Patrick Cohn | Sports Psychology for Young Athletes

Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D., earned his Ph.D. in Education from the University of Virginia in 1991, specializing in sports psychology, and founded Peak Performance Sports in 1994. Dr. Cohn is an author, professional speaker and one of the nation’s leading mental game coaches. His coaching programs for young athletes instill confidence, composure and effective mental strategies that enable athletes and teams to reach their performance goals.

Help Your Athletes Close out Competitions

How to Confidently Play to Win Are your sports kids confident in their ability to close out games? Or do they get scared and play sloppily when their team is ahead? Whether your kids play soccer, football, hockey or participate in gymnastics, they need to have an aggressive mindset to … Read Sport Psychology Tip

Why it’s Important for Balance in Athletes’ Life

What Can Athletes Learn from Elite Athletes’ Mindset?

Helping Kids’ Avoid Burnout in Sports Hernan Chousa is a former tennis pro and sports dad to a tennis player who is now playing at a Division 1 college. His son started playing early, and burnt out at age 15. He quit tennis for two years, then started over because … Read Sport Psychology Tip

Create a Sports Culture that Includes All Kids

Inclusivity and Teamwork Increase Confidence It’s important to build youth sports teams that focus on inclusion; this boosts all players’ confidence and success, says Nadine Haruni, a lawyer and author of “Freeda the Frog and Her New Blue Family.” She’s also a sports mom in a blended family with five … Read Sport Psychology Tip

Young Athletes Need these Two Mental Skills for Success

Help Young Athletes Build Trust and Confidence Trust and confidence are very important for young athletes’ success in sports and are interrelated. If athletes lack confidence, they don’t believe in their ability to perform under pressure. If they don’t trust their skills, they lack confidence heading into competitions. Let’s take … Read Sport Psychology Tip

Motivates Kids to Play Sports and Stay Active

Give Sports Kids Tanglible Goals For Cami Hawkins, CEO of Marathon Kids, an organization that provides resources for schools to start running clubs, motivating kids is all about setting small goals and celebrating success. In an Ultimate Sports Parent podcast interview, Hawkins described how the organization’s coaches set goals that … Read Sport Psychology Tip

How Young Athletes Can Use Mental Imagery to Boost Performance

Improve Sports Kids’ Confidence and Focus Mental imagery is a useful mental game skill that can improve young athletes’ performance. Many athletes have experienced success using visualization daily in their training regimes. Athletes say that visualization boosts confidence, improves focus, creates poise under pressure, improves consistency and makes it easier … Read Sport Psychology Tip