Strategies to Help Sports Kids Overcome Failure
Fear of failure affects sports children in all types of sports, but can be especially challenging in baseball, says Nova Newcomer, executive director, Friends of Baseball, in Portland, Oregon.
“The tough challenge with baseball is it’s a failure-based sport,” says Newcomer, whose organization is a partner of the Positive Coaching Alliance.
“What I mean by that is the best players in the sport are only going to succeed three out of 10 times. It’s a sport that gives you immediate feedback about how you are doing, and often that can be tough for young kids, especially if they are going through a rough patch.”
Fear of failure is normal in every sport, but in sports like baseball where the success rate is relatively low, fear of failure can be exacerbated because kids feel like they’re not succeeding.
As we know with fear of failure, this only leads to more fear, which leads to more failure!
“It’s important that you teach the kids that they are playing a moment-based sport – they can chose to really obsess over that moment, or they can chose not to,” says Newcomer.
In our recent podcast interview with her, she gives some advice to parents and coaches about dealing with fear of failure.
“Have a mistake ritual. Have something that you do that lets your kids remember, ‘Yes I made a mistake but I need to move on with the game.’ One that a lot of kids do is brush their shoulder off, giving that little signal to yourself that you are processing your mistake and letting it go. Some kids do better with humor, so they ‘flush’ their mistakes,” she says.
Newcomer says it’s best if your children help create a mistake ritual. This will allow your children to process their mistakes
Listen to our interview with Newcomer here:
Related Articles on Youth Sports:
- How to Deal With World Cup Pressure Like The Pros
- How To Help Young Athletes With Fear of Failure
- Teaching Athletes to Feel The Pain of Failure with “Growth Mindsets” [Podcast]
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The Composed Sports Kid
“The Composed Sports Kid” audio and workbook digital download program for young athletes and their parents or coach helps kids cope with frustration and anger in sports. Help your sports kids learn how to manage expectations and let go of mistakes so they can keep their head in the game.
The Composed Sports Kid system is really two programs in one–one program to train parents and coaches how to help their kids practice composure, and one program that teaches young athletes–ages 6 to 13–how to improve composure, let go of mistakes quickly, have more self-acceptance, and thus enjoy sports more!