Echoes beyond the game: the lasting power of a coach's words - In The Long White Cloud

Words are like wildfire, causing so much destruction from a little spark.

Remember the old saying, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.’ Turns out, the last part isn’t true. Neuroscientific evidence suggests that ‘verbal abuse’ can cause changes to a young person’s brain that may have long-term negative consequences. And in the short-term, we'd suggest the anxiety and fear created wouldn’t be helpful either.
 
Shouting at kids in sport wouldn’t necessarily, or usually, meet the threshold of ‘verbal abuse’, although we expect we’ve all seen some that might. But we think the research that’s been done by people such as Dr Martin Teicher serves as a good reminder that words do matter … and potentially for a long time.
 
We recently reflected as a group on all the coaches we've had in sport. We could remember almost all of them, but between us there’d been two coaches who were remembered specifically because they’d said something that made us feel better about ourselves.
 
So, let’s all agree it’s never okay to yell in a young person’s face, or ‘rip into’ a child for making a mistake. Or stand by and watch others do it. Shouting aggressively at someone always diminishes the relationship, but kindness never does.
 
Ngā mihi
The Sport NZ Sport Development Team.