Last week's blog outlined some ways to use realistic goals to help your ballplayer prepare for the upcoming season. Today, I'd like to talk about the crucial role parents play in producing a positive atmosphere at practice and games.

As anyone who has attended a Spring Training program over the last 9 years can attest, we work extremely hard to emphasize the virtues of hard work, sportsmanship, and respect for umpires and opponents. Additionally, we are absolutely convinced that the best way to teach young athletes is with a positive and encouraging attitude rather than methods that include pressure, yelling, shame, and insults.

The national organization at the forefront of the positive coaching movement is called the Positive Coaching Alliance (positivecoach.org). They work tirelessly to spread this philosophy throughout all youth sports and even recently formed an official partnership with Little League International to help promote "double-goal" coaching. I would encourage you to spend some time at their website - it will only make you a better coach/parent/fan for your ballplayer.

Last week, the @PositiveCoachUS Twitter account posted the following image from a youth hockey rink in the Chicago area.

This simple, yet powerful checklist for making sure that we as parents and coaches (aka role models) are doing our jobs to make sure that youth sports games and practices are fun for the players should be at every field in America!!

(I'm currently in the process of having signs almost exactly like these made and I'd love to get them posted at every Little League Field in the area - please let me know if you league would be interested in getting one from me.)

For a quick read on my personal experiences as a player who was coached by both positive and negative coaches throughout my career (guess which teams won more championships), please read my blog from last year entitled, "Yelling Doesn't Work."

See you on the field!