Instilling Confidence in Young Athletes
Why is confidence so important in youth sports? Because it’s a cure-all. It’s that simple.
When kids feel confident, they don’t get scared. They don’t get worried or tense. They believe their skills are just as good as their competitors’. Confident athletes recover easily from mistakes. This leads them to perform to their best of their abilities.
What exactly is confidence?
Confidence is when athletes believe in their own abilities to perform skills. Sometimes young athletes have more confidence in one skill, and less in another. For example, they might feel confident about their defensive skills but less sure about their offensive skills.
Given the power of confidence, it’s important that you as sports parents know how to help kids gain confidence. First, be sure to identify what makes your young athletes feel confident.
Most young athletes say confidence comes from a number of sources. For example, some kids say they know they’re physically talented and that boosts their confidence.
Some young athletes say confidence comes from past successes. Kids also say they derive confidence from their practice and training routines.
Other kids say that having access to the right equipment boosts their confidence. Positive feedback from coaches, parents and peers is also a confidence-booster.
If kids understand how they gain confidence, they’ll be more in control of improving their confidence—and their success in sports.
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.
Confidence!
I am a parent going through issues with this. My son is very confident in his batting skills. This is a result of us going to the batting cages often. As a matter of fact he may be one of the best sluggers on the team DURING PRACTCE. During the games so far no hits and way behind on the pitches. I re-read the Ultimate athlete and we are presentlly working on the ability for my son to TRUST his confidence and swing away. Easily said than done. To break it done more we are working on him just seeing the ball and swing away. My son admitted he was trying to be perfect that he was running all 36 steps to a swing in his head. Needless to say I have rerouted his thinking proces to two simple steps… see the ball and watch the bat hit it. We have only had one game since than and nothing has changed. However, I am patient and I think we are on the right track because the Ultimate Sports Parent. I will check back with everyone when things improve.