What Should Sports Parents NOT Do?
Sports parents can inadvertently undermine their kids’ mental game. You might not be aware of the ways you hurt your athletes confidence and composure…
Here are five ways:
1. Yelling directions and “coaching” from the sidelines.
This is damaging for many reasons. First, this will embarrass your kids. They will feel the pressure of kids and parents looking at them and feel singled out by your behavior.
Further, if you yell at them when they make mistakes or if you tell them to do better or work harder, you hurt their confidence. You want to leave the coaching to the coach.
2. Dwelling on mistakes.
Do you tend to focus on kids’ mistakes and lecture them after games? Focusing on the negative will not help your children grow as players, and will exert extra pressure.
This hurts their confidence. Find a few positive things to say after a game, even a loss.
3. Focus too much on the score or the win.
It is common in sports to make winning important, but for your young sports children, this is a no-no. You want them to be grounded in the here-and-now, not focusing on the future.
Concentrate on helping kids focus on the process of playing. They should focus on specific in-game tasks that could help the team win—passing, rebounding and defense, for example.
4. Dwell too much on college scholarships and all-star teams.
This can be especially harmful to kids’ mental game because kids will feel pressure and will take on your high expectations as their own.
Instead, challenge them to have fun in sports and make new friends!
5. Concentrating too much on sports accomplishments.
It’s only natural to be proud of your children, but often parents of successful sports children flaunt their children’s trophies and accomplishments too much, bragging to friends and neighbors.
This type of behavior tells your kids that success is more important than the process, learning new skills, and fun of playing.
Want to learn more about how to boost your kids’ confidence in sports?
Learn everything you need to know about what to say and do before a game here:
Related Articles on Youth Sports:
- Why Kids’ Identities Shouldn’t be All About Sports
- How Kids Can Learn to Make the Most of Mistakes While Competing
- How Toxic Sports Cultures Hurt Kids’ Mental Health
*Subscribe to The Sports Psychology Podcast on iTunes
Help Young Athletes Boost Confidence in Sports!
Every day, we receive letters from parents like you who want their children and teens to excel in sports. However, these parents can see fear, doubt, and frustration on the faces of their kids who struggle with the “inner” game of sports. But these parents have no idea how to help their kids overcome the worries, expectations and self-defeating thoughts that prevent their young athletes from feeling confident and successful.
You can benefit from our 15-plus years’ of work in sports psychology and sports parenting research. Now, you can tap into our secrets to sports success through a cutting-edge, 14-day program that helps young athletes overcome the top “mental game” challenges that sports parents face—and the top challenges young athletes face.