. Okay,
So next year maybe they'll win itagain. You can't win every year,
nobody does. I mean, ifnot, I mean everybody would win.

(44:42):
It doesn't work like that, right, But you know I remember.
But that's also something that we nolonger teach, you know. I remember
when the Wayne Gretzkys, or theJordan's, the Magic's, the Larry Birds,
you know, all the great theyused to always say we had to
learn, we had to lose beforewe could win, because if you don't

(45:06):
know what you're doing wrong and thelevel that you have to get to,
how are you ever gonna win?You don't because you're always there's always and
I say this all the time,and I know, of course I'm not
the only one who says this,but there's always somebody better, somebody faster,
somebody stronger, somebody who knows morethan you, always, no matter
what, and it's up to us. That's whether it's a team sport,

(45:30):
when individual sport, we learn howhigh you have to go, and some
days you just don't have it.And that's the thing I find that that
people don't realize sometimes you just don'thave it. And I even tell my
kids that my son asked me whenmy daughter says, how did I play,
and we had this pact, andnow they don't want me to lie.

(45:52):
I mean, of course I neverlied to them, but they tell
me, don't be as me.Tell me what I did wrong? Like,
okay, you are, I willtell you. But sometimes they get
mad at me because they said,well I had a horrible day. I
said, no, it's just oneof those days today. You just didn't
have it. You could have playedout of three hours and nothing would have

(46:13):
happened. You could not have ifyou were the only person on the field,
you would not have scored. It'sjust one of those days. Then
nothing goes right, is just youdon't have it. Yeah, Well,
Yannis and his Milwaukee Bucks in thatgame whatever it was, I think it
was five or six, they justdidn't have it. It just nothing was
going right. They just couldn't getthere. Well, if we consider that

(46:39):
failing, what are we doing tokids? Because only one team wins?
Right? Right? And you gottasaid, Okay, I didn't have it
today. Why didn't? Instead offocusing on why didn't I have it?
What happened? How can I getbetter? Now? We focused on we
sucked, we messed up, We'rehorrible, we losers. And so it's

(47:00):
all negative, right, And Icompletely agree with you. I love that
he said that, because it's like, Okay, yes, it's important to
be number one in a competition becauseyou want to compete, right, and
you want to be better than someoneelse. But you know what, if
you beat me, okay, nowI'm gonna come back at you a little
bit harder. And if you beatme again, okay, I gotta get

(47:22):
even harder. But how do Ilearn that if you don't beat me?
Hm? Exactly? If it cameso easy, you know, you wouldn't
you wouldn't you wouldn't think you achievedsomething great as well. That's the thing
because also think about all those kidswhose parents put them in easy situation or

(47:42):
they play them down so they canfeel good about themselves and win games.
Yeah, okay, but then whathappens when you play somebody who's just as
good as you, and now youget slapped, and all of a sudden
you go, oh my god,oh my god, I'm horrible. I'm
the worst. That's also really badtoo, right, because you're falling from

(48:04):
way higher instead of if you letthe kids build by step by step.
Okay, you get killed. Nowyou're getting Now you just lose. Now
you fifty fifty, you win them, you lose them, and now you're
starting to win. Well, that'sdevelopment, and that's the healthy way to
look at it, because it shouldnever be about winning and losing the twelve

(48:28):
year old, right, you shouldbe about getting better. Yes, there
by the time you get to collegefor many American sports for example, or
obviously the professionals, you are ata certain level. But even then,
how many Jordans are there? One? Two? You know what I mean?
There's not like fifteen, there's oneor two? Yea, how many

(48:52):
whatever? How many tom Bradies areout there? One? So we can't
all be tom Brady? Right isall the other three four hundred players we
can beat them and it's still makean incredible career and play for ten years
in the pros or wherever. MSo, does that mean that if you
play in the NFL and you're notTom Brady you are a failure? Mhmm

(49:16):
right. There's only one Super Bowlwinner, right, So any Tom Brady
doesn't win the Super Bowl, doesit make Tom Brady a failure? Obviously
not? M So, Yeah,I completely agree. I love what Janni
said, and I wish more playerswould say it. Yes, I agree.
I agree. So let's go backto so you you when you coach

(49:38):
kids, you coach them you weresaying on movement and nutrition. Is there
anything else that you coach them withor yeah, we started working. We
work on their mental stuff too.We were now in the small doses,
um, but we're because we lookfor someone that can compliment Laine in the

(50:02):
mental health department because we it's notit's too much for her, so we
want to make sure that was.But it's so hard to find someone that
we trust that has the same idealsthan we do, because, like I
said, we're here for the kids, not for us. So we're trying

(50:22):
to find someone who's open to dothat kind of thing, someone who wants
to listen to, someone who iswilling to talk to the kids and not
just in it. You pay mefor an hour, let's work because a
lot of times kids need more thanthat. I see that as a coach,

(50:46):
I see that as a teacher,and so we need that. We
need someone that and yes, helpthem on a very very serious level,
but also they can be there tojust listen to them because like all human
beings, we just want to beheard, and sometimes you just want to
then for ten minutes. You know, that happens between husbands and wives.

(51:09):
That happens with you, moms anddaughters and sons and dads and whatever,
and boyfriend girlfriends, and that happensbetween coaches and athletes too, and parents.
I mean, you just want tohear sometimes. I mean I've had
a practice where my girls told me, coach, we're not practicing today.
We just we just know, wejust want to sit here and talk.

(51:29):
I had that a couple of times, and you said, so, as
a coach, you have a choice. You to listen to your players and
you say, okay, let's dothat, or you've forced them to do
it, and now you started toslowly burn your reputation with them. And
then because they're like, oh okay, so he's just another coach. He

(51:51):
doesn't care about us. Hmm.Interesting. Interesting. But we have to
work cond mental part. Well.I think I believe May is Mental health
Awareness month, isn't it. Hm, Yes, it is. That's why
we're talking about it too, becauseit is such a big thing and we

(52:12):
don't talk about it enough, andwe it's misunderstood too, because we always
think about mental health as depression,mental health as bipolar or schizophren you know,
like this very very high complicate,a convoluted things that not everybody has
any way, But so many timesmost kids just need a just talk to
me, I'm here. Doesn't haveto be depression, right, or anything

(52:37):
really really really serious. Sometimes itcan just be hey, I just had
a bad day. Can you listento me and somebody that's not going to
judge you, and you know thatyou can freely just talk to I mean,
I know, I know when Icome home from work, there are
times it's like I just you know, I'm driving home and instead of listening
to music, I need to likevent whatever it is out and just get

(52:59):
it out, because if we don't, we just internalize it and it becomes
more and more and it festers insideyou. So I think it eats you
up, it does m And thenyou can joke about it, you can
make it, you know, makelight of it in a way that the
kids still feel heard, and thenthey laugh at themselves, and they learn

(53:19):
to laugh at themselves because it's soimportant. We are forgotten how to laugh
at ourselves. We all everything isso stinky, theorious these days, and
it's not You've gotta make it.You're not that important. And that is
the best medicine, isn't it.And if you do it the right way,
you know, kids will be likelaughing with you, and then they'll

(53:42):
be like, Okay, coach reallycares, and that's what's so important.
M hmm. I agree. God, they have to because if you don't
connect, look at how many bossesyou don't have the respect of them then,
And that's the one of the biggestthings I think that a lot of
people lack today in society's respect forothers, and respect is earned. And

(54:07):
I think especially as a coach oras a teacher, you know you're gonna
listen to your teachers and your coachesmore if you respect them because they took
the time to listen to you.And it's more than just Sometimes it's just
a hug. Sometimes there's just ahigh five. Sometimes it really doesn't take
that much. And that, tome is the most important thing that I

(54:30):
can ever do, is make sureI enact arrest will take care of itself
whether we win a game or welose a game. And sometimes I get
mad too because I get mad athow they play, but not And that's
what I always try to tell them. I don't get mad because we lose.
Well, I'm not happy because wewon't, right, I usually get
mad because they are passing it orbecause they are just that makes me many

(54:57):
because it's like, why then whyare we year but winning and losing?
Unless it's the super Bowl? Whocares? I mean it's or whatever other
sport, right, I mean athirteen year old? Really, who cares
about the tournament in April that atwelve year old play? And you know,
by the time they reach whatever,the NBA, the NFL or whatever,

(55:22):
nobody's gonna remember that, right right, Well, Joel, it's fifty
five minutes we've been going. We'vebeen going. Good. Um, tell
everybody how what you the message youreally want to come across with for tonight?
And then how can people get involvedor help you with? I mean,

(55:43):
I'm sure you're you're a nonprofit organization, so you are looking for donations,
but you're also looking for more kidsto help and stuff like that.
How can people find you and allthat good? Styes? Um, they
can go to our website now sowhere our Children play dot org all the
information about the program. Just clickon program, and it's everything is right
there. You can sign up rightthere on the website. You can email

(56:07):
us at for example, my emailis Joe L j o E L at
Where our Children Play dot org.You can find us on social media at
doc Youth Sports, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, pretty much TikTok, so

(56:28):
you can find you can find useasily. Yes, we are looking the
most important thing for of course,we're always looking for donations because well,
we are a nonprofit and we needhelp. We actually are having a fundraising
event on June twenty fifth here intown. Okay, yeah, so we're
introducing our program. We're introducing ourour nonprofit to everybody here in the local

(56:52):
community. But what we want todo is reach across state lines, across
the world because like that, we'renot just looking for kids here. We're
looking for kids. We want tohelp kids and we want to help parents.
So please reach out to us sowe can you can talk to us.
You can ask a million questions beforeyou start. We only charge fifty

(57:14):
bucks a month, so it's likereally not much. People spend more in
coffee every month, and this isfor your child and you get full access
to all of us, especially Lainbecause she is the genius behind it.
So she will and as we grow, hopefully we'll have I mean not hopefully,

(57:36):
we will have more coaches to helpher. And again, but we
only work. We only want towork with people to believe in what we're
doing. They don't have to agreewith everything we're saying. But if you're
not there for the kids, wedon't want to work with you because this
isn't about you being a cool trainer. This is about making the kids better.

(58:00):
It doesn't matter to me if youare eighteen years old or if you're
fifty years old. It's about doyou have the kid's best interests at heart?
And if you do, then let'swork together because that's all matters.
That's true, and our and ourchildren are our future. I mean,
if we think about it, youknow, twenty thirty forty years from now,

(58:22):
who's going to be running the countryour children. So if we don't
start, you know, giving themthe foundation to work with, now,
what was it? What's it goingto be like? Then? We got
inspire kids. We used to inspirekids, our parents, not all of
them, of course, because it'snot like the past. It's always what
we think it is. It wasn'tit wasn't perfect, and it wasn't always

(58:44):
great, right, But I alwaysfelt like that it was more like you
were looking forward to something and youwere looking up to someone. It was
more inspiration. I think one ofthe things that I remember growing up,
I always felt like inspired to bebetter or to do something. Now I
feel like that even the parents areputting everything down like they're they're not trying

(59:06):
to inspire their children to do something. They want to make them do what
they want. Well, that's nothow it works. You got to inspire
your kids to be better than you, right. I want my kids to
be better than me. I hopethey're better than me m and to be
their whole person. That's absolutely numberone most important thing. They have to

(59:28):
be them and them is not necessarilythe same as you, I hope not.
I want them, Like I said, I want like my kids.
I want them to be better thanme. I don't want them to make
the mistakes I made, and Iwant them to make other mistakes. I
think that that's key though, too, because I think sometimes in society we

(59:52):
not only do we want them tobe better than us, but we want
them to have better than us andI keep telling people, well, what
was so at about what we had? Look at where we've become, you
know, because sometimes I think wegive too much sometimes as well. You
know, when you see the child, Oh, they're being punished for something

(01:00:14):
that they did wrong. Oh goto your room. Well in your room
is your xbox, your TV,your phone and a computer. What kind
of punishment is that? So youknow, I also think we have to
be careful when we're when we punish, you know, kids or from doing
something wrong, it actually has tofeel like a punishment. And I'm not

(01:00:35):
saying you have to beat them oror you know, or and I'm not
saying there's anything wrong with a littleslap here or there, you know,
a little spanking, because let's faceit, I remember as a kid,
we get we got spanked once ina while. But there's a right way
and a wrong way to do it. And I think that's what we have
to learn. Like anything, wehave to but we have to listen.

(01:00:58):
I mean, the end of theday, what we hope to achieve is
that we can listen to kids andgive them what they need. And if
we do that, we've accomplished whatwe wanted. Well. And sometimes what
they need is discipline and is notjust always being a friend, because there
is a difference with a parent.You are you can be a friend,

(01:01:20):
but you also have to be aparent. And I think that's a fine
line that sometimes people don't realize orremember. They're afraid. Hmm, they
are, and it's like, no, it's like kids need discipline. That
is absolutely true. If you setparameters, it always works better. And

(01:01:43):
then that's what we tried to do. We set parameters, and then why
didn't you do it? And thenwe tried to talk to them, Okay,
you didn't do this because why itwas boring? Okay, well,
why was it boring? What didn'tyou understand? What didn't you like?
Maybe let's change it to make itthis way, you know, let's make
it do it this way. Sothen it comes again, it becomes a
conversation, it becomes organic. We'restill in charge and we still tell you

(01:02:05):
what to do, yes, butwe get feedback from you so that we
can modify to a way. Okay, you're comfortable, let's go do it
exactly exactly. Well, Joel,I've really enjoyed this. I'm going to
do a little station identification here.If you don't mind, not at all.
Our audio version of our show canbe heard on iHeartRadio, Apple,

(01:02:27):
Spotify, Google, or wherever youget your podcast. Please hit in that
lower right hand corner. You're goingto see a red subscribe button. That's
to subscribe to the South Florida TribunesYouTube channel. We're suscribing for a thousand
subscribers. Please also comment, like, share our broadcast. If you want
to be a guest, you cansend topic ideas to South Florida Tribune at

(01:02:47):
gmail dot com. If you wantto advertise cost efficiently, call Scott at
nine five four three h four fournine four one. We are live on
Facebook, LinkedIn Twitter, or inYouTube. Joel, this has been an
absolute pleasure. Let everybody know anythingelse you want to leave everybody on?

(01:03:08):
What thought would you like to leaveeverybody on? Come check us out,
Please reach out to us any questions. We're always here for you guys.
Um just reach out. And whatwas the name of the website again?
Where our children play dot org?Sounds good? Well? Thank you,

(01:03:30):
Joel. It's been a pleasure.Until the next time, because we'll have
the We'll be in next time,I'm sure, m hmm. Thank you.
For having us. Thank you