“My husband gets so angry at our sons’ basketball games. What should I do to help?”

Hello, everyone. My name is Kent Toussaint, licensed marriage and family therapist, and welcome
to Tips on Teens, where every Wednesday at noon, I come to you live on Facebook to answer your
parenting questions. We're going to jump right in. Today's question is a really good one. Here
we go. I read this article about a fight at a Little League baseball game from the parents when
a 13 -year -old umpire called a play wrong. The link is below. It reminds me of my husband and how
he acts at my son's basketball games. He gets so angry at the players, the refs, and our kids during
the game. My sons and I are embarrassed that they don't want to continue, but they are afraid
of quitting because it will anger their father. My husband is a good man, and he'd never hit or
harm our kids, and he loves them dearly. I think my kids would continue and have fun at basketball
if my husband was not there, or just wasn't so angry. How do I help him do this?" So, I love this
question. this kind of thing comes

up a lot. I'm glad it's being asked. Let's address it first with trying to understand where this
dad is coming from. Obviously, I don't know him, so I'm gonna do some speculation. But let's,
from two standpoints, I want to address this. Number one is, he clearly has a passion for the
game. And secondly, he loves his sons. So first, let's talk about the passion for the game, right?
As a sports fan myself, I can understand yelling and screaming at sporting event. Those of you
who are not sports fans, watching a sports fan yell at a TV looks insane, and I get that, but there's
a certain satisfaction at yelling at the TV and saying, Play some defense, LeBron! You know,
and just, you know, screaming and yelling four -letter words, and it's great fun, because number
one, the TV doesn't care, right? And even if LeBron James could hear me, you know, screaming
at him, he couldn't care less either, what I say, right? But my sons, well they're gonna care
if I'm yelling at them while they're playing

sports or if they're with me watching a sporting event. Once I became a father and once I started
watching sports with my kids, I had to curb that and make sure that if I did cheer the TV or yell
the TV, I had to know that what I was saying was setting a positive example for my kids. It's like
if you before you had kids you may have sworn up and down left and right and said a lot of four -letter
words. Once you had kids you cut that down quite a bit and that's pretty common with a lot of parents.
I'm wondering if this dad is struggling to make that transition. Number two, as it says here,
what this mom says, he loves his sons. So when they're playing basketball and there's a bad call,
or he feels the coach isn't doing the right thing, or he feels something is unfair, he feels he's
got to go and defend his sons. And he probably has the best of intentions. Problem is, he's becoming
part of the problem. My guess is he doesn't even realize he's doing it. He gets so locked into
the passion of

the moment, he's not realizing that his example is setting a poor example for his sons. And also,
it's putting so much pressure on them that they don't want to continue. And so, when they don't
... when they drag their feet, go to practice, go to games, my hunch is this dad is probably at
a loss. Like, why? Why wouldn't they want to play? He doesn't understand. So, I think it's really
important to find a way to connect to this dad, his empathy for his sons, and help him understand
their point of view. Now, your sons may not be able to do that because they're afraid of their
dad for whatever reason. Hopefully you as the spouse are able to talk to him and help him connect
how his actions are affecting his kids and a different way to do that. If somehow he's not gonna
listen to you, is there another coach? Is there maybe another friend in his life or a sibling
or a father in his life that he would listen to? That someone can kind of help guide him? Because
my guess is he wants to be a positive

impact on his kids. He's not realizing how this is negatively affecting him. So I think that's
really important. Now, that could be couples counseling. If it goes beyond sports, if his anger
is really going beyond into other areas, there's something's gotta be going on because if there's
that much anger and that lack of connection between him and his kids, my hunch is something else
is going on that's not being addressed. And that's what I would want to be addressed. So this
is not an easy task for you as the spouse, but I think you're gonna be the point person of how to
reach him. and you probably know him better than anybody because you're his spouse. So I encourage
you to lead the way and help him start understanding how his actions are affecting his kids and
how he wants to affect his kids, how to approach it in a way that's more positive. So anyways,
that's how I would approach it. Again, there's a lot of issues about this I don't know. There's
probably a lot of layers I don't know.

So if you have more questions, give me a call. If you have other questions you'd like answered
here on Tips on Teens, teentherapycenter .com or just direct messages right here on Facebook.
We'd love to hear from you and we'll see you next Wednesday at 12 o 'clock. Have a good week. Bye
-bye.