How to Help Your Kids Stop Over Analyzing Their Performance
A sports parent asks:
“How do I reduce my child’s over-analysis of possible difficult in-game situations?”
Concentrating on in-game mistakes is a common issue for sports kids, and hurts kids’ confidence.
Do your sports children focus on the small details, the mistakes they make, and get lost in the game at hand?
Do they get frustrated and down on themselves when they make these mistakes, and does this frustration lead to more mistakes and inevitably further frustration?
If so, your sports children are stuck in the wrong mindset.
There is a place and time for your sports kids to nitpick over their mistakes, and this place is called practice.
Practice is the time for kids to focus on the details and improve their games in a safe environment.
During games, on the other hand, is the last place to over analyze mistakes, as it will do nothing to help kids have fun or feel successful.
During games, athletes need to focus on trusting the work they have already done during practice.
They need to trust in their skills and play freely and intuitively with what we like to call a “functional mindset,” one in which they concentrate fully on the game at hand and just “go for it.”
To help your sports kids achieve this functional, calm mindset, don’t over-coach them before games.
Don’t talk about the little mistakes they occasionally make or their less-than-solid habits. These conversations make kids focus on avoiding mistakes, instead of feeling free to perform with confidence.
Instead, remind them how hard they’ve worked in practice, and encourage them to play athletically and decisively–with no second-guessing their decisions.
While it makes sense for kids to practice new skills repeatedly until they become well-learned, kids need to leave practice on the practice floor when game time comes.
Tell your young athletes that now is the time to believe in their skills and get into the flow of the game–not the details of their game. They need to stop over thinking and just react.
Related Articles on Youth Sports:
- Help Athletes Trust the Training
- Helping Athletes Improve Trust in Skills
- Young Athletes Must ‘Trust the Grind’
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