Social Approval in Youth Sports
What your kids learn in sports often transfers to other areas of their lives.
Take confidence, for example. If kids learn how to feel confident in youth sports–meaning, if they know how to identify and address confidence busters–this often means higher confidence in other areas of their lives.
Say, for instance, your sports kids worry about what others think of them. This, of course, is a common worry. But if they can learn how to tackle this in sports, they can learn how to address it in other areas of their lives.
Here’s what we suggest for kids who worry too much about what other kids think.
First of all, help them understand this worry. Some kids are anxious, but don’t know exactly why. Understanding the source of their worries is part of the battle
Once they recognize that they worry about what friends or teammates think of them or their performance, they need to shift their focus to something else.
They should focus on the process of playing sports–not on the score, win or what other people may think.
For example, soccer players might decide to concentrate on getting open for the next pass. Or they might focus on playing good defense. Or communicating well with teammates.
Once they take the focus off their worries, and concentrate on the process, they’re likely to enjoy sports more, have more fun, and improve. And that boosts their confidence!
What’s more, they’ve learned how they might deal with worries about what others think of them in other areas of their lives.
There are numerous confidence busters in sports, all of which apply to non-sports activities.
Young athletes sink their confidence by being perfectionists, by having high expectations, by being afraid to fail, and by calling themselves negative names, to name a few.
Next week we’ll begin to help you and your athletes address the top confidence killers–in a new podcast series for young athletes.
We’ve got a great program for you and your young athletes that will help them boost their confidence in sports—and life!
Check out our program, “The Confident Sports Kid,” here:
The Confident Sports Kid Workbook Program
It’s two programs in one, and includes a manual for parents and coaches, plus a separate workbook for young athletes. You’ll learn all about the things that bust kids’ confidence, and what you can do to deal with these confidence busters- high expectations, doubt, and worries about what others think- to name just a few.
Related Articles on Youth Sports:
- Why Kids’ Identities Shouldn’t be All About Sports
- How This Sport Builds Confidence and Focus in Kids
- How Sports Kids’ Emotions Affect Teammates
*Subscribe to The Sports Psychology Podcast on iTunes
*Subscribe to The Sports Psychology Podcast on Spotify
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.