How to Communicate With Young Athletes The words parents and coaches choose when communicating with young athletes can boost kids’ confidence or deflate it, says Ganon Baker, a sports development coach who has worked with teams internationally and also played basketball in Iceland. When talking to kids about a … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Why Do Girls Drop Out of Sports More Often Than Boys? Nancy Lough, a professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, says that girls drop out for numerous reasons–and some are related to gender stereotypes. “If you think about it from a social standpoint, there are a lot of … Read Sport Psychology Tip
How Athletes Can Hit the Reset Button Athletes often ask, “I’m afraid my last bad game will be followed by other bad performances. How do I avoid following into a slump after a bad game?” It’s often hard for athletes to get over tough performances. They think a bad game … Read Sport Psychology Tip
How Young Athletes can Cope with Stress The pressures of modern youth sports are creating stress related mental health issues in young athletes. But there’s a non-traditional way of addressing this stress. That’s what we learned during a podcast interview with Bradley Donohue, a psychology professor at University of Nevada, … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Do Parents Pressure Kids to be Superstars? In the world of youth sports, we focus too much on “the next big thing”, creating high expectations. Eighth grade basketball player Elijah Fisher has been described by his coach at Grassroots Elite (Canada), “Elijah could be the best player to ever come … Read Sport Psychology Tip
How Athletes Can Deal with Coach Criticism It can be hard for your young athletes to take criticism productively from coaches. Kids often don’t interpret communication from coaches correctly because of the delivery or the emotion with which the feedback is conveyed. When their coaches criticize young athletes, the kids … Read Sport Psychology Tip