As a Coach, you witness some amazing things, the little developmental milestones when a child perfects a skill for the first time, a sense of pride as a previously shy child shows the first signs of confidence. All very lovely and incredibly rewarding.
Amongst all these lovely and heartwarming events, there are also those beautiful moments where children, unbeknownst to themselves, put their parents in extremely embarrassing situations. As coaches, we try to keep a straight face, but there are occasions where we can’t hold it in. There are so many to choose from, but this might just be my favourite…
For the sake of anonymity, lets call this little boy Johnny!
At the end of a session, I made my way over to talk to a parent who had been away on holiday the week before. We spoke generally about how ‘Johnny’ was doing and then spoke about their trip…
‘Oh we had a lovely time, we went to Galway. We were there for a birthday party.’
Meanwhile, Johnny is busy scoring a couple of extra sneaky goals a couple of feet away.
Anyway…
‘Sounds lovely’ I said, ‘it wasn’t your own birthday was it?’
Johnny potters over after having finished scoring goals and stands by his Mum's side.
‘Ahh no, it was actually my mother-in-laws’
Johnny jumps in…
‘Are we going to see that hairy cow again
?’
Johnny’s mother looked horrified! Open mouthed. They say a picture paints a thousand words, it is fair to say her face painted about a million, of which we could just about get away with saying perhaps three or four on here.
‘I have no idea where he got that from…!’
And then the beautiful moment as the penny finally dropped…
‘You mean the cows we saw in the fields, don’t you Johnny!!!???’
It was then we learnt the real views of Mum regarding the mother-in-law! Beautiful timing, Johnny, simply beautiful.
