I once was upset at the effort of a few players on the 8th grade travel softball team I was coaching. So, I yelled. I like to think I encouraged loudly, but I yelled. I was just at the start of opening my PT clinic, and felt like if they were going to lolly-gag, why on earth would I waste my time with them at practice?
Then I found out that one of their mom's had passed away from cancer the year before. And I felt like a jerk. I didn't know what that kid was going through as a 13 year old girl without a mom, and I never will.
It’s important to understand that we’re all operating with incomplete information. We know the tip of each other’s icebergs, IF we know that!
Your kids don’t know when you’ve had a tough day, and unless you ask (and they’re honest with you), you don’t know if they had a hard day, a rough night’s sleep, a breakup with their significant other, a failed test, a family or pet death, etc. We are operating on incomplete information , and we have to understand that if we were to get more or different information, our opinions might change, and our attitudes might change with them.
