Kids sport psychology articles and tips for sports parents, young athletes, and youth coaches to improve mental performance and overall consistency.
How Can Sports Parents Distract Kids? Unruly parents and crowds can really hurt kids’ confidence, says Gil Fried, professor and head of the sport management department at the University of New Haven and an expert on crowd control. Why? Just think about it. When athletes are trying to perform, what … 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
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
Playing Time in Youth Sports Here’s an interesting study result: If young athletes have to choose between losing and getting to play the whole game, they choose playing time. That’s a tidbit from Steven Frierman, a professor at Hofstra University and a former youth sports coach. Yes, that’s right. Winning … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Parents: Communicating With Sports Kids Ultimate Sports Parent Radio interviews Michael Langlois, co-owner of Prospect Communications, which helps parents and coaches improve their communication skills in youth sports. In this week’s Ultimate Sports Parent podcast: Langlois gives tips about how parent and coaches should communicate with sports kids in ways that boost … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Negative Self-Lables in Youth Sports When sports kids start calling themselves “losers,” “chokers,” “wimps” or other negative names, it’s a bad sign. Young athletes who label themselves with these negative terms are hurting their confidence. They’ve got a little voice in their head that’s constantly putting them down. And, as … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Mental Stamina in Youth Sports Let’s say your young athlete is a golfer, baseball player or basketball player who needs to focus intensely before making a putt, throwing a pitch, hitting a ball or shooting a free-throw. The player generally has a strategy and an intention; the goal is to … Read Sport Psychology Tip
The Benefits of Participation in Sports For Kids Popular coach Billy Zufall is serious about ensuring sports participation teaches kids critical skills that they can transfer to other areas of their lives. In fact, that’s one of his main goals as director of coaching for the boys’ and girls’ soccer … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Tips to Ensure Your Kids Excel in Sports We all want our kids to excel in sports. But exactly what does it mean to excel — and how can parents best help young athletes? It’s all about perspective. Read on to learn great tips for ensuring your kids excel in … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Reasons Why Sports Kids Don’t Believe in Themselves For a number of reasons, many sports kids don’t believe in themselves—and that’s bad news for them, their teams and their coaches. Here are just a few causes: When kids don’t believe in themselves, they hurt their performance and enjoyment of sports. … Read Sport Psychology Tip