Listen Now

Is soccer fun? It should be fun for your child and you!  In fact it can be relaxing for you if you  too!  Cheering is one of those things that in Ruben's family they do as a reaction, not a command. "Shoot!" That is a command. Do you find it fun when you have commands hurled at you? Most of us don't. So we we can keep cheering to a response, such as "great pass," "nice shot." It happens after the fact and doesn't add in pressure for a decision to be made. If you child continues to have fun, it gives them a foundation from which to fail and still press on. Not only in the game, but in life as well. Come join us at our first ever online summit. It's FREE! Come listen as Ruben interviews super awesome high level friends as they discuss topics that all soccer parents have to deal with. Check it out at http://soccerparenting101.com/If you want to see our resources page check us out at https://thecrazysoccerdad.com/optin1596927270168

Do you know things about the profession your parents worked in? Did you learn things that you can't recall when or how you learned it.  This applies to soccer in and a child's soccer education because they learn so much from our conversations with them. Ruben points out that his son is doing well, not because he is especially gifted. He realized this after speaking with a professional player recently and hearing their story growing up. Playing and fun is important. If we as parents can encourage fun while dropping in some wisdom then we are making great use of our time. Plus the added bonus is that you can develop a passion you both share and can do together forever. If you don't know about soccer, ask questions. Your child/player can or will guide you to the answer as they are learning from their own soccer practices.   Most of soccer is electing when or where to play the ball.  Once you've watched enough soccer, you'll start to see patterns in the game. That's fun. Then you can begin to predict what is going to happen.  This can help you as a parent not only to relax on the sideline and enjoy your child more. Winning and losing is not the most important thing. Be sure to check us out thecrazysoccerdad.com to see our best resources that we are always hunting down to help you save time, energy and money!

Going through soccer can be an unknown path not only for the child, but the parents as well. So each of you may be learning while on the job so to speak. Is the experience your family is going through causing stress in your favorite soccer player? If you know the what the lies ahead in the path can you better serve and care for you player. Come join us for our first summit. It is FREE and has a ton of experience soccer experts that can help you to illuminate the path ahead of your soccer life.  Join us Soccerparenting101.com Get your free ticket and come learn and listen to some amazing experienced soccer people!

Passing the responsibility is shifting pressure from you to the next close person. Then they have the pressure. In soccer it would be a short pass and the defense simply shifts a little and steals the ball. In parenting, passing the responsibility can be shifted from one spouse to another. From a child to a parent. Taking responsibility is vital to  show children. We have to take responsibility for our actions and if that lesson can be learned, then children will have more success in life. Ruben also recommends to listen to Extreme Ownership by Jacko Willink and Leif Babin. He likes it on Audible because it is read by the authors and the book comes more to life when read by the owners. We are having our first Summit! Go to get your FREE ticket SoccerParenting101.com  The guest speakers are lined up and there are some amazing insights that they provide. It's terribly exciting, come join us! 

What is your personal bubble? Have you ever had someone in standing in your personal bubble? Soccer awareness is knowing what is going on in your bubble and the better you are the bigger your bubble as a player. Ruben is inviting you to his Soccer Parenting 101 Summit to hear from the expert on Soccer Awareness himself, Wayne Harrison. He will be one of the esteemed speakers to elaborate on Soccer Awareness. How do you help your child build their soccer bubble? You know make it better and bigger? Watching soccer is a great way to begin to build soccer awareness. Ruben suggests picking a team and learning all about it. Watching a game can be a great way to bond and fun way to develop  their soccer awareness. Join us at the FREE Soccer Parenting 101 Summit. Go to soccerparenting101.comThanks for joining us, please go learn more at  thecrazysoccerdad.com 

The referee's are learning and we should be supportive of them. It is a great opportunity for children to learn responsibility, professionalism, and make a few dollars doing so. The Soccer Parenting 101  summit is coming up October 22, 23, 24th and we have some of the most amazing speakers that can help you and your soccer player with all the parts of the game and parenting around this wonderful crazy life. 

In this episode Ruben discusses how he uses somethings he learned from Tony Robbins at an event earlier this year  to help his children be happy. Our lives are so often only as good as our least happy child. Can you use simple things to be somewhat of an event to help children with motion in their lives. Getting momentum can be hugely important for anyone. Children are no different. Let's be honest, sometimes we parents are so overwhelmed that we become complacent. We need to remind ourselves that just a little extra energy or effort for simple things can make a huge difference in our children's lives.  When they are happy, our lives are so much better. Be sure to visit us at thecrazysoccerdad.com  for more tips, tricks and resources to help you on this crazy journey. 

What do you do to take the stress out of your soccer days.  By placing the responsibility of little things on your player are you preparing them for the future. Yeah, you may have some trials of your patience as a parent. However you will be preparing your child to own up to their responsibility as a team member. Ruben suggests starting when they children are little. Have them get their soccer stuff together  so that you do not have to. At the Olympic Development level the players are required to do so. Why not start the children young and enjoy your time at practice or games. Hey the Soccer Parenting 101 Summit is coming. Ruben can share to much more yet. He is still locking down the speakers and getting ready to provide some amazing value to you as parents. So be on the look out for that. Be sure to follow Ruben on Instagram @thecrazysoccerdad.com 

Credit to Mark Green, a great guy that Ruben had the opportunity to coach with for some time in High School. AttitudeAbilityAttendance Ruben will put this together in a free PDF to give away. You'll have to go to  thecrazysoccerdad.comHe will get that up as soon as he gets a free moment to type it up. 

Have you seen a movie so many times that it takes out all the emotional highs and lows? What if you had a chance to see the movie of your soccer players life and career? Would you be able to eliminate the stressful moments you experience to better serve the development your son or daughters confidence. Confidence is a tricky thing and stress in your player can detract from their ability to perform to their top level. Ruben mentions some a story of his visit to  Real Madrid and witnessing just how far a huge club like that goes to help lessen the stress that players go through to help them perform. Ruben also mentions the video clip strategy he uses to help his son visualize a performance. You can see more of those clips @Thecrazysoccerdad on InstagramBe sure to visit Thecrazysoccerdad.com to see more of our  resources. We are always adding valuable tools their for parents. 

The Crazy Soccer Dad: Soccer Parenting 101Your host is Ruben Martinez. Today he shares why he is not as stressed in sports with his own children. How can you as a parent learn to avoid stress, or anxiety you experience on your child's behalf by knowing where the path will lead them.  Ruben is super passionate about sharing this path with you so you can just enjoy and not worry so much when at your child's sporting events.   Ruben is lining up a lot of speakers and they are going to come share what they know. This will help illuminate your journey. Ruben is super excited about that part. To learn more about the tips, tools, tricks  I use to help my parenting journey. Note this page is being updated as we have new things we discover!https://thecrazysoccerdad.com/optin1596927270168

Podcast# 2: My Journey as Soccer Coach and My Approaches to handle the different situations with Kids in a Right WayIn this podcast episode, I want to share about soccer, my journey as a soccer coach, and other related experiences. I started coaching a soccer team in my early 20s and the team I got was of little young boys. I love them till now and consider them my best team. Since it’s a long time ago, so they all are young men now. But I watched them grow up and even followed them up after I was done coaching them. I follow them through all their life stages including when they got other coaches, when they graduated from middle school and high school, and now when they are getting jobs and they are doing other things. It's been a real pleasure to follow them. But as they were my first coaching team and they were very nice, so I had a lot of pressure to not fail those kids.This pressure and failure things got so worst that I started having nightmares that they came back to me years later and said, "you didn't teach us this when we were little and now we can't get to where we want to be." When my dreams and the internal feeling was getting worst and worst, it was the time when I decided to have the next coaching license. So, I missed one of their tournaments. I got signed up for a coaching class with the United States Soccer Federation. This was my C license, which is a national level. Next year, I got my B license and after a couple of years, I got my A license. All these licensing struggles gave me peace of mind and helped me calm down. But I didn’t stop studying. Anywhere I find something, I would study it out whether it is related to player development, the differences between boys and girls, etc.Over the past twenty years, I had the privilege of watching hundreds of parents raise their children. Some raise at high levels and are getting in the national team and playing abroad professionally while the low levels players just wanted to make their high school team. Some kids just wanted to go to college and be really awesome and amazing intramural players. It is fine, as it gave them something to do and it's a good way for them to connect and socialize. I also had the privilege of seeing how the parents would deal with the issues that would naturally come up with raising children, such as getting their first driver's license. To summarize, I had this privilege to watch parents deal with their children from their early years through their teenage years.My Approach to Handle ChildrenFast forward to 20 years later, I have my own children now. I have a 13-year old daughter who doesn't like soccer at all. I have a 10-year old son who loves soccer and I am also blessed with a 3-year old daughter who likes pink and Frozen (Disney Cartoon). Due to my blessed past experience, I have got samples of other parents and how they handle problems. This helps me choose and pick from those samples and attack the situation accordingly. For example, usually as a young soccer team and young soccer parents, the sidelines are nuts and crazy not in a good way, just detrimental to the children. When I go watch my son playing soccer, I sit in the corner and relax. It’s actually a break for me as I can sit there and do absolutely nothing other than watching my son have fun. I don't have the emotional ups and downs so much because I don't care. The main reason is that I never had a national team coach ask me if one of my players won or did this amazing thing when they were playing as a team. So, the point I want to narrate is thatI remain relax and let my child enjoy the game. I also don't transfer any of my personal anxiety to my son before his event. Similarly, I try not to transfer my personal anxiety to my daughter for her swim events. I have been able to give them the space they need so that they can grow. Due to my way of handling things, I often find parents come and ask me a bunch of questions. Parents should know simple little tricks and I will share my tricks and tools further in the next episodes.I am grateful to you for joining me today. If you have any questions, let me know and I will give you the answers or get you the answers connected to who you need. I would appreciate it if you give any feedback, comment, or five-star reviews. You can also check out our tips, tools, and resources at https://thecrazysoccerdad.com/. There we will be continuously sharing all of our best resources that we are constantly hunting out.

My Life JourneyI have always been around kids. I grew up in a daycare, as my mom ran a daycare because my brother was sick. So that allowed her to stay home and help care for him. Interestingly, by the time I was 20, we figured I had changed somewhere in the vicinity of like 10,000 diapers. As I was always around kids, it led to a natural progression for me to get into youth soccer coaching. So, I kept going into more and more coaching and licensing. In fact, I got about every single coaching license you can get here in the United States up until around five years ago. The licensing world has changed a bit now and I am not well-updated about it these days. I consider myself a civilian when it comes to soccer coaching. After my 20 crazy years as coaching soccer, I am retired now.Why am I doing this Podcast?My life experiences and years of coaching soccer are the triggering factors for me to start this podcast. My son who is 10 years old now has gotten into youth soccer and the experiences he is going through, I had them dozens of times. I have seen how parents handle it in different ways. I have seen how I like it, how I don't like it, and when its right to turn on the parenting style that I like and fits me effectively. So, I want to share these experiences and stories with you. Besides that, in this journey, we will also talk to some of my friends that can provide their experiences whether it be related to the parenting side, coaching side, mental toughness side, health and exercise, agility, etc. My 20 years of coaching have let me end up with many valuable friends that have got important stuff that we can learn and make our parental lives better.We are not just confined to parental training, as we have to focus on how to make our children take responsibilities. Like how to handle a situation when your child forgets the point you taught him/her 15 times before. This happened to me last week and I had to handle the situation without losing the mind, but putting the responsibility on my son. Therefore, encouraging the child to grow up and meet up the responsibilities is really important. I love when my son fails at soccer. And because of my encouragement of his failures, he is doing really well. We celebrate the successes and we encourage the failures. So, I am going to share these experiences and other interesting stuff, such as funny stuff and lots of stuff related to boys, girls, high school, college, national team, etc. So, join my podcast journey to learn how to handle our children at different phases so that we get better in parenting and we help our children to be better and raise as good human beings.Thanks a lot for your time today. I hope you get the basic idea behind this podcast journey and I am looking forward to seeing you in my next informative and exciting episodes. I would also love to hear your stories and tricks on how you are handling your children. If you liked this content, I would appreciate it if you give any feedback, comment, or five-star reviews. You can also check out our tips, tools, and resources at https://thecrazysoccerdad.com/. There we will be continuously sharing all of our best resources that we are constantly hunting out.