Can your children communicate?

As parents we teach our children to walk – infact we often hurry them, wanting them to run before they can walk. We teach them how to count and who doesn’t want their child to be able to read before they start school?
But how many parents actually teach their children to speak? Most parents assume that they’ll pick it up by themselves just by listening to adults and of course they do pick up a lot. However a lot of what they imitate is bad!
Children today can very easily get by with little or no communication skills. If they want to communicate with their friends they text them, or they email them.
They can arrange their whole social life without having to say a word!
However, once they reach the age of 16 (if they want a part time job) or 18 (when they want to go to university) it becomes apparent that they often can’t speak clearly.
Parents are often unaware of this – they get used to the sound of grunting and because all of their friends speak the same it doesn’t appear to be a problem.
If children are taught at an early age how to speak clearly, how to make the different sounds in their mouth and how to project their voice so that they can be heard, they’ll grow up with a sound basis. They might waver slightly at different times during their adolescence but the basics will always be there when needed.
Taking your child to elocution lessons could be the answer. At these lessons they’ll learn how to speak clearly and confidently and they’ll also realize that words can be fun. They’ll see that different sounds are interesting. I’ve taught children as young as 5 how to make diphthong sounds (okay, they don’t know the word diphthong but they know it’s a vowel sound with two parts), they know that the sound comes straight out of their mouth and that the mouth changes shape to make the sound.
If you want to try this yourself, say the sound ‘ay’ and watch your mouth in a miror – you’l see that the shape of your mouth changes, your mouth should close a little.
I’ve got 4 and 5 years olds memorizing poems and enjoying it. They love to use their memory – a skill that a lot of 10 years olds have never used. Mobile phones now remember all the phone numbers we’ll ever need and calculators mean we don’t need to know our times tables anymore.
With Sat Nav we don’t even have to remember how to get home!
Elocution doesn’t make your children  sound ‘posh’, it doesn’t get rid of any regional accent (unless you want it to) but it does give your children the best start in life.

Just think how much easier school is if the teacher understands that your child  need to go to the toilet, or if your child can explain that they’ve read that book and would like another one please and I can tell you it’s a great feeling when people come up to you and say,’ doesn’t you daughter speak nicely’. Luckily it’s a comment that is still said about my two daughters, now 22 and 19!

More details on  http://www.afraid-of-speaking-a-speech.com/elocution.html

What do you know about tennis coaches?

Tennis Coaches – what do you know about them? For some reason I’m fascinated by them!
I think we all realise that tennis is a very individual sport, which is why, I imagine, that every tennis coach I’ve ever met is shy! I have to point out here that I don’t go out looking for tennis coaches – my daughter plays tennis, so I’ve travelled to numerous clubs and tournaments and have met many coaches.
Some coaches don’t appear shy at all. When they’re on the tennis court coaching, they’re shouting instructions all the time. On the court they’re the experts and it’s very unlikely that anyone will question what they’re doing. These cpaches are usually well qualified coaches who are obviously very good at their job.
However, oncethey come off court and have to make converstaion with parents they’re suddenly very quiet. Put them in this situation and they’re notthe experts anymore.
There are others, that appear shy on court. These tend to fall into two categories, those that were very good competitive players until they were in their early twenties.
They were above average players and perhaps had dreams about becoming professional players but either weren’t quite good enough or mentally strong enough. They’ve become coaches, reluctantly, because they love to play tennis and could never work at a 9 to 5 job.
They’ve spent, most of their growing up years playing an individual sport, perhaps travelling around the country with mum or dad and whilst these children benefit from making friends from around the country they sometimes miss out on the close friendships children often have.
These young coaches, although very good players are not used to having to talk while they are on court and quite often can’t be heard att he other end of the court.
The next type of shy coach is the person who has come to tennis later in life. They possibly took up tennis when their children had lessons and started out by helping the children out. Perhaps helping at club tournaments until a coach suggested that they themselves took the coaching courses.
I know of such a coach who lived in the South of England and although the LTA ran a coaching course 5 minutes from where he lived, he chose to go to Liverpool (approx 7 hour drive) to do his course and take hos exams so that he wouldn’t be with anyone who might know him. He later went on to build (from scratch) a very successful childrens tennis club. Note how he never felt comfortable coaching other adults.
Unfortunately communication is not a skill that is taught on most tennis coaching courses (for any sport), but I think it should be one of the main components. This is why I’ve written a book ‘How to get even better results from your athletes – what most coaching manuals don’t tell you’ which I obviously recommend that all would be coaches should read. This is available from http://www.afraid-of-speaking-a-speech.com/sportscoachingbook.html