To All Parents As We Start A New Marching Band Season...Let Us Do Our Jobs

Let the band director, guard instructor, marching staff, and music staff do their jobs!

Here's where this post comes from.

Last night, my son who is 9 years old played in the first play off game for his baseball team. Josh is an average player. He's a really good hitter, but can't catch a fly ball, if the ball was lobbed at him from one foot away and by his 92 year old great grandmother. I love my kid, but I don't see a future for him as a baseball star. I didn't sign him up to learn the skills of baseball. My goal and my only goal has always been to teach him the lessons of what it's like to play on a team and follow rules. Everything else to me is secondary. He has been playing for three years and over time I've seen him go through a number of changes. Some good and some bad. However, I make sure he learns from all of them. I've been watching Josh for years in a number of activities...mostly karate and baseball. I've learned that at his own detriment, he is a perfectionist. He gets angry when he doesn't get things right the first time and sometimes acts out. He has gotten in trouble at karate and baseball. When I was his age I was a gymnast and acted the same way. I acted that way when I transitioned to marching band and acted that way when I transitioned to drum corps. No one was harder on me than me, but it doesn't excuse poor behavior and poor Josh has inherited my perfectionist and anal retentive competitive personality. He's going to have to learn and it will be a hard road for him I have no doubt. However, he will learn.

Last night, Josh struck out at bat and in a fit of anger at himself...threw the bat. That is a big no no in little league baseball and the first thing that happened was that the umpire gave him a warning. The second thing that happened is the coach lowered himself to his level so he could talk to Josh eye to eye and told him that throwing the bat is against the rules and could hurt someone. He then added this phrase, "...and it makes you look like an ass." I heard this. A mom sitting next to me said that she couldn't believe he said that. I told her that I think Josh deserved it. Later on after the game, the coach apologized to me profusely. He went on and on telling me that he just got angry and that is what he would have said to his child. My response, "It does make him look like an ass. Thank you."

I signed my son up for baseball so he could learn what it is like to Not Act Like An Ass In Public! So why would I at any level not back the coach up? I don't care if my kid is 9 or 19. If you act like an ass, then you need to be told that you are acting like an ass. I'll be damned if my kid grows up thinking that the rules don't apply to him and that his little temper tantrums are acceptable behavior. My child is not special and no one else's child is either. In the car, I told him that I was proud of how he played the game, but wasn't proud of him throwing the bat. I told him that I supported the coach. There will be no mixed messages in my household. I then told my husband. He being dad and an e-Army sniper made sure Josh knew that wasn't o.k. behavior in his own "ex-Army sniper" sort of way. (No he didn't shoot the child)

So I write this today for all parents signing their children up for the up coming marching band season, but this could go for the parents signing their children up for football, soccer, volleyball, dance, or theater.

The first question you as a parent should ask is this. "Why is my kid doing this activity and what do I hope they learn?" We as coaches and staff members should ask the same thing. "What lessons do I hope to teach this year?"

If the first answer is, "I hope we win or I hope they learn how to play music or I hope we design the best show ever," then the answer is wrong. The answer should go something like this.

"My hope for this marching band season is for my child to learn discipline and with discipline comes rules and consequences. I hope my child learns that sometimes consequences come from others on the team...as well as the coaches. I hope my child learns that although he is an independent and strong individual, that adults still set the guidelines and he needs to follow them. Period. I hope my child learns what it is like to work as a team and with being a team comes winning and losing as a team. My child is not special on this team. I hope my child learns to understand that in life comes disappointment and he may be on the receiving end of unwarranted and unfair disappointment, because welcome to the real world. I hope my child is not coddled, because life doesn't coddle you. In fact...life is damn hard. Life will eat you up and spit you out without warning. Life demands that you have a thick skin and that skin is grown in the hot sun under the watchful eyes of a good coach telling you that it isn't good enough and you need to do it again. I hope that at some point this season my child learns the lessons of karma. If you put good toward the team, then good will come back to you. If you put bad toward the team, then bad will come back to you. I hope my child learns that when you practice hard you reap the benefits and when you slack off, complain about the heat, the rain, the sun, the long hours, and the physical pain...then you go to the back of the line of those teams that don't complain about the heat, the rain, the sun, and the long hours. I wish for my child to learn to manage time, because early is on time and on time is late...and if you're late...you're dead. I want the staff to come down hard on my child sometimes, because he will learn what it's like to be a good employee and to basically...shut up and do what you're told. I want my child to know that in life his opinion is not always asked for or desired. In fact, I can't think of the last project I had at work, where my boss gave me a choice on whether I wanted to complete it or not. I hope through working as a team and under coaches; he learns how to have a valid opinion, but learns when it is appropriate to share that opinion. I don't want him to be a opinion-less drone incapable of forming an opinion, but I also don't want him to be so arrogant that he doesn't know when to just shut up and just listen. I hope my child learns to think abstractly and creatively, because he has to find new ways to work through problems and hard situations. I hope that my child cries because it is too hard and celebrates when he sees the fruits of his and the teams labor. I want my child to know that he is valued, but at the same time not valued over anyone else on the team. Finally, I want my child to have fun, because fun is so much more important than winning, but winning is a blast and if you work hard...you might just win. I want my child to make new friends from different backgrounds and learn that diversity is a good thing. I want him to learn to stand up for those weaker than him through the inner strength he gains by a strong and personal work ethic; taught to him through marching band. I want my child to take the lessons of the team and carry them into school, college, marriage, parenting, and the work force. I want my child to shine, but at the lessons of what it's like to be a team...not because his is a star. My hope as a parent is that I can back up the coaches, directors, and instructors in any way possible to help my child learn these lessons of life."

This is my hope for my child as a parent and as a guard instructor my hope for those I coach.

A Parent's Perspective: When We Write That Check

The parents. Friend or foe?

If you read Facebook long enough you can start to believe that all kids are entitled brats and their parents sit at home all day long allowing their kids to throw knives at them during dinner time. I’m a parent. I’m also a guard instructor; with this little thing called a professional career on the side. Sometimes I’m great at doing all of them and sometimes I’m a total basket case, while trying to figure out how to be a good mom, effective coach, and trail blazing career woman. The reality is that I’m human and most of the time struggle to hold my head above water. Reading Facebook though, it would appear that as a parent I’m not doing enough. I’m not engaged enough. I don’t fundraise enough. I don’t read to my kid enough. I don’t visit the school enough. I visit the school too much. I don't discipline my kid based on the values of generations past. In the end I guess, my daily life is an internal battle of trying to give my kid the best life I can afford, while trying to stay afloat of the changing demands of this 21^st Century, post-recession, post 9-11, post Sandy Hook, standardized testing sort of world.

So what does all of this have to do with this blog and color guard? I’ve been thinking a long time about writing this post and have gone back and forth on how to approach it. In my professional career we have a lot of conversations on the topic of parenting. In fact, I bet the topic comes up in meetings at least once a week. It’s so important, Pinellas County Schools and their partners brought in a high priced expert on the topic a couple of years ago to figure out how to get parents engaged in the education of their children. It was a one day workshop and for the most part was a pretty good day filled with great information, except for one slight hiccup. The information never made it out of the building. Like most conferences, the information went nowhere. Money wasted.

Almost nothing makes me angrier than decisions that are made for the good of the people, without the “people” who are impacted having a voice in the decision. It happens in politics all the time. We all know that. It happens in education. There is a clear divide on what parents are saying vs. what the system is saying. In my field of government and youth funding, we often make decisions on programming. Every so often I raise my little hand and ask a simple question, “Has anyone included the parents of the kids in this discussion?” When I ask that, I often get the stank eye from my boss. 

In the world of the marching arts, it’s actually rather rare to hear the phrase, “I wonder what the parents would think of this?” Now, I don’t believe that every decision should go through a parental vote, especially in show design or training, but I do believe that parents have rights that we don’t always consider, thus leaving out of the decision process probably our most important asset and literal backbone of the organization…the parent.

If I had one piece of advice to give my long gone 25 year old self; it would be to befriend the parents and make them your partner. Give them a voice. Give them a well-structured, well controlled voice. I didn’t truly understand the parenting piece until I became one myself. Even then, it wasn’t until my own kid was participating in his own extracurricular's that I truly started to get a handle on what I believe is happening out there and what is happening, is that there are a lot of parents doing a tough job and doing everything they can to survive. 

Looking back, I don’t think I really ever considered the parents of the performers I taught. I considered the performer. I considered the band director. I even considered the administration. I think, if I were to categorize it, I saw the parents as this fundraising entity who did the back breaking labor I either didn’t have the skills or the desire to do. It wasn’t my job after all to drive a trailer. My job was to teach their kids. It wasn’t my job to build the props. I designed them. It wasn’t my job to raise the funds. It was theirs. My job was to get their little darlings into the highest placement possible and avoid the parents at all costs, praying none of them ever call me. THAT…was my 25 year old thinking.

I’m 46 now and my thinking has changed…significantly. Now, I can’t hear from the parents enough. I want them to call me. I want them to text me. I want them to engage, because the more they are engaged the more they will advocate for the program and the more they will be willing to raise the money we so desperately need. When a parent walks into one of my rehearsals I don’t see it as a threat. I see it as an opportunity to build a relationship and find out more about their child that they have entrusted me with. When they walk through the door, it is my opportunity to ask the question, “So how is your daughter doing at home and in school?”

Trust. Now that’s an interesting concept. When a parent allows their child to join a sport or activity, they are trusting that the coaching staff has been well vetted and their child will have a somewhat positive experience. I use the word “allow,” because the parents have to give permission first. Once they allow their son or daughter to join the band or winter guard, they then…as many parents do…become absolutely shocked at the time and money it will take to be a participant. It takes a savvy director to be able to explain this to parents, so they won’t go running in fear screaming in the opposite direction. It takes a director who understands the life of a parent and doesn’t take for granted that the parent’s life does not in fact exist for that particular winter guard. In my own world, I think about my son's activities somewhere between the five minutes I drop him off and the five minutes before I pick him up. I also have a life.

Money. When this current school year began, I signed my son up for the Cub Scouts. I did my research and found what I thought was the best pack for his personality. He and I both were very excited at the first meeting. I envisioned him lighting fires with sticks, camping out, learning to build little racing cars, and saying the Pledge of Allegiance in his little blue outfit. Let me tell you what I got right in that scenario. It was the Pledge of Allegiance. That’s it. My image of what he would do from week to week was very different than what actually happens and you know what…it pissed me off. Why? Because I spent money on dues, a uniform, and a book they rarely use. I was unaware of the constant fundraising I would be asked to do. I was not informed of the hours that would be asked of my son to contribute on the weekends. I have been nickel and dimed to death. Sound familiar? Needless to say, next year he won’t be coming back. It’s not that I don’t value what they offer. It’s that they don’t seem to value what I offer, which is my time and money. They weren’t up front. Now on another side of the coin, he plays little league baseball. Before sign-ups and try-outs even began, I received an outlined list of what is expected from each parent in terms of money, time, and volunteer hours. I can go with that. I can schedule and plan. I know they will be doing two fundraisers and I know where the money is going and how much my family is expected to raise. If you can't tell me where the money will go, then don't ask me to raise the funds. Period.

Time. Oh my God if I could only go back and apologize to every parent that entrusted me with their children when I ran high school guards in my 20’s. I never truly grasped how it could spin a family out of control at the simple “suggestion” of changing rehearsal time. Last year my son’s baseball team was pretty good. They made it all the way to the play offs. Yay! Good for them and their little 8 year old selves. However…this is what happened. The coach…understandably so…wanted to have a couple of extra practices going into the playoffs. I get it. Sounds good to me. However, I had to work those nights. My husband was working overtime. Thus enter the dilemma. We got it worked out, but it was less than easy and not as easy as just saying, “Why don’t you just find him a ride?” I couldn’t imagine if I were a single mom, a parent with unreliable transportation, a family with two or three kids all in their own activities or worked at a job doing shift work from 3-11. This is why respecting their time is crucial. Schedules to parents are crucial. Show them that you respect their time and they will give you every extra minute they have to make sure your program succeeds. When rehearsal is supposed to start then start and when it is supposed to end…then it needs to end. Those parents have other duties and their nights don’t end until the last child is in bed. We have to stop thinking that their world revolves around ours and their lives look like ours does. It's naive to live in a world of "back in my day," because back in my day was very different than the world of today in terms of economics, family structure, and education.

Safety. When it comes to the safety of my son; I am a mother bear protecting her cub. You will not get in the way of his safety, whether it be physical or emotional. When my son plays baseball I expect that the coaches are trained in best practices of safety such as the protection of head and mouth. When you don’t take safety into account, my pocketbook is impacted. Just because you ask if I have insurance, doesn’t mean I want to use it because you are under trained as a coach. I expect that his experience is a positive one and not abusive. I expect him to be yelled at and corrected, but I’ll be damned if he is abused. I watch. I listen. I don’t sit in a posture ready to pounce, but I also don’t sit back and wait for the problem. He is my son and he loves baseball. He deserves the right to play under coaches who are well trained and who care about him. I will not budge on that one and I just like most other parents are watching and what we are watching...is you.

Respect. The biggest lesson I ever learned in parenting and extracurricular's came from my son’s participation in karate. In a nutshell, I should say that I was “schooled” in what coaching means and how to involve the parent. Upon the moment we signed him up and every night after, the owner of the dojo shakes the hand of every parent that walks through the door. He asks how the parent is doing and asks if there is anything new they should know about the child. He built a relationship with the parents and in return, built a true relationship with the children. We stay out of his way and he respects our time and money. He doesn’t shock us with added expenses. When the kids get in trouble at school, we as parents use him as our support in reinforcing discipline. For the respect he gives my family, I promote his business every opportunity I can. It’s a partnership. I’m his ally. It's his business and he knows that word of mouth is the best advertising you can get. 

When it comes to my son and his needs, I ask the same questions. When I sign him up for activities I evaluate the need based on the following criteria. First I ask, "Will he enjoy this?" and "What will he learn?" Second, I look at the coaches and organization and determine if they are trained well enough and have the capacity to use MY money in the best way possible to answer question number one. The third question I ask is, "How much will this cost me?" and finally I ask the question, "How much time will it take?"

When we coach kids in color guard or marching band, we often times forget that our biggest ally are the parents. When we forget that fact, then our allies become our adversaries. When I was younger and before I had kids, I use to hate interacting with the parents. I hated their questions and felt that since they signed their kid up for MY color guard program, then they must listen to my rules. Well, let's just say that I had a child and then I started to understand. The parents don't have to do anything. They simply could just sign them up, pay the dues, and move on with their lives. In the end, it's their money and their kid. They raised that kid, changed their diapers, was there when the child broke their arm jumping off a bunk bed, and was there for every success and failure the child ever faced. It is their money and that money is guarded closely. It's their time. Parents have jobs...sometimes two and three jobs, they have other kids, cook dinner, go grocery shopping, manage marriages, date, continue their education, and a million of things in between. Respecting that fact goes a long way in building your parent base and a long term program.

At the age of 46, I no longer fear the parents. I cherish them and thank them for bringing their child into my life. I thank them for raising respectful children who can be coached. I thank them every time I see them organizing carpools, fundraisers, and taking time off work to bring their child to an unscheduled practice. I reach out to the parents I never see and most of the time the reason I don’t see them, is because they are working or dealing with life beyond my little color guard. You will never see me post anything on Facebook bashing parents of today or the kids they raise. It’s because I am one and I’m walking in the daily shoes of full time employee, carpool mom, fundraiser, wife, writer, daughter, and mother. When I coach color guard I always try to remember that yes there are bad kids and yes there are lazy parents and parents who don't enforce the lessons taught, but most of them care deeply and want to give what they can, even if all they can do is make sure their child shows up on time.

My mantra is that if it weren’t for the parents and the compassion and love they have for their children, then we wouldn’t be here coaching at all.

Hey Freshmen Band Parents...THIS Is What Your Kid Just Signed Up For

To all the parents out there:

If I were to tell you that your kid was about to go on a journey of self exploration, that would take them through the inside of their soul and back, would you support it?

What if I told you that the values that were taught by you, would be reinforced by caring adults in a safe and controlled environment and in this environment, the values of integrity, honesty, responsibility and restraint would be augmented with hard work and discipline. Four years of music education and competition, coupled with physical fitness and conditioning would give your child the life skills desperately needed in the work force. Skills such as conflict resolution, internal motivation, creativity, and sense of team would walk with them upon graduation and would dictate their life's work as they faced the world on their own. Would you encourage it?

If you knew that your child would be held to the highest expectations by adult role models that pushed them to become more than they ever imagined, building a sense of self-worth and strength of character that would carry them through life, would you pay for the experience? What if your child was learning the skills needed to be a leader that would one day lead our planet into a better direction than it is today? You wouldn't think twice would you?

If you knew your child was getting a fitness regime equivalent to a sports team and time away from the computer, smart phone, t.v., and video games wouldn't you move Heaven and earth to make sure they participated with all your love and support? Of course you would and as a parent...so would I.

If you are lucky, your child has just joined the high school marching band and with any luck, that band program is going to prepare your child for life when other children are preparing to take a test. Our children today are inundated with a testing environment that has forced a reduction in the arts and physical education in most communities. We know that children are being exposed to more technology at earlier ages, which plays into the hands of the obesity epidemic and diminished peer to peer social skills. We live in a world where through the images of two dimensional machines, we have found ourselves desensitized to the world around us, taking its toll on a generation of children. If we look closely, we can see how fear has allowed a sense of community to erode, whether that fear is warranted or not.

What if we could, in our own little world, through our own little way, bring back just a small portion of what we had always envisioned for our children and what if this could be done by putting an instrument, drum stick, or flag pole in your child's hand?

So how does marching band help? What exactly are they about to learn? Simple. Everything you have ever taught your child will lead to a moment of clarity and maturity for them as they are held to the highest standard of excellence. They will learn the following 10 lessons:

• Personal responsibility by the simple mantra of "early is on time and on time is late."

• Concepts of how to follow in the face of leaders who may or may not always be right.

• Leadership by being a part of the team as opposed to ruling over the team.

• When everyone works hard, then everyone wins. When one person falls short of their responsibilities, then the entire team is damaged.

• Sometimes hard work leads to failure anyway, but the journey is where the joy is really felt.

• Hard work is just that...it's hard. It's not meant to be easy and it's not for everyone. As Tom Hanks once said, "If it was easy, everyone would do it." 

• Not every thought we have is meant to be shared and not every opinion is welcomed. There are people in charge and it's those people's responsibility to stay focused on the big picture. Sometimes in life you are just a piece of that picture and you will not have all the information to make an informed decision.

• There is no easy path to perfection and perfection is a game that can't be won. 

• It's o.k. to cry and ask for help.

• Friendship is one of the most single important elements of life. It's good friends that stand by our side in times of struggle and in times of joy. It's good friends that hold the mirror to our face and say, "Here! This is who you are. You are beautiful and your are worthy." Good friends will also tell us to get off our pity pot and get to work. 

I want you to think about something. As adults we know that the "real world" only gets harder the older we get. I remember thinking how hard college was with my schedule all of a sudden being 100% my responsibility. Then I joined the work force and college just seemed like a damn joy ride through the countryside. In the work force I quickly learned that it was someone else's company and I was under the auspices of their rules. I had to learn how to negotiate my ideas at the right time and inright moment. I had to learn to keep my mouth shut, because my opinion wasn't always welcomed. Then, it only got harder. Life threw curves forcing me to navigate marriage and divorce. I learned that there never seems to be enough money to get to payday and I have to make choices to spend or not to spend. When I thought that I had finally reached the point in life where I could sit back and take a deep breath and say, "Whew...that was hard. Now I can breathe." Yeah no. It didn't happen. Then came the kids and all of the struggles that come with raising your own version of yourself. Each stage in life brings different challenges and with all of those challenges, through every single one, I have always looked back on the lessons taught to me on a football field while holding a flag in my hand. 

I have learned that in those moments of facing consequences for not knowing my part, that I was preparing for a cut throat workforce that expects deadlines to be met. When I had a solo part and did not achieve that solo to perfection, I learned the lessons of determination to go and try again. To get better. To never give up. Standing in the hot sun in the middle of August, when my body was tired and I was thirsty, I learned to look around me and realize that we were all in it together and that I was not special, but part of a much bigger plan that involved a team. These are the life lessons that make us better people. Arrogance, laziness, lack of preparation, single mindedness, and complaining will ultimately lead to dead ends in life and it was in marching band, winter guard, and drum corps where I learned and tested the initial results of these lessons. In the end, it's the memories and friendships of the field that I take with me when the sadness of life takes hold and that gets me through the rough times. However, it's the hard fought lessons of youth, while standing on a football field holding a flag, that has allowed me time and time again to stand on my own with my head held high and say, "I can face another day." 

Welcome to our world. Enjoy.