Youth sports psychology articles and strategies for sports parents of young athletes to improve mental game and performance.
Mental Training For Young Athletes A parent tells us that it’s hard convincing her 15-year-old daughter that she could benefit from mental training—specifically some of the materials on our website. The teen doesn’t believe in the value of efforts to boost her mental game. It’s common for sports kids to … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Young Athletes And Pregame Mental Preparation It’s so tempting, as parents, to give kids your top tips so they perform well in the game… This is because we want so badly for our kids to perform well, stay focused, and be confident about their performance. We can’t help but say … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Do Sports Help Self-Esteem? A sports parent writes: “My 12-year-old has always had low-self confidence and low self-esteem. My hope was that a competitive sport (baseball for us) could help him develop these but so far results (four years into the mission) are negative to neutral at best. How do … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Pregame Mistakes Kids Make Just before a game, kids can derail their mental game by failing to trust in all that they’ve learned in practice. Without trust in what they’ve learned, kids are more likely to play tentatively and to avoid making mistakes. Instead, we want your young athletes to … Read Sport Psychology Tip
How to Handle Bullying in Youth Sports Parents, it’s easy to assume that bullying won’t strike your sports kids. Truth is, bullying is rampant in youth sports today. Kids bully each other and even coaches bully kids… Even parents bully each other! The weaker players are not always the targets. … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Applying The 3 R’s of Refocusing in Youth Sports It may sound silly, but sports kids can get really distracted by what they’re wearing and what their teammates and opponents are wearing. Take swimmers, for example. One middle school student tells us she gets really distracted by overweight guys in … Read Sport Psychology Tip