Gregor Paul: Seven ways to know if you are a pushy rugby parent

There will be mixed views about what affects the prolonged and recurring periods of lockdown will have on schools sport and in particular rugby. Photo / John Stone.

There will be mixed views about what affects the prolonged and recurring periods of lockdown will have on schools sport and in particular rugby.

The big cat parents – those who believe sport is just another vehicle for their children to run over the top of others and prove their readiness to be out in the big bad corporate world taking what is rightfully theirs – will be distraught.

They won't be upset that their children are not playing every weekend. They will be upset they are not winning.

Auckland has been bathed in glorious sunshine these last two Saturdays – perfect winter-less days to play winter sport and yet across the city our youth has been locked up, no doubt most of them staring vacantly at their phone hoping it may help them wile away the hours of captivity.

In some households there will be nothing more than mild frustration: these would have been good days to be off the couch and outside running about, sucking in fresh air and enjoying the camaraderie.

But in the majority of households there has no doubt been real angst, driven by parents who are fretting that their vicariously-lived dreams of producing an All Black are going to be shattered by the pandemic.

Highly specific conditioning programmes won't have been followed, games have been missed and opportunities to crush and dominate others have been lost.

Competitions are in limbo, so disrupted that the appalling thought will have crossed many minds that this year we might not see championship winners given the disruptions and what, really, is the point of playing if we don't ultimately end up with clearly defined winners and losers?

There will be mixed views about what affects the prolonged and recurring periods of lockdown will have on schools sport and in particular rugby. Photo / Hawke's Bay Today.

The lockdown has been a disaster for pushy parents who see no value in school sport played for fun and to serve as an additional growth pillar in a holistic education.

But the lockdown, whatever else it has or hasn't done, has brought an opportunity at least. A chance to think deeply and seriously about what really matters in schools rugby and what's actually best for the children playing it as opposed to the parents watching it.

In the last 10 years, maybe longer, schools rugby has been pushed wildly off-track by an aggressive, win-at-all-costs culture that has been driven firstly by parents and picked up by schools.

A nasty vicious cycle has developed that has professionalised the sport in schools, pushed out those kids hoping to play for fun and mentally and emotionally damaged many of those who have found themselves in programmes that are frankly more demanding than being part of a semi-provincial Mitre 10 Cup team.

So rather than wallowing in this cataclysmic vision of the lockdown having ruined everything, there is a chance for schools rugby to reset and find its core values again.

Parents drove this warped culture of professionalisation and so it is parents who must be the ones to fix it. But who qualifies as pushy?

How do we determine who holds a warped view of what schools rugby should be all about?

Well, here's a checklist for parents to run through and see how many boxes they tick.

If you have shopped around, looking at various schools to see which one has the best rugby programme, then you are a pushy parent.

If you sent your kid off to the AIMS Games secretly hoping they would be seen, or discovered, by one of the predatory private schools who stalk that event looking to dole out scholarships, then you are a pushy parent.

If you have stood on the sideline and yelled at your child something not particularly encouraging, then you are a pushy parent.

If you have sat brooding silently in the car on the way home after a game in which your child has either lost or not played particularly well, then you are a pushy parent. Worse, your passive aggressive withdrawal of emotional support is abusive.

If you have suggested your child should be training harder and or eating less of this and more of that, then you are a pushy parent.

If you have accosted a coach to demand a reason why your child wasn't picked in a particular team or questioned their lack of game time, then you are a pushy parent.

If you have denigrated the ability of another child or made unfavourable comparisons between your own and someone's else's, then you are a pushy parent.

Deep down, pushy parents know they are pushy parents but what they maybe don't realise is how much damage they have wreaked on schools rugby these past years.

There is an opportunity now to put that right and see the lockdown as the chance to break the vicious cycle.