Building Confidence in Young Athletes
Over and over, coaches and parents tell us that when kids build confidence in sports, they boost it in other areas of their lives.
For example, at Kids’ Sports Psychology, we teach kids how to cope with worries about what everyone is thinking of them. As you know, this is a worry that affects kids—especially teens—in all areas of their lives.
All teens want other people to like them!
But if kids focus too much on what others think of them, it’s hard for them to perform well in sports—and it affects other areas of their lives, too.
To help kids who are worry about what others think of their performance, we give them something else to think about.
We tell them to focus on what’s happening here and now, as they’re dribbling the ball, preparing for a free-throw, or defending a goal. We tell them how to banish distractions—like worries.
They should start by identifying the fact that they’re worrying. They should understand it’s a distraction, and refocus on the job at hand.
Sure, we make it sound easy, but it takes practice—and it works! If your kids can learn how to cope with such worries in sports, believe us, they learn how to transfer this important skill into other areas of their lives.
Another confidence buster:
Kids often give themselves negative labels—again, in sports and life. They may tell themselves, “I’m a wimp,” “I can’t shoot,” or “I’m a terrible putter.”
Think of all the ways kids can tell themselves such things in other areas of their lives, too: “I’m a terrible math student,” “I can’t take tests,” and on and on!
When kids tell themselves such negative things, we teach them to first identify that they’re doing this. Then, we ask them to replace these negative statements with new beliefs.
For example, ask kids, in their minds, to replace the thought, “I’m a choker,” with “I love to play in high-pressure situations.”
Or if they tell themselves, “I can’t play well in the rain,” they might instead tell themselves, “I know how to play well in the rain. I need to focus on what I can control today.”
We’re sure you can think of plenty of ways this strategy can be applied to school and other areas of the kids’ lives.
Related Articles on Youth Sports:
- How This Sport Builds Confidence and Focus in Kids
- How Social Media Hurts Sports Kids’ Confidence
- Addressing Anxiety, Mistakes and Low Confidence in Youth Sports
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Help Young Athletes Boost Confidence in Sports!
Every day, we receive letters from parents like you who want their children and teens to excel in sports. However, these parents can see fear, doubt, and frustration on the faces of their kids who struggle with the “inner” game of sports. But these parents have no idea how to help their kids overcome the worries, expectations and self-defeating thoughts that prevent their young athletes from feeling confident and successful.
You can benefit from our 15-plus years’ of work in sports psychology and sports parenting research. Now, you can tap into our secrets to sports success through a cutting-edge, 14-day program that helps young athletes overcome the top “mental game” challenges that sports parents face—and the top challenges young athletes face.
My son is 11 and we have exposed him to different sports so he will know which one he will like. What we notice, though, is no matter what sports he plays, he doesn’t seem to want to exert any effort. He always tells us that he gives his best but we can see that he doesn’t. Lately, I got an email from the coach about him not “giving his best” and not “working hard”. We can see that he has potential but he is easily discouraged. His team was undefeated last season and he just joined this season and they only managed to win a few games and he is blaming himself that he may be the reason why his team is losing. I tried to explain that it is all team effort. I do not know what to do with him or what approach to do so that I can uplift him to perform. What should I do? We had a party yesterday and all his cousins were playing basketball (he played basketball, too). Instead he’d rather play with the young kids. I do not understand if he just doesn’t have interest on sports or is scared to compete or whatever his reason is but I need your advice. Thanks…
You want to ask him to just have fun with it. You might ask what’s preventing him from having fun, if anything. Not sure if he is scared or lacks motivation. Kids lack motivation to work hard when they are successful early on with little practice. High confidence can sap motivation. Kids play scared when they want to be perfect or afraid to fail or feel embarrassed.