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The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible. Thank you for visiting, Frank

ON COURT ANGER 

” My daughter gets annoyed at the smallest of things” or “My son “sails” into a rage whenever things aren’t going his way” or maybe “My child can’t get this anger monkey off her back, can you help?”

Do any of these comments sound familiar?

Parents in distress call me week in, week out with issues I categorize as frustration tolerance. The first thing I try to express is that not all anger is bad. Fire can be used as an analogy. Controlled fire can be used to cook meals and heat homes. Uncontrolled fire can burn down homes. Managing anger and fire requires knowledge and skill!

Often it is the good anger that actually propels your child into an upward spiral. This rush of adrenaline often pushes them into a higher level. The concerns arise when the player chooses to let his or her negative emotions control their behavior. In my opinion, bad anger on the court stems from lack of knowledge, resources and tools. Here’s a great example:

Jake has been taking lessons for years. He and his coach have focused on developing his primary physical strokes. His tools going into an Open tournament are his solid flat serve, his hard driving ground strokes, and solid traditional volleys. Is this enough to win titles? Not likely.

We know from our experience that secondary strokes are required in order to compete at the higher levels. So, Jake draws a retriever/pusher in the second round and once again goes down in flames. Jake has a temper tantrum, cursing and throwing his racket as he emotionally falls apart. His fall apart is due to his lack of smart training.

Without the secondary shots and patterns used to pull a great retriever out of their game Jake has little chance. Building the mental and emotional tools give him solutions and plans. Once tools are developed, instead of getting angry, he calmly shifts to plan B or C. Accelerated learning is all about options. Handling frustration is a learned behavior.

Below is a list of mental and emotional tools your child should digest in order to begin to manage anger and stress. Talk it through and have some fun.

Twelve Ways to Tame Inner-Demons

1. Say Something Good/Positive

On the practice court, ask your child to rehearse finding something they did well on each point. This will shift their energy and focus from the negative to positive. The thoughts you feed tend to multiply. Multiplying the positive is a learned behavior.

This rule applies to parents as well as players! Here’s an example: I teach a 14 year old nationally ranked junior that has a terrific 110 mph serve. As she was “nailing” her serve into the box, all her father could say was “Ya, but look at her knee bend, it’s pitiful…etc.” Ouch!

2. Education is Not Completed in the Lesson

The most important lessons are taught in tournament play. They are analyzed in match logs. Assist your child in completing a match log after each match. Match logs are great for deciphering the X’s and O’s of why your child is getting their results.

Solutions are found in match logs! The poised even tempered players have preset solutions rehearsed and designed for their future on court problems. Match logs identify the reoccurring nightmares. In anger management, prevention is the best medicine.

3. Rehearse Successful Performance Goals Versus “I Have to Win” Outcome Goals

Champions are performance orientated not outcome orientated. In a single match, professionals think about the same hand full of patterns a thousand times, irritated juniors think about a thousand different things in the same single match!

After blowing a lead I ask our players “What were you thinking about when you went up 5-2?” The answer is almost always future outcome issues such as “what’s my ranking going to be after I beat this guy.”

Parents need to be performance goal oriented as well. After a match parents need to replace “Did you win?” with “How did you perform?” In the 2009 Masters Doubles, one ATP team got 81% of their first serves in and capitalized on 3 out of 4 break points. By looking at the performance chart/goals only, guess who won easily? Now, that’s thinking like a champion!

4. Tennis is Not Fair

There are so many reasons why this game is not fair. Understanding these issues will reduce the stress some juniors place on themselves. For instance, luck of the draw, court surfaces, match locations, elements like weather, wind, lucky let courts, miss-hit winners, creative line callers…Can you think of a few?

5. Everyone Gets the Same 24 Hours in a Day

The difference is how they use it! I suggested getting a daily planner and discuss time management with your child. Assist them in organizing their on-court and off-court weekly schedule. Avoiding anger on match day is earned on the practice court. Most often, players seeing red shouldn’t be mad at their match performance. They should be upset with their pre-match preparation.

Poise, relaxed performers are confident with their skills because they deeply believe they are doing everything in their power to prepare properly. I’ve found that players that are breathing fire in matches know, deep down, that they are now paying the price for their lack of preparation.

6. Managing Stress

In the heat of battle, experience tells us that if you are struggling take a moment to detach. Often appearing unflappable is the tool needed to send the opponent over the edge. The opponent will appear calm as long as you are the one throwing temper tantrums. If you are steamed, fake it until you make it! Simply pretend to be unruffled.

Parent’s this applies to you as well. Detach during your child’s match by going for a brisk walk, read the paper or listen to your ipod. This sends the message that you are not overly stressed about the results.

Take a moment and talk to your child about time management as it pertains to controlling the pace of the match. Winners absolutely control the pace of the match. Think back, top seeds often take bathroom breaks at critical times in a match, don’t they? Controlling the energy flow of the match is a super way to control the fire!

7. Champions Experience Failure

Discuss how most tennis champions have probably lost way more matches than your child has lost. Ambitious people experience many failures.

Two of my past students are the ATP’s Sam Querrey (top 20) and the WTA’s Vania King (The 2010 Wimbledon doubles Champion). They both go home losing most tournaments they enter. Would you say that these two tennis millionaires are losers? Not a chance!

8. Never Outgrow Fun

You often see top professionals battle and still smile in the course of a match. The vintage Vic Braden slogan “Laugh & win” makes perfect sense!

Stress and anger clutter your thought processes; pull you into the wrong side of your brain which destroys your problem solving ability; irritates, tightens and constricts muscle flow which decreases your swing speed as well as your on court movement and/or simply destroys one’s ability to perform.

9. Tennis is a Gift Not a Right

Discuss how there are millions of great athletes the same age as your child that will never even get the opportunity to compete at this level. Tennis isn’t fair, right? But has your child thought about how lucky they are to be able to play tennis and have a family that wants to support their passion?

10. If Good Judgment Comes From Experience Where Does Experience Come From?

The answer is Bad Judgment. It is far less painful to learn from others failures. After a tournament loss, don’t race home steaming mad. Instead, stay at the tournament site and observe a top seed.

Replace focusing on the strokes with analyzing the easy going attitudes as well as the infuriated, angry behaviors. Remind your child that an unflappable, quiet opponent is far more difficult and annoying to compete against than a wild angry one.

11. Rehearse Ignoring Their Negative Thoughts

Ask your child to allow you to video tape a few matches. As they watch them back, ask your child to count the times they had a negative thought, loss of concentration or an emotional breakdown on the court. Now, here’s the solution.

Ask them to simply reduce that number by 25% in next week’s video match. If done properly, negative behavior will be weeded out of your child’s match play within a month’s time.

12. The Door to Success is Always Marked “Push”

Ask your child if they are always pushing themselves to their fullest potential? Remind them that there are thousands of really good juniors. There are only a handful of great juniors. From a parents’ perspective, if you do not push gently everyday (or pay someone to do the daily pushing) your child does not have a shot!

Contact: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@earthlink.net
MaximizingTennisPotential.com
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