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Welcome RPOLL Parents!
Click here for Information on RPOLL 2011 Board PostionsPlease reference this page for helpful information on your role as a Little League Parent. Useful information is also available at http://www.littleleague.org/Little_League_Online.htm.
Contents:
Your Role as a Little League Parent
Local Little Leagues are entirely volunteer organizations. Each league depends on adults like you to organize and conduct every aspect. Not only do adults serve as administrators, volunteer coaches, and umpires they also help with field maintenance, fund-raising, concessions, and numerous other special projects.
Your willingness to exchange time and effort for your child's benefit and enjoyment is very important to the functioning of your local Little League. Cheering your daughter or son on from the stands is one important way to be involved, but we invite you to do even more by volunteering to help run your local Little League program.
Without a doubt, Little League is a family affair that gives parents and children a common ground for spending time together. Whether you are coaching the players, selling popcorn to the fans, or bringing soda for the team after the game, your family will enjoy being a part of Little League in your community. Most of all, your child will appreciate the benefits of your enthusiasm and involvement in his or her activities.
When winning is kept in perspective, there is room for fun in the pursuit of victory or more accurately, the pursuit of victory is fun. With your leadership, Little League can help your child learn to accept responsibilities, accept others and most of all, accept her - or himself.
Parents
Responsibilities
Helping Your Child's Coach
Remember that most coaches are striving to do the best they can. You can help make the coach's job a bit easier, as well as help your child enjoy Little League more, by doing the following things:
Enhancing Self-Worth
The challenge of helping every athlete feel worthy is a difficult one. Adults must find a way for every athlete to experience success in an environment in which actual winners are few and losers are many. The basic problem is that young athletes learn from coaches, teammates, and parents to gauge their self-worth largely by whether they win or lose. The devastating result is that athletes then feel they can only maintain their sense of self-worth by winning.
Some adults also teach young athletes to believe they are entirely responsible for winning or losing a game. This is certainly incorrect. Wining or losing are determined by many factors, not only the play of any one athlete, but also the play of teammates and opponents, officials' calls, and luck.
So when young people learn to evaluate their self-worth according to winning and losing, they do so on the basis of something they do not entirely control. This can lead to athletes' taking credit for success and blame for failure when they are not entirely responsible for either one. Consequently, the most important thing you can do as a parent is to help your child use a different yardstick for success.
Success for an athlete must be seen in terms of exceeding personal goals rather than surpassing the performance of others.
Winning is important, but it becomes secondary to an athlete's striving to achieve personal goals. In baseball, personal goals might include such things as making good contact with the ball when batting, fielding balls correctly, or throwing accurately to the base.
By learning to focus on personal goals, goals related to behaviors he or she has control over, your child is much more likely to be successful regardless of the outcome of a game. The important thing for you here is to help your athlete set realistic goals, for doing so ensures a reasonable degree of success. Given all the competitive pressures and peer influence young athletes face, it is you and the coach who must help your child set realistic goals.
When you help your child set realistic goals, she or he will likely experience more success and feel more competent. By becoming more competent, a child gains confidence and can learn skills of moderate difficulty without fearing failure. So you can see that setting realistic goals robs failure of its threat. Rather than indicating that athletes are not worthy, failure indicates they should try harder.
De-emphasize winning and reemphasize the attainment of personal goals. This principle is the key to enhancing your young athlete's feelings of self-worth.
Keeping Winning in Perspective
Are you able to keep winning in perspective? You might answer with a confident yes, but will you be able to do so when it is your child who is winning or losing, when your child is treated a bit roughly by someone on the other team, or when the umpire makes a judgment against your child? Parents are sometimes unprepared for the powerful emotions they experience when watching their sons and daughters compete.
One reason that parents' emotions run too high is that they want their children to do well; it reflects on them. They also may believe that their children's failures are their own. Parents need to realize that dreams of glory they have for their youngsters are not completely unselfish, but they are completely human. Parents who are aware of their own pride, who are even capable of being amused by their imperfections, can keep themselves well under control.
Being a Model of Good Sportsmanship
Flying off the handle at games or straining relations with the coach or other parents creates a difficult situation for your child. Just as you don't want your daughter or son to embarrass you, don't embarrass your Little Leaguer.
It's no secret that kids imitate their parents. In addition, they absorb the attitudes they think lie behind their parents' actions. As you go through the Little League season with your child, be a positive role model. How can you expect your child to develop a healthy perspective about competing and winning if you display an unhealthy one? Remember Little league is supposed to be a fun experience for your child, and one in which he or she will learn some sport skills. Winning will take care of itself.
Some parents seem to abandon good principles of child rearing when their child is participating in sports. However, just as your child's home, school, and religious environment affect the type of person he or she will be, so does the sport environment especially when your child is young.
Remember this:
If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they have to have a goal.
If children live with honesty, they learn what trust is.
Parents' Checklist for Success
Here is a list of questions you should consider when your child begins playing Little League. If you can honestly answer yes to each one, you will find little trouble ahead.
Can you share your son or daughter?
This means trusting the coach to guide your child's Little League experiences. It means accepting the coach's authority and the fact that he or she may gain some of your child's admiration that once was directed toward you.
Can you admit your shortcomings?
Sometimes we slip up as parents, our emotions causing us to speak before we think. We judge our child too hastily, perhaps only to learn later the child's actions were justified. It takes character for parents to admit they made a mistake and to discuss it with their child.
Can you accept your child's disappointments?
Sometimes being a parent means being a target for a child's anger and frustration. Accepting your child's disappointment also means watching your player play poorly during a game when all of his or her friends succeed, or not being embarrassed into anger when your 10-year-old breaks into tears after a failure. Keeping your frustration in check will help you guide your son or daughter through disappointments.
Can you accept your child's triumphs?
This sound much easier than it often is. Some parents, not realizing it, may become competitive with their daughter or son, especially if the youngster receives considerable recognition. When a child plays well in a game, parents may dwell on minor mistakes, describe how an older brother or sister did even better, or boast about how they played better many years ago.
Can you give your child some time?
Some parents are very busy, even though they are interested in their child's participation and want to encourage it. Probably the best solution is never to promise more than you can deliver. Ask about your child's Little League experiences, and make every effort to watch at least some games during the season.
Can you let your child make her or his own decisions?
Decisions making is an essential part of young person's development, and it is a real challenge to parents. It means offering suggestions and guidance but finally, within reasonable limits, letting the child go his or her own way. All parents have ambitions for their children, but parents must accept the fact that they cannot mold their children's lives. Little League offers parents a minor initiation into the major process of letting go.
WHAT PARENTS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT LITTLE LEAGUEŽ INSURANCE
WARNING: Protective equipment cannot prevent all injuries a player might receive while participating in Baseball / Softball.
The Little League Insurance Program is designed to afford protection to all participants at the most economical cost to the local league. The Little League Player Accident Policy is an excess coverage, accident only plan, to be used as a supplement to other insurance carried under a family policy or insurance provided by parent's employer. If there is no primary coverage, Little League insurance will provide benefis for eligible charges, up to Usual and Customary allowances for your area, after a $50.00 deductible per claim, up to the maximum stated benefits.
This plan makes it possible to offer exceptional, affordable protection with assurance to parents that adequate coverage is in force for all chartered and insured Little League approved programs and events.
If your child sustains a covered injury while taking part in a scheduled Little League Baseball or Softball game or practice, here is how the insurance works:
1. The Little League Baseball and Softball accident notification form must be completed by parents (if the claimant is under 19 years of age) and a league official and forwarded directly to Little League Headquarters within 20 days after the accident. A photocopy of the form should be made and kept by the parent/claimant. Initial medical/dental treatment must be rendered within 30 days of the Little League accident.
2. Itemized bills, including description of service, date of service, procedure and diagnosis codes for medical services/supplies and/or other documentation related to a claim for benefits are to be provided within 90 days after the accident. In no event shall such proof be furnished later than 12 months from the date the initial medical expense was incurred.
3. When other insurance is present, parents or claimant must forward copies of the Explanation of Benefits or Notice/Letter of Denial for each charge directly to Little League Headquarters, even if the charges do not exceed the deductible of the primary insurance program.
4. Policy provides benefits for eligible medical expenses incurred within 52 weeks of the accident, subject to Excess Coverage and Exclusion provisions of the plan.
5. Limited deferred medical/dental benefits may be available for necessary treatment after the 52-week time limit when:
(a) Deferred medical benefits apply when necessary treatment requiring the removal of a pin /plate, applied to transfix a bone in the year of injury, or scar tissue removal, after the 52-week time limit is required. The Company will pay the Reasonable Expense incurred, subject to the Policy's maximum limit of $100,000 for any one injury to any one Insured. However, in no event will any benefit be paid under this provision for any expenses incurred more than 24 months from the date the injury was sustained.
(b) If the Insured incurs Injury, to sound, natural teeth and Necessary Treatment requires treatment for that Injury be postponed to a date more than 52 weeks after the injury due to, but not limited to, the physiological changes of a growing child, the Company will pay the lesser of: 1. A maximum of $1,500 or 2. Reasonable Expenses incurred for the deferred dental treatment. Reasonable Expenses incurred for deferred dental treatment are only covered if they are incurred on or before the Insured's 23rd birthday. Reasonable Expenses incurred for deferred root canal therapy are only covered if they are incurred within 104 weeks after the date the Injury occurs. No payment will be made for deferred treatment unless the Physician submits written certification, within 52 weeks after the accident, that the treatment must be postponed for the above stated reasons.
Benefits are payable subject to the Excess Coverage and the Exclusions provisions of the Policy.
We hope this brief summary has been helpful in a better understanding of an important aspect of the operation of the Little League endorsed insurance program.
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2010 - Royal Palm Orangewood LL - phxrpoll@cox.net
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