What Should Sports Kids Focus On? Too often, young athletes focus too much on outcomes, such as the score, the win, or their statistics. The problem? This prevents them from playing in the moment and hurts confidence. When they focus too much on winning and statistics, it’s easy to get … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Encouraging Sports Kids Bjorn, a 12-year-old hockey player, joined a AAA team after three years of playing hockey, and suddenly found himself surrounded by other athletes with 7 or 8 years’ experience, while he only had three years’ experience. The other players didn’t pass to him and the coach initially … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Helping Sports Kids With Anxiety Many kids (especially teens) suffer from anxiety. One of their biggest causes of anxiety: What others think of them. In sports, this is a big issue. Kids spend a lot of time worrying about what their peers, parents or coaches will think of their performance. … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Teaching Sports Kids to Embrace Failure We just read a great Huffington Post blog-actually, a rant–called “7 Reasons Why You Will Never Do Anything Amazing With Your Life,” about the importance of embracing failure and taking risks. In youth sports, these traits are critical. And it’s true, young athletes won’t … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Parents: Motivating Your Young Athletes Sports parents and coaches tell us that one of their biggest challenges is motivating their young athletes– especially without pressuring them. Parents often say that their athletes have loads of talent, but don’t like to practice. Coaches sometimes say their kids like to goof off … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Building Confidence in Young Athletes Over and over, coaches and parents tell us that when kids build confidence in sports, they boost it in other areas of their lives. For example, at Kids’ Sports Psychology, we teach kids how to cope with worries about what everyone is thinking of them. … Read Sport Psychology Tip