MENTAL HEALTH
Here are some tips to help you build your child ’ s mental toughness :
1 . Help your child to learn something from every sports experience – regardless of whether they win or lose the race / competition . Sport is about learning to deal with challenges and obstacles . What did they learn about themselves , their attitude , their strategy ? Did they show good sportsmanship ? Did they give their best effort ? Were they willing to take risks ? Encourage mental flexibility by getting them to view the situation from various perspectives .
2 . Teach them that they need not fear failing . Most poor performance is a direct result of a pre-occupation with failing or messing up . Use failures in a positive way as a source of motivation and feedback to improve . Most successful people in and out of sport are not people with less failure under their belt . They have as many failures as everyone else on their way up – they just bounce back quicker . If your child races or plays his best , but loses , you need to help them feel like a winner . Success and failure should not be seen as equal to winning and losing . If a child performs far below their potential but wins , this is not necessarily cause for them to feel like a winner . Help your child to make the distinction between success and failure , winning and losing . Winning is about doing the very best that you can do on the day . Encourage great performances , good play , sportsmanship – and not just winning .
3 . Help your child to separate their self-worth from their performance . Their overall value as a person , and their self-worth should not be equated to their performance . If they ’ ve had a bad day and a bad race / game – they are not useless – rather their performance was lacking . Do not withdraw emotionally from your child to punish them for a poor performance or to your disappointment or frustration . Do not show disgust , degrade , embarrass or humiliate them . Do not use threats or guilt to motivate your child . Don ’ t make them feel as if they have to win in order to be “ good enough ” or please you as parents .
4 . Help them to create healthy , constructive channels to express and work through emotions such as disappointment , anger , frustration . It is important that they be given permission to feel disappointed , but not to indulge in self-pity , or behave destructively or immaturely . Show them how to keep their composure . This will enable them to respond better during stressful situations .
5 . Teach them to communicate honestly with their coaches . Do not mix your role of parent with that of coach . As a parent you can encourage and support , show empathy and understanding . The last thing your child needs when they have had a bad race or game is for you to lecture them on technique and game strategy . Leave this to their coach .
6 . Teach them that their biggest competition should be with themselves , and not with others . This will help to discourage them from getting a “ mental block ” about certain other competitors . If the focus is on winning or beating a certain competitor - and then they lose the race , this very frequently leads to performance paralysis . This is because fear of failure and focusing on winning , leads to muscle tightness , excessive anxiety and poor concentration . A more preferable focus is on “ doing your best ” and “ winning the contest with yourself ” ( improving time , score , technique etc ).
7 . Encourage them to be fully responsible for their performance – good or bad . In other words don ’ t let them blame other people or factors for not doing well .
8 . Make sure that your child is still enjoying their sport . Often , what started as something that they loved doing , becomes something that is fraught with stress and anxiety as the stakes get higher . Children who love what they are doing are going to perform better and more consistently , and learn faster than children with high anxiety . When the game gets too serious at too young an age , your child runs the risk of burnout and an increase in negative performance problems .
9