Sport Psych for Youth Athletes: forging connections through language
In my experience, children as young as 8 years old are able to understand some pretty complex concepts surrounding the way they think. At a young age, children are forming connections between experiences, thoughts and emotional responses. For example, telling your children that traffic is stressful and emotionally demonstrating the effects of this stress in front of them will likely lead them to relate traffic to stress for the rest of their lives (a great opportunity for parents to demonstrate emotional control in situations that are beyond our influence). Ask your child if they won their match, and not following up with any other questions if they lost, can cause your child to form the narrative that “it only matters if I win, and if I lose there is nothing to talk about.” These are two very common examples that children face in their everyday lives that can forge lifelong connections.
Connection forming at an early stage in a young athletes life is a prime opportunity to develop resilient coping mechanisms that can help them flourish in a competitive environment. Many of us will have seen Raducanu, an 18 year old, defeat Fernandez, 19 years old, in the US Open final. Both young athletes will have been playing their sport for years and been involved in professional setups far longer than many older adults. To achieve this, they will have had to develop psychological skills to aid in coping with immense pressure, managing their emotions and having the mental agility to adapt to a high performance environment that many of us would feel overwhelmed by (This match showed us examples of how unexpected decisions can throw off an athlete’s game under pressure, even at the highest level). Whilst not every child is going to be on the world stage at such a young age, in competitive sport there is always going to be perceived pressure. If our ability to cope with this pressure isn’t properly developed by the time we experience it, then even the under 12’s team selection can feel like the Olympic Games!
My advice for parents seeking to make a difference early on… language is extremely powerful and the words we use can have a long term effect due to the connections we create for our children. Try some of the following phrases to encourage introspection and learning:
Instead of, “Did you win?” or “Did you score?”
Say, “How do you feel you played today?” (if you were there to watch, lead with a compliment first relating to the way they played, not just if they scored/won) and follow up with more questions to encourage your child to reflect on the game in more detail.
Instead of, “you’ll get her next time”.
Say, “If you were going to play her again, what would you do differently?”
Instead of, “yeah, the referee did get that wrong and I am annoyed too.”
Say, “When something like that happens, what can you do to stop yourself getting annoyed and affecting your game?”
Now… sometimes we just need to let children vent and not treat everything like a teachable moment (no matter how tempting). So use your sense to find the right time to encourage this type of reflection and help your child draw positive connections with their experiences of winning, losing (yes, there are positives to be found here) and training.
If we can:
-focus on the PROCESS rather than the OUTCOME,
-get CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK on the way we play (from ourselves and coaches),
-emphasise that sport is meant to be ENJOYED,
-but also that being competitive can be FUN,
-that a young athlete should focus on LEARNING NOT WINNING
If we can allow our child to develop the connection that ‘losing a match is a learning opportunity and not a failure’, just as ‘success can be better defined as growth and development rather than winning’, then we can give them a chance to thrive rather than flounder in a competitive world. I have been called in to work with far too many young athletes that have been winning their whole childhood, and associate their talent with the result… when they move up an age group or into a more competitive group, they don’t value the lessons learnt from a loss and tend to give up. Too many talented children see loss as catastrophic failure, and this can follow them into all aspects of life and not just sport (a dangerous construct in school, business, relationships etc).
The deliberate use of language to enhance learning, enjoyment and performance is a powerful tool that can benefit children from young ages. Alongside this, I teach psychological skills to young athletes, such as:
Performing under pressure
keeping composed and adapting to change
self-regulation: emotional and behavioural
confidence
leadership skills
reflection and mental rehearsal
coping strategies for stress and anxiety management on and off-field
goal setting and value development
These skills extend beyond the sports field, pitch, pool or course. Get in touch for a free initial consultation and get started in developing lifelong skills.