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The Sports Parent – some tips to help you and your child



Sport offers so much to children psychologically: an opportunity to test themselves, to learn rules, to cooperate with others, to accept defeat, to celebrate success (hopefully), to cope with setbacks and much more. The Sports Parent who takes their child to practice, watches them play and then has to deal with whatever mood their child is in afterwards has a tough job to do. You face many dilemmas including: How much should you encourage your child to do the sport? When is your encouragement too much, at risk of being perceived as coercion or pushing them into it? How do you help your child cope with mistakes and bad performances? With other children, coaches, officials who show unfairness? Or cope with other parents who take a very different approach from you regarding how sport should be played by kids?

What makes your job as the Sports Parent all the more difficult is the fact that you really care about your child. You don’t want them to be upset. You don’t want sport to hurt their development. You don’t want them to leave sport with psychological scars for life to do with sport, exercise, body image, confidence or other people.

You want sport to be a positive experience, but how do you ensure this, or maximise the chance that it will be a positive one?

Well, the reality is that you can’t control all of your child’s experiences so that they are all positive and helpful. And actually, if you could do this, I’m not sure if your child would develop quite as well as one who lives in a world where at least some bad (with reason) stuff happens, where there is disappointment and challenges. The good news is that you can be a stable presence who gives consistent messages about them that can help. For example, your messages can include:
  • how they are doing well
  • how their performance has positives and negatives which is to be expected and fine
  • how their effort is important
  • how winning is great but not everything
  • how sport and life can offer challenges to persist with
  • how they are much more than their last performance
  • that they are fine, loved
By giving messages such as these, consistently, your child is much more likely to absorb and bounce-back from bad days on the playing field. They will then develop into a more psychologically robust child, adolescent and adult.

As a Clinical Sports Psychologist I have seen dozens of parents, with their children,  who have struggled to help their children navigate the world of sport by a safe and positive route.

Best wishes in sport and life

Victor

www.sportspsychologist.com

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