Communicating With Athletes Postgame | Youth Sports Psychology

Postgame Communication With Sports Kids

Parents, even when the game is over, you need to be careful about how you communicate with your young athletes.

Often, parents are tempted to harp on sports kids’ mistakes after a game.

In the first in a series of podcasts, mental game expert Dr. Patrick Cohn gives parents some tips for ensuring they boost their kids’ conbfidence after a game.

“One of the no-nos for parents is to harp on mistakes. They are well meaning when they say things like ‘Why did you miss that shot,’ or ‘Why did you miss that three footer?’ says Dr. Cohn.

“When you focus on the mistakes, it causes athletes to focus on mistakes.”

And that’s not what you want. When athletes concentrate on their mistakes, their confidence sinks.

In addition, parents should let kids cool down after a game. And they should let themselves cool down, too, says Dr. Cohn. Don’t jump in right after the game and start talking about it.

“Let their emotions settle down. Parents are excited. Athletes are still physiologically intense and have emotions about the game. Observe that cool-down period,” he suggests.

If kids want to talk about the game, listen to them. But after a few minutes, try to transition them out of the role of the athlete into other areas of their lives, he says.

They have to learn how to make that transition.

After a game, be careful especially about how you communicate with perfectionist athletes. “If you start harping on their mistakes, they’ll feel like they’re not good enough,” says Dr. Cohn. “It’s like adding insult to injury.” These kids are already harping on their mistakes.

Want to learn more about how to boost kids’ confidence after a game? You can listen to our podcast, the first in a series of post-game tips, here:

Listen to Our Podcast About Post-Game Tips for Sports Parents here:

(Subscribe to The Ultimate Sports Parent Radio Show at iTunes!)

What do parents and coaches say about our resources?

“Every Sports Parent Needs This (Ultimate Sports Parent Radio Podcast): I really enjoyed this podcast. The information is essential if your kids participate in sports. You learn how to respond to your kids and deal with many of the issues that parents face.” ~Sports Parent

Help your kids build confidence in youth sports and avoid mental game challenges!

At Kids’ Sports Psychology, we’ve got loads of other resources for you—Ebooks, additional audios, videos—all designed to help you boost your kids’ confidence.

Here’s what parents and coaches have to say about our resources:

“I have listened to the program twice and I think the information is valuable. I’ve always heard and read that we need to be positive with our young athletes. However, this program provides great value because it gives specific ‘how to’s’ with regards as to how to be positive as a parent as well as how to get your young athletes to think positive.”
~Jay Morrissey Sr., Sports Parent

Be sure to help your kids boost their confidence in sports—and life!

Help Your Young Athletes Overcome Self-Doubt In Sports!

The Confident Sports Kid helps young athletes improve confidence quickly and overcome common confidence killers that destroy motivation and fun in sports!

This is a 7-day program for sports parents and kids to boost young athletes’ performance, happiness and success… in sports and life!

The Confident Sports Kid program is actually two programs: one that teaches sports parents how to boost their kids’ confidence, and another that teaches young athletes age 8 to 12 how to improve their self talk, avoid negative thinking, overcome expectations that limit confidence, and much more.

What are parents and coaches saying?

“Each Race He Was More Calm, Composed, And Relaxed”

“I just wanted to say thank you for your wonderful programs. My son Kai was one of the fastest 10 and under swimmers in Southern California and after he “aged up” to the 11-12 group he really lost confidence swimming against the much faster and bigger boys. He started with the Confident Sports Kids series and really enjoyed each and every lesson. He then started the Composed Kid series and built on the important building blocks that he was using from the first series. I so happy to report that Kai was able to swim to best times in each and every event he swam at the biggest and most important meet of the year in So Cal, the Club Championships. Each race he was more calm, composed, and relaxed. The final race was one that he was ranked last and one of his goals was to try for top 16…he was 49th! He cut over 4 seconds off his time ending up in 17th. He was ecstatic to say the least.”
~DD Bartley

Help Young Athletes Overcome Perfectionist Challenges in Sports!

Sports Parents’ Top Dilemma: Helping Young Athletes Kick Perfectionism And Fear of Failure will walk you through the problem and arm you with practical solutions.

The Sports Parents’ Top Dilemma is a two part program. It includes:

A 23 page E-book that identifies the challenge, explains why it is harmful to young athletes and gives step-by-stop sports psychology tips for helping kids.
A 21 page kids’ sports psychology workbook that is intended to help you kids identify beliefs and expectations that are the root of perfectionism.

Now you can learn how to help young athletes overcome the difficult cycle of perfectionism, fear of failure and loss of confidence!

Sports Parents’ Top Dilemma: Helping Young Athletes Kick Perfectionism And Fear of Failure

What are parents saying?

“Your Information Had Been So Helpful”

“After listening to a couple of your podcasts and reading your “10 tips to confidence in youth sports,” most of the challenges you make note of apply to my 14-year-old son. He’s got all the physical ability, but the more mistakes he makes, the worse it seems to get. So reading and listening to your information has been so helpful and validates what I have observed in him for the past few months. Thank you so much!”
~Brenda Felder, Everett, WA