Takedown Report

Bad wrestling parent behavior and strategies to stop it

TDR Editor’s Notes; A negative topic yet we all can admit it happens. Including this article since it includes advice and suggestions for improvement. Let’s take advantage of these strategies.
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Posted by Caryn Ward on Feb 21, 2019
It’s 2008. I’m sitting in an arena in Minnesota, there to watch my youngest son wrestle in a national tournament. He’s a freshman in high school and he’s made it to the finals. He will face one of Minnesota’s studs, a wrestler he had faced many times before and never beaten. Behind me is a contingent of Minnesota wrestling moms. They are bad-mouthing my son. Loudly. Before I can stop her, my friend, who is sitting next to me, turns around and defends my son. Even more loudly. As the back-and-forth gets more and more heated, I am thinking, “This is going to come to blows” and wondering who will win (the fight in the stands not the one on the mat). Of course, the answer to that is no one wins. Everyone loses. Seeing the viral video of two wrestling moms throwing down at a youth tournament last week brought back the Minnesota incident and other memories. The video shows bad parent behavior in the extreme, but there are plenty of parents of wrestlers and other athletes who have acted on that primal instinct to protect their children in a way they’re not proud of. We are parents first, we sometimes act on instincts first.

A 2008 study out of Tokyo that used magnetic resonance imaging, or M.R.I.s, showed the maternal instinct to love and protect her child could be hard-wired into a woman’s brain. Similarly, a 2014 study out of Israel implied that caring for children triggers something in the brain for men as well as women and that there is a paternal instinct as well as a maternal one. But instincts can be overruled. As my son matured as a wrestler, thankfully, I matured as a wrestling parent. I came up with coping strategies, ways to make sure I think first, react later or never. One of those strategies is called “Zen mommy.” Before a big match, a friend whose son was also wrestling at a high stakes level, and I would meditate in our seats and repeat our mantra, “Zen mommy” which means we will be calm and channel only good thoughts no matter what happens on the mat. Another strategy I’ve employed is to watch from afar. I will leave my seat and go to the most distant, least populated place in an arena and watch from there. That way if I do say something inappropriate, no one will hear it but me. Rest of the story and suggestions at http://matbossapp.hs-sites.com/blog/bad-wrestling-parent-behavior-and-strategies-to-stop-it?mc_cid=6ba4a3db8d&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

February 27, 2019 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized