The Importance of Communicating With Sports Kids
How you communicate with your sports kids is critical to building their confidence.
We recently chatted with Michel Langlois, co-owner of Prospect Communications, which helps parents, coaches and administrators develop more effective communication approaches. He’s also a former coach and has four grown kids who played many sports.
Langlois has lots to say about why nearly 75% of sports kids drop out of sports by the time they are 13—and how to ensure they stay in sports.
Kids’ decision to stay in sports and enjoy its many benefits—rather than dropping out—is a function of how much fun they’re having, he says. And young athletes have more fun if parents and coaches understand how best to communicate with them.
Here at Kids’ Sports Psychology, we are in complete agreement with Langlois. It’s your job as sports parents to ensure your kids are having fun. That means it’s your job to understand how to communicate with them—and how to choose coaches who know just how to pick their words.
Langlois offers some great tips for parents and coaches. First of all, he says, be sure you find out what motivates your kids to play.
Ask them what they love about the sport.
We’d like to add: Be sure to listen carefully. When you talk to kids, be sure to separate their motivation for playing sports from your motivation for having them play sports. You want to follow their lead.
We know a coach who, at the beginning of the season, asks parents and kids to complete a questionnaire about why the kids want to play sports and what the parents want from sports. And it helps this coach know how best to coach the kids.
Another tip from Langlois:
Be careful about how you give constructive criticism to young athletes. You don’t want to criticize them right after a mistake, for example. And you should be sure to load them with lots of positive feedback.
He quotes the Positive Coaching Alliance’s rule of providing kids with five positive, truthful remarks before offering one piece of constructive feedback.
If you’d like to learn more about how to communicate with young athletes in ways that build their confidence and ensure they stay in sports, we’ve got just what you need at Kids’ Sports Psychology.
Related Articles on Youth Sports:
- How Sports Parents Should Communicate With Kids [Podcast]
- Addressing Outbursts in Youth Sports
- How to Resolve Conflicts in Youth Sports
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