July 2nd, 2009
We are seeing a disturbing trend today in young athletes - one that coaches and parents need to understand and address.
Sports kids today spend too much time making comparisons to their competitors or teammates!
They focus on how others are performing, rather than concentrating on their own game. They do this in a number of ways—and none of them are good news for the young athletes.
Sports kids might:
- Compare themselves to friends who are gifted athletes
- Focus on athletes of the same ability level who perform better
than them
- Feel jealous of teammates who get more playing time
- Feel jealous of high-performing siblings
- Worry about their size and think about how a taller or bigger
player might beat them
Why does this matter to you as a sports parent?
Because this behavior hurts your kids’ confidence and success in sports!
Here’s the good news: There are steps you can take to help your kids focus more on their own talents, which boosts their confidence. Read on to learn more!
So, what’s wrong when sports kids make comparisons and focus on how everyone around them is performing?
Here’s the problem: When kids focus on others’ strengths, they’re psyching themselves out. And that hurts their confidence. We like to say that they’re intimidating themselves.
If all they can think about is their opponents’ big muscles and fancy uniforms, they’re not focusing on what’s most important—their own game.
Instead, they’re concentrating on what makes competitors (or teammates) better than they are. The young athletes are thinking about what’s wrong with their own abilities or skills.
Generally, kids who do this don’t have enough confidence in their own skills to believe they can compete with others.
It’s possible, however, to help young athletes stop making comparisons and stop psyching themselves out.
First of all, these kids need to change what they focus on. That means focusing, for example, on their own warm-up routine before a game.
Second, they need to stop putting their opponents on a pedestal. They have to stop being in awe of them. Again, kids should focus on what their own strengths and on getting their own job done.
We’ve developed a solution to help kids stop making comparisons and psyching themselves out! You can read a new ebook, “Appreciate Your Talents: How to Avoid Making Comparison and Intimidating Yourself.”
This new ebook, written specifically for sports kids, explains in detail how and why kids make comparisons to others, how it hurts them, and how they can stop this negative cycle and boost their confidence and success.
If you’re already an exclusive Kids’ Sports Psychology member, you’ll get the ebook, along with other ebooks that help you and your young athletes get the most from youth sports:
Kids’ Sports Psychology ebooks include:
- Growing From Adversity: How to Stay Confident After Failure
(for sports kids)
- Help Young Athletes Embrace Mental Training (for sports
parents)
- Post-Game Checklist for Parents: Boosting Kids’ Confidence
You’ll also get these confidence-boosting videos that you can download for your young athletes:
- Tips for Practicing Smarter, Not Harder
- How to Set Positive Goals
- Enhancing Trust (taking practice to competition)
That’s not all. At Kids’ Sports Psychology, you’ll find many more ebooks, audios, videos and articles that will help ensure your young athletes make the most of their talents.
Become a member today and help your young athletes improve their mental toughness in sports and life:
Kids Sports Psychology
Sincerely,
Patrick Cohn Ph.D. and Lisa Cohn
P.S. If you’re a Kids’ Sports Psychology member, please visit this page to access the new sports psychology eBook that will help young athletes stop making comparisons to other athletes and appreciate their own talents:
Appreciate Your Own Talents Sports Psychology E-book for Young Athletes
Tags: focus, intimidation, mental toughness, self-confidence, warm-up routines, youth sports psychology
Posted in confidence in young athletes, sports kids, sports parenting, sports psychology for kids, sports psychology for sports parents, youth sports psychology | No Comments »
June 26th, 2009
Sports parents, did it ever occur to you that spending too much time watching your kids practice their sport makes it hard for them to take risks and grow as athletes?
Huh? You might ask. What’s the link between watching them practice and ensuring they take risks? And what are the benefits of risk-taking, anyway?
Read on…. You’ll learn what former pro baseball player Tommy Weber has to say about this topic.
Weber is now coaching kids’ instructional clinics. He thinks parents spend too much time hanging around sports practices in ways that inhibit kids’ ability to perform and have fun.
“If we truly want kids to play—that’s an important word—playing—there is a certain level of supervision that helps kids participate and enjoy themselves more. When Mom or Dad is there, I see kids looking to see if Mom or Dad saw them miss the ball.”
The truth is, he says, having parents attend practices too often can put pressure on the kids.
“They know their dad is up there making sure they do it the way their dad told them to do it. It inhibits them for reaching for something beyond their grasp and something they wouldn’t do within the confines of parental supervision,” he says.
As a coach, Weber wants his kids to take risks, try to do difficult things, make mistakes and feel safe. “What parents want is for kids to do well,” he says. “It puts a lot of pressure on the kids.”
Here at kidssportspsychology.com and youthsportspsychology.com, we agree that it’s critical for kids to take risks. When kids take risks and make mistakes, they learn and grow. Take ice skating, for example. If kids aren’t willing to fall down, it’s unlikely they’re going to learn how to skate!
If you want your kids to take essential risks, it’s important for you to let them develop their own passions. Says Weber, “My father was also a professional baseball player. He allowed me to develop my own passion. A parent’s job is to find something your kid loves to do and encourage him,” he says.
You should also be very careful about how you give your athletes feedback. If you criticize them too much, they’ll avoid making mistakes. That means they’ll start playing tentatively and will avoid taking risks. They’ll play scared. That’s not a good recipe for learning and growing!
What’s more, be sure to find positive things to say about your child’s performance. If they feel supported by you, they’re more likely to try new things. They’ll play or perform with more creativity, which will likely lead to important growth.
If you’d like to learn more about enhancing your kids’ sports experience and helping them feel more confident and happy in sports, visit:
Kids Sports Psychology
You’ll find audios, videos and articles that will help you be a better sports parent and will help your kids experience success.
For example, you might be interested in the eBooks, “Kick Fear of Failure and Perfectionism” (for young athletes) and “Help Young Athletes Kick Fear of Failure and Perfectionism” (for sports parents).
They address the important topic of helping kids feel free enough to take risks. If you’re already an exclusive Kids’ Sports Psychology member, you get the eBooks for free, along with other eBooks that address these topics and others:
- Growing From Adversity: How to Stay Confident After Failure
(for sports kids)
- 7 Strategies to Help Young Athletes Stay Composed After Making
Mistakes
- Motivate Young Athletes In Sports and Life—for sports parents
And that’s not all. At Kids’ Sports Psychology, you can access dozens of articles that will help you improve your sports parenting skills and will help ensure your kids enjoy sports.
You and your kids can watch videos that show them how to boost their confidence. You’ll find many, many resources that ensure your kids get the most from their talent.
Become a member today and help your kids improve their mental toughness and reap all the benefits of participating in sports:
Kids Sports Psychology
Sincerely,
Patrick Cohn Ph.D. and Lisa Cohn
P.S. If you’re a Kids’ Sports Psychology Member, be sure to log in and listen to the entire interview with Tommy Weber—plus the other expert interviews! You’ll gain important insight into how you should support your young athletes.
Tommy Webber Interview
Tags: confidence in young athletes, pressure in sports, trust, youth sports psychology
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June 16th, 2009
Do your sports kids have a hard time bouncing back after mistakes? Does their confidence decline after losing a game?
Based on what other parents are telling us, the answer is a resounding “yes”!
For example, here’s what one sports parent says:
“My son is a point guard in basketball who gets so upset after a turnover. Whenever the other team gets the ball from him, it’s like it’s the end of the world. He beats himself up mentally, then plays very tentatively. His performance gets worse and he gets even more frustrated.”
So many sports parents struggle with how to handle this issue. All young athletes make mistakes or face adversity in some form. Some athletes instinctively bounce back quickly; others let the mistakes undermine their confidence and future performance.
But it’s not so easy to do this. For young athletes and their parents, there’s no obvious path to “bouncing back.”
First of all, it’s important for both you and your young athletes to realize there’s a positive side to failing, facing adversity, or making mistakes.
Defeat can sometimes motivate young athletes to try harder, to look at what they’re doing, and think about what needs improving.
If young athletes succeed all the time, they’re less likely to evaluate themselves. Defeat gives kids the opportunity to make a comeback–with more knowledge about their training, strategy and mental game.
Okay, you might say. But how do sports parents help kids bounce back and turn a loss or failure into a positive?
Good question. Here are a few pointers:
- Help kids cool down after a game, especially a loss. Help them think about something other than their negative emotions.
- Invite young athletes to think about what they did well during their performance. Did they make an interception, block a shot or work hard at being team players?
- Be sure to praise your kids for what they did well, rather than focusing on the negatives.
- Help kids separate who they are from how they perform in a game or competition. You don’t want them to link their self-esteem to their sports performance!
Want to learn more strategies to help kids bounce back after mistakes or defeat?
We just finished a brand new ebook—written specifically for young athletes—to help your kids bounce back after defeat and learn from failure. It’s titled:
“Growing From Adversity: How to Stay Confident After failure”
If you’re already an exclusive Kids’ Sports Psychology member, you get the ebook, along with other ebooks that address these topics (and others):
- Kick Fear of Failure and Perfectionism (for kids)
- Teaching Young Athletes to Get in the Flow of Sports (for
parents)
- Post-Game Checklist for Parents: Boosting Kids’ Confidence
But that’s just the beginning. At Kids’ Sports Psychology, you can download over 17 e-books for parents and sports kids, audio and video programs and articles that help you and your young athletes get the most out of their physical talent and have more fun.
Become a member today and help your kids improve mental toughness and reap all the benefits from sports participation:
Kids Sports Psychology
Sincerely,
Patrick Cohn Ph.D. and Lisa Cohn
P.S. If you’re a Kids’ Sports Psychology member, please visit this page to access your new sports psychology e-book to help kids handle defeat and setbacks:
Growing From Adversity E-book for Kids in Sports
Tags: bouncing back from failure, coping with losing, kids in sports, letting go of mistakes, self-confidence, youth sports psychology
Posted in sports kids, sports parenting, sports psychology for kids, youth sports psychology | No Comments »
May 19th, 2009
We recently checked in with Jane, a tennis pro, and her son, Jeff, a Division I tennis player. Jane had a lot to say about the value of focusing on the “mental game.”
Why should you be interested in Jane’s story? Because it’s a classic example of a talented kid who’s his own worst enemy—because of his mental game. Read on to learn how Jane and Jeff conquered this challenge.
Early on in his tennis career, Jeff was a perfectionist, which helped his game in some ways and really hurt it in other ways. The good news: He was motivated to work hard.
The bad news:
“I loved tennis so much, I wanted everything to be perfect,” he says. “I put so much pressure on myself to make everything right.”
If things weren’t going Jeff’s way, he would get very angry, Jane says. “He would use so much of his energy and emotional energy trying to control himself. Usually by the second or third set he would run out of gas. It was almost like he wasn’t even trying. Like he had nothing left emotionally,” she says.
Rather than focusing on his out-of-control feelings, Jeff would talk to his coach about his technical game, focusing on everything he was doing wrong.
“It wasn’t the technical things that were hurting him,” Jane says. “It came to a point, about when he was 14, when he realized he had to spend more time on the mental side.”
That’s when things started to turn around for Jeff. He learned how to visualize a good game and to focus more on the positive, among other things.
In a very short time period, Jeff’s ranking jumped from fifth or sixth in Texas to first or second, Jane says.
“Once we realized it was more about preparing himself mentally and not physically, that’s when things turned around,” Jane says.
Tennis pros tend to focus on the more technical part of tennis because that’s the part they can control, Jane says. “But now, a lot of top programs are focusing on the mental side.”
Parents, here are some ideas for helping young athletes overcome perfectionism:
- Help your young athletes identify their high expectations
- Ask them to focus, like Jeff, on improving their game, rather than on winning every time and always being perfect
- Ask them to focus on manageable goals. A basketball player might focus on improving his free-throw percentage, for example. A soccer player might visualize stealing the ball.
Want to learn more about perfectionism, fear of failure, worrying too much about what others think and other mental game challenges for young athletes? Check out: Kids Sports Psychology
To begin with, you’ll find an eBook and a video about overcoming perfectionism. You’ll find an eBook that teaches you how to encourage your young athlete to embrace mental training. You’ll also find eBooks written specifically for young athletes, including:
- Ten Ways of Thinking That Hurt Kids’ Confidence
- Using “Get Ready” Pregame Routines
- Focus to the Max!
Plus videos, articles and a ton of other goodies!
To boost your kids’ confidence effortlessly and learn how to kick perfectionism in young athletes, visit:
Kids Sports Psychology
Sincerely,
Lisa Cohn and Patrick Cohn, Ph.D.
Founders of Kids’ Sports Psychology
p.s. Don’t forget to check out our “Kick Perfectionism” program for sports parents - free to Kids’ Sports Psychology members. You can also listen to the entire interview with Jane and Jeff.
Tags: perfectionism, pressure, sports psychology, trust, youth sports psychology
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