Confidence can be built or crushed in the time between leaving a sport game and arriving home.
Any parent of an aspirational athlete knows this – car rides home can yield the toughest of questions. “Why did I get benched?” to “Did I play bad?” and “Why does Charlotte always get to play Goal Attack?” can lead to fiery arguments, teary meltdowns, or even regretful explanations. Each can be equally damaging.
So, how should parents handle the tricky post-game chat with their kids? We asked sports psychologist Daniel Dymond from Melbourne’s The Performance and Sport Psychology Clinic to find out.
It turns out there are some do’s and don’ts every mum and dad should know. Here they are…
DO NOT give false encouragement
“The thing about the parent/child relationship is when you see your kid upset, down, or anxious, the first thing you want to do it remove their pain,” Dymond told me.
“When parents see a child upset about how they performed, sometimes they can say things that aren’t true that inflate their ego, but false encouragement creates a disconnect between performance and perception, which can be damaging down the line.”
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It’s better to acknowledge how your child is feeling in that moment, rather than cover their anxiety with baseless praise, Dymond said.
DO NOT tell your child to “stop feeling” angry or upset
Letting your child feel, and relating to them on that emotion, is an important part of creating connection, Dymond said.
“If a child is feeling pissed off, telling them not to feel that or trying to remove that pain is actually doing quite a lot of unhelpful things,” the sports psychologist explained. “Telling athletes they shouldn’t feel angry, sad or anxious creates a disconnect.”
Connection, Dymond believes, is fundamental when parents discuss sport and performance with their children.
“It’s all about sharing experience,” Dymond said. “Instead of telling your child not to feel anxious or angry, why don’t we share an experience? For example, parents could say they felt the same way when they were in a job interview, and felt their heart in their throat. If you can connect with your child in that way, they know you understand what they’re experiencing.”
Top Comments
I find this a difficult line to tread. My daughter is a very average netballer. She likes to play, but she isn't competitive by nature and if someone else wants the ball more, she will let them have it. She is also easily distracted and doesn't watch what's going on. Last season she played with a bunch of girls who were more highly skilled than her and her lack of application really let the team down. Everyone else was trying really hard and she was meandering around and not giving it her all. She is slow but tall and she could use her height to her advantage, but she just doesn't try very hard. If I suggest something in the car on the way home, however obliquely, she says I think she is hopeless and can't play. It's very frustrating to watch her play and trying to hint (or outright tell her) that she has an obligation to the team to play her best just results in an argument.
speak to her coach. Are they unhappy with her performance? A lot of coaches of kids sport are too scared to pull kids up on sub-par performances due to parents loosing their shit that their precious baby got reprimanded (every coach i know has a few stories about the over bearing parent). Give her coach permission to pull her aside and get her to pull her wait etc. You 100% need the coach's backing for what you're saying to carry any weight with your daughter.