Building Confidence in Youth Athletes: A Parent’s Support Guide
Building Confidence in Youth Athletes: A Parent’s Support Guide
Parents have the ability to become a core component in building confidence in youth athletes inside & outside of their sport. Here are some effective strategies that parents can try out to encourage & support their athlete's positive growth in their sport.
Prioritize a Growth Mindset.
The greatest thing about playing sports as a youth athlete, is the opportunity to learn. Challenges & setbacks are single-handedly the #1 factor that can either make or break an athlete's success in their sport. By emphasizing the importance of learning, overcoming challenges, and staying resilient through obstacles, athletes will learn at an early age that their mindset is a powerful tool in becoming a stronger athlete.
How do you prioritize a growth mindset? Here are 3 examples:
1. After training, ask your athlete what they learned or what they feel went well? Ask them what they would like to continue working on in the next training.
2. Before games, emphasize small goals to set that are realistic, simple, and process-oriented rather than outcome oriented. Always celebrate those wins with athletes.
3. If an athlete appears frustrated with teammates or a coach, guide the athlete into how they want to handle the situation. Try not to provide them an answer. Allow them to come to an appropriate conclusion and encourage them to follow through. If they don't... then they are still learning that if they don't act on something bothering them in an appropriate way, they may not get the outcome they want.
Continue to provide positive reinforcement.
When your athlete achieves something positive, follow up with something positive.
Positivity can be contagious if you foster that type of environment.
Highlight what athletes can control: Their Effort & Attitude.
Sometimes, even just your positive statements of belief in their abilities is enough to provide motivation to continue trying.
Building confidence in youth athletes is not always just about their feelings about how they perform in competition & training. Sometimes, confidence can be attributed to feeling as though they are a good leader. With leadership, comes responsibility.
Some questions to help guide teaching moments: Does your athlete... Help others? Help clean up equipment? Offer encouragement to other athletes? Take care of their own equipment & uniforms? Understand their sports schedule? Do they know how to stretch, hydrate, fuel their body?
While athletes are still young & learning... consistently including these conversations on a daily basis can help refresh & remind the athlete of their leadership capabilities and responsibilities.
Demonstrate the importance of having fun.
Emphasis on outcomes can lead to pressure, anxiety, burnout, and lack of enjoyment.
Emphasis on enjoyment, interests, friendships, & small achievements can lead to greater overall performance, confidence, length of time playing sports, & reduced burnout rate.
Demonstrating the importance of having fun means you are actively having fun yourself. Having fun & enjoyment watching your athlete succeed, make friends, have fun, and increase their level of performance & positivity. When you are engaged and enjoying being a part of your athlete's life, they will feel it. It can be a huge motivator for them to have unconditional positive support.
Building confidence in youth athletes can be challenging. & being a parent is not easy.
I am fully aware that there is A LOT that goes into being a parent.
Remember, parents are human too. You will make mistakes... tons of them. You also have the opportunity to provide lots of wonderful, encouraging, & loving acts for your family.
Sometimes, just the act of acknowledging you want to help is a great start. No one is expecting perfection or for you to do all of these strategies all of the time. Building confidence in youth athletes is not an easy feat.
All of these provided strategies are here to help and support. If you ever have questions, please email [email protected]. I would be happy to set up a 15 minute consultation call with you. If you wanted additional support, I provide 1:1 coaching sessions with parents as well.
