How to Support Your Sports Kids
Are you searching for ways to be a positive force in your child’s athletic career?
Are you met with resistance and don’t know how to help your child reach their athletic potential?
Being a sport parent and helping your children achieve more in their sport can be very contentious.
Your child athlete may feel:
- You have no idea what it is like to be an athlete
- You don’t know the ins and outs of their sport
- You are a nag
- You are too negative or critical
- You are never pleased with them
- You put too much pressure on them
You may feel:
- Your child never listens to you
- You waste time driving them all over the place if they don’t put in the effort
- Your child is lazy or doesn’t care
- Your child doesn’t listen to the coach
- Your child doesn’t focus in practice
So who is right? Are you right or is your child right?
Is it possible that you are both right?
Maybe your child doesn’t put in the effort because you put too much pressure on them.
Maybe your child doesn’t listen to you because they feel you are too critical.
Maybe your child does need to put in more effort to achieve their goals even if you don’t fully understand the ins and outs of their sport.
If you want to be a better sport parent and help your child in their sport, you need to achieve balance between understanding how pressure affects your child, tempering your expectations, supporting your child and nudging them along if necessary.
Things to Remember as a Sports Parent
- The parent child relationship exists along a continuum ranging from apathy to pressure, with encouragement somewhere in the middle. Support isn’t just standing on the sidelines with pom-poms. Support is giving your child the tools they need to succeed.
- Pressure may be good in small doses, but too much pressure will always result in poor performance. For example, if your child wants to make their high school team, you have to encourage them to put in the effort.
- Pressure is a matter of perception. Ultimately, what your child feels is their reality. So, if your child tells you they feel pressured, you may need to explore why they feel that way.
- Pressure is not always overt. Pressure can be implied. Telling the world of your child’s accomplishments in their sport, even though you feel proud of them and want to celebrate their success, your child may fear disappointing you if they don’t continue to win.
- Pressure is uniquely experienced. What works for one child may not work for another child.
Now that you have come to some understanding, let’s get right to it…
Three Strategies to be a Supportive Sport Parent
- Be a Goal Buddy – Have your child identify their seasonal goal then ask them, “What can I do to help you achieve your goal?” This strategy puts the onus on your child and provides you with specific directions to help your child accomplish their goals.
- Ask, Don’t Tell – Instead of telling your child all the mistakes they did in a competition, ask open ended questions, “How do you think you performed?” “What do you think will help you in future competitions?” This strategy really lessens the pressure your child feels.
- Reward Effort – Effort is the one thing every athlete can control, but winning depends on many factors, some directly out of an athlete’s hands. By rewarding effort, you can push your child while building their confidence.
Being a positive sport parent helps you and your child enjoy the sporting experience.