When Your Kid Out-Coaches You

I'm sure I'm like most parents and want to go completely insane over my kids behavior.  "Pick that up", "why did you do that", and "why didn't you tell us that" might be a few phrases overheard in my home from my wife and I at varying levels of volume.  We have known our kids every day of their lives yet they still don't get us like we get them.  Well I used to think that until the last week when my daughter truly impressed me without me having to tell her to do so.

I have the honor of coaching her in both basketball and softball.  Our basketball season has been rough.  She is a talented player and loves the game.  Last week in a losing effort, her "coach" told her coming out of halftime to "do what you have to do" in order to win a game.  She disobeyed her "coach" and went out playing team basketball.  She at no point tried to take the game over.  She looked for open teammates and tried to involve everyone.  I told her on the way home how happy I was with her.

Fast forward a few days and we are at it again.  This time a close game that actually went into overtime.  Her "coach" was busy pouting over calls and rolling his eyes while she was playing her guts out.  Again, involving everyone she could.  The game ended and we lost by a basket.  Her first response was to send this picture out on Instagram:

Trust me, I've been out-coached a bunch.  I'm not sure how to feel now that my ow kid has out-coached me.  That's why I used the term "coach".  Its hard to feel like a coach when your 11 year-old daughter shows you what its all about.  And what its about is rarely what you think is urgent.  They see the big picture when we are distracted by the little one.  Trust me parents, your kids do listen to you and when given the right opportunity, they will make you proud.  All the petty barking about the little things tends to go away when they out-coach you.  She is a great kid,  even if she doesn't always pick up her socks or throw her trash away.