Are you hearing the words that are coming out of my mouth?

[SoAZDad]

What they are doing is called confirmation bias. They are hearing the words they want to hear and ignoring or discounting the words they do not want to hear.

This concept happens more often when the listener has a vested interest in your comments. It can happen when a coach evaluates a player for an all star team or when a parent hears criticism about their child or a talk show radio listener, and many other situations.

People tend to reconfigure what they hear to protect their ego. I believe this is just a part of the human condition. The difference is the extent to which we do it and whether we have awareness of the process.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) said, "We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others."

And Paul Simon wrote in The Boxer, simply "...a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

 

[guero_gordo]

Welcome to the new world of social media where the art of conversation is a thing of the past.

That's why the kids don't hear anything, because they've grown up with the stuff, don't think that applies to the parents and coaches, even the young ones.

 

[JAD]

What age group? What level TB? Coaches should not be a-holes when responding to parents, but I would expect a different response for the younger age groups and for lower level TB vs. older and higher level TB.

 

[doublenickel]

Welcome to the new world of social media where the art of conversation is a thing of the past.

At least I still live in the south where we can at least sugar coat it a little bit;

"Why yes, sweetie, I can sit suzy on the bench more so your sarah can strike out more, bless her heart".

I love using the term "bless your heart" most of the time non southerners don't know it isn't exactly complimentary.

 

[JJsqueeze]

Interesting thread. I find myself parsing a lot but I don't think it is in my nature. I have just found through the years that many people are simply afraid of saying what they think or feel in a direct manner. Either they are afraid of hurting someone or of how they will be perceived so they fall back to softer non-committal language that is wide open to interpretation.

I know that when I run across people that are more to the point I am pretty happy even when I disagree with them. At least I don't feel like they are insulting my intelligence by saying one thing, doing another and thinking I won't notice.

When I do find myself asking straightforward questions, I am disappointed
When someone dances around the answer because they are uncomfortable telling the truth.
The irony is that once you are really honest with what you say but in a non combative way, the vast majority of people will respond in kind and show appreciation for honesty. It is just very few people who are willing to do it first.

 

[Sparky Guy]

When I do find myself asking straightforward questions, I am disappointed
When someone dances around the answer because they are uncomfortable telling the truth.
The irony is that once you are really honest with what you say but in a non combative way, the vast majority of people will respond in kind and show appreciation for honesty. It is just very few people who are willing to do it first.

Parents are funny creatures. During the early spring I had a dad come up to me and told be he wanted me to work with his daughter. The girl is a total mess with her mechanics but gets away with it because she's strong for 12U.

I told the dad sure, but it would be best to wait till the season was over because I would need to completely break her down and rebuild her and it was not something that should be done during the season. Never heard another word from the dad. Heard he took her to one of the "gurus" around here.

Kinda glad he went elsewhere. The player is a nice kid. Unfortunately, dad is wearing triple strength rose colored glasses.

 

[SCDad]

Many people, and I am guilty of this myself, will choose words which can be interpreted different ways on purpose.

Tell two stories at the same time, just by the words chosen. Leave it up to the reader/listener to come up with their own summary.

So lets not just blame the reader/listener. It is not uncommon for coaches, or anyone in a position of authority, to speak in a manner that can be interpreted two different ways.

It is done so if and/or when the reader/listener wants to "corner" the messenger, he can just explain that he "meant" something else.

It cuts both ways. A coach can and will say a bunch of words that mean absolutely nothing, or can be interpreted a bunch of different ways. So don't be so quick to blame the parent for not receiving the message correctly. It may be the opposite. the coach delivered words that really had no meaning, or were purposely placed for the parent to "think" they heard something beneficial to their DD, when the coach had no intentions of such, just carefully chose his words to make the parent think as such. And that the coach could easily back away from and deny without lying. Very common. Called double-speak.

 

[Doug Romrell]

This isn't parsing words this is a coach who is a jackass. I understand your point. But the 2 examples you used shows what an immature coach you are dealing with. If you haven't already I would find a new team for the dd

While there are folks among us who don't want to believe it, there are "jackasses" among the people we interact with.

 

[riseball]

I see jackasses...they're everywhere. Walking around like everyone else. And they don't even know they're jackasses.

 

[RetiredCoach]

I see jackasses...they're everywhere. Walking around like everyone else. And they don't even know they're jackasses.

I know these people. The funny thing is that they think that we are the jackasses and that they are justified in being a jackass to us. And another thing, these people avoid looking in mirrors because they probably won't be happy with what they see.