Coaches have an important job. We will develop practice plans, teach technique, push your wrestler physically, demand effort, correct

mistakes, and prepare athletes for competition. But coaches only get a wrestler for a handful of hours each week.

The foundation is built at home.

A child needs somewhere to return after a brutal practice where he or she got beat up, exhausted, frustrated, or failed at something repeatedly. Home should be the place where that wrestler knows he or she is safe, supported, and loved. He or she needs to know that even if tomorrow’s practice completely sucks, he or she has people behind him or her and he or she can get up and do it again. A stable home, parents who love and support one another, proper food, sleep, discipline, encouragement, and consistency give a young wrestler an enormous advantage. 

The wrestling room can test the foundation. It cannot replace it.

Skin issues are part of wrestling, but good hygiene can greatly reduce them. At Reformed Wrestling, we make a concentrated effort to clean and disinfect the mats practice. We use quality cleaning equipment and take mat cleanliness seriously. However, clean mats are only half the battle. Wrestlers need to be clean too.

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Beginning wrestling requires parent involvement. Parents should pay attention during practice. Learn the terminology. Watch the techniques being taught. Understand what your child is working on. This gives you the ability to reinforce those lessons outside the wrestling room.

REFORMED WRESTLING IS NOT A DAYCARE.

For wrestlers under six years old, we expect a parent or responsible adult to be on the mat with the child. Parents of three-, four-, and five-year-olds do not need to become assistant coaches. Your primary job

is to be a presence and help:

• Keep your child focused.

• Keep them quiet while coaches are teaching.

• Redirect them when they become distracted.

• Keep them participating.

Allow the coaches to spend their time teaching wrestling rather than repeatedly managing one child. As wrestlers mature and become capable of practicing efficiently and independently, that level of parental involvement will naturally change.

Parents should learn enough wrestling to help their own children. That doesn’t mean every parent needs to become a great wrestling coach. It means learning:

• Basic wrestling positions.

• Basic techniques.

• Scoring.

• How weigh-ins work.

• How tournaments operate.

• How to get your wrestler where he or she needs to be.

• Enough basic mat-side coaching to help when a club coach isn’t available.

This is especially important during the folkstyle season. Many local tournaments occur on Sundays. Reformed Wrestling coaches may attend some of them and may not attend others. Even when coaches are at a tournament, several wrestlers can be competing simultaneously. When we’re available, we’re happy to coach your kid. But parents should be prepared to represent their own wrestler when we aren’t.

Learning how to coach your child is important. Learning how to coach yourself as a parent may be even more important. It is easy to get carried away with youth sports. A parent can go from wondering whether his three-year-old should even wrestle to driving across the country chasing major tournaments.

Remember why we’re doing this.

• Physical activity is good for children.

• Learning strength is good.

• Learning discipline is good.

• Learning to face another human being alone is good.

• Learning to lose, get back up, and try again is good.

This sport can prepare children emotionally and physically for difficult things later in life. Don’t allow your desire for your child’s success to destroy the reason you put them in wrestling in the first place.

When your child loses a match, screaming, throwing a fit, or immediately giving them a ten-minute breakdown of everything they did wrong isn’t what we’re striving for. Most of the time, they already know they lost. They know they screwed something up. They’re already disappointed.

Sometimes what they need from Dad or Mom isn’t another coach. They need a hug. They need:

• “I love you.”

• “I’m proud of how hard you worked.”

• “We’ll get back after it.”

The coaches can fix the wrestling. Parents need to make sure the wrestler knows that losing a match doesn’t change what home feels like. The same applies after practice. If your child spent an hour getting thrashed by older or better wrestlers but continued working, don’t spend the ride home reminding them how badly they got beat. Encourage the effort.

Sportsmanship, however, is absolutely an area where parents should reinforce the standard:

• Shake hands.

• Don’t throw tantrums.

• Respect opponents.

• Listen to coaches.

• Win correctly.

• Lose correctly.

Let coaches coach wrestling. Parents—never stop being parents.