The Politics of The Cool Dad

I’m going to break some news here and tell you human beings don’t like to be critiqued. 

I once coached a flag football team that included kids with various degrees of athletic experience and prowess, and quickly learned (the hard way) that my messaging to these children had to be carefully tailored. There was not, unfortunately, a one-size-fits-all model for how to tell kids they’re doing something wrong and need to improve. 

Some of my flag footballers responded positively to straightforward criticisms of how they were running a play or throwing a ball or catching a ball, eager to get better and, I suppose, please their sweaty coach, pretending he knew what he was doing. For these kids, a critique was not interpreted as an attack, but as a helpful suggestion for how to do something slightly better. Maybe they thought this would lead to more playing time, or more snaps at high-leverage positions in a league that forced teams to deploy a quarterback rotation. And you what? They were right. 

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The problem, I learned (the hard way), was assuming every child would respond well to honest assessments of their various efforts on the practice field. Stop trying to snatch the ball out of the air, I’d tell a receiver. You gotta step when you throw, and for the love of god, follow through, I’d tell a quarterback. Don’t give up on the play just because an opponent evaded your flag grab attempt, I’d tell a defender who seemed uninterested in snatching a flag. 

Sometimes I’d get heated, not because I was upset with a kid, but because I wanted them to improve and, eventually, enjoy the thrill of victory and impressing their teammates and family members in attendance, things of that nature. And in those moments, some of my kids would shut down or melt down.

These children in no way wanted to be told they were doing something – anything – incorrectly. Some would cry. Others would get mad and tell me I was the one who was wrong, since they could do nothing wrong. It was all quite maddening until my mom reminded me that I was exactly the same as a kid. I did not want any coaching feedback that did not include telling me how wonderful I was, how utterly perfect I had performed on the field. 

A critique? A suggestion? No thank you, sir. My baseball swing is just fine. My jump shot requires no improvement. My putting is as good as it’s gonna get. I’ve practiced a lot, coach. Trust me. Don’t injure my ego by telling me something I don’t know. 

It’s why a politics of criticism and shame is a nonstarter in the United States (and elsewhere, I’d presume). You don’t rally people to a cause or candidate by making them feel guilty, or telling them they’re ignorant, or convincing them their lives must be changed dramatically in ways they might find frightening. You can’t, in short, tell people they’re wrong. 

Enter Cool Dad Politics. 

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