As a parent, how do you measure your child’s worth? Is it through how many wins they get? Through how many points they scored in their games? Or simply by how much you love them? 

Young athletes want to make you feel proud of their achievements. They want to work hard and earn your appreciation and approval. 

However, there’s a huge downside to this. Making you feel proud as their main source of motivation and drive creates this situation where they’ll look up to you in everything they do. So you have to be very careful on how you respond to their success and their failures. Especially on their failures. 

For some, it builds anxiety in them. They’ll be more and more afraid to make mistakes or do anything that warrants your disapproval. It’s a standard they’ve set for themselves. 

So together with Collin Henderson, we talk about how parents are the biggest problem in sports and sometimes can be the hindrance to their children’s confidence and growth. 

In this podcast, we call out parents who reduce their children to their scores and wins in competition. We also discuss research and statistics that suggests most parents condition their athletes for success and when that doesn’t happen, athletes tend to question their self worth. 

How to avoid conditioning your kids this way?

We have a ton of coaching on the physical side, and not on the mental side. Additionally, we coach our kids to be the perfect athlete, to be able to do this sport well. 

But parents have zero coaching. And yet, they want their children to be coachable and flexible to learning and mastering the sport. There’s a lot that your kids are going through and a lot of that is partially because of you. And if you want your child to be a top performer and get a scholarship, they need intrinsic motivation, not extrinsic. If it's extrinsic coming from you, you can't sustain that.

How can you tell your athlete is afraid of disappointing you? 

These are some early signs: 

• They start hiding things from you (i.e. game schedules, practices) 
• They don’t tell you about a certain game or hope that you wouldn’t go to their games
• They start to become rigid around you and conscious during their games (when you’re present)

What can you do? 

• Tell them, no matter the result, you’ll be proud of them.
• Avoid encouraging their competitiveness, that’s how it starts.
• Maintain a positive reaction whenever they slip up or make a mistake. (It’s the little things that can set off their anxiety) 

How can you build their confidence?

1. Be there for them. 
2. Embrace the failures. 
3. Let them know you have their full support regardless of what they want.
4. It’s not about you, it’s about them. 

Your athlete shouldn’t be afraid or intimidated by you, instead, they should look up to you as a role model and a healthy motivation that will support them in their journey! 

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Helpful Links:

• Hang out with Collin on social @collinhenderson and learn more about working with him!
• Visit our podcast website for more on this episode
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