Helping Young Athletes Trust in Their Skills

Do your sports kids excel in practice, but freeze up in competition? Do they have a hard time just being spontaneous and “free” when they compete? If so, you might need to help your child trust his or her athletic ability...

Freezing up in competition is a common challenge for young athletes. Some kids and teens love to practice and improve, but when it comes to competing, they suddenly don’t trust in their own skills and or have confidence in their abilities.

All young athletes face a lack of trust and confidence in their skills from time to time.

Maybe they’re new to a particular sport. Maybe they’re trying to learn a brand new skill and haven’t quite gotten it yet. Perhaps they’re perfectionists and feel that their performance isn’t “perfect” enough. They may also be afraid of making mistakes, so they play or compete tentatively.

Why should kids trust in their skills and abilities?

If they believe in their ability to execute a skill successfully, they’ll feel more confident. And more confidence will lead to more trust. That’s crucial to success and happiness in sports. In order to trust, athletes need to let go of conscious control—of their motor skills, for example. They must be able to perform spontaneously and intuitively.

As parents and coaches, there’s lots you can do to help young athletes learn to compete with trust and freedom.

First of all, look at your own behavior. Do you:

>>Ask your child to focus on proper or perfect form during the game?

>>Encourage your child to try to be perfect when performing?

>>Over coach your child right before game time?

>>Introduce a different method than the coach’s and confuse your child?

Instead, you need to:

1. Help your young athletes leave practice on the practice field, and learn to trust in their abilities.
2. Help them switch into an athletic, “let it happen” mindset in competition. Tell them to react intuitively, to keep it simple: See the ball and hit it.
3. Help them think of ways to perform in the here-and-now. How can they get the job done without worrying about or analyzing how to get the job done?
4. Help them accept that they can’t perform perfectly.

Want to learn more about how to help kids improve their performance, trust and confidence?

Check out our Ultimate Sports Parent workbook/CD program....

You’ll learn how to:

>Instill a confident mindset in your young athletes

>Help kids deal with competitive pressure

>Help kids trust their skills on game day

>Help young athletes set goals

>Guide sports kids who are dealing with difficult feelings and much more!

Hop over to our web site to snag your copy:

http://youthsportspsychology.com/

Sincerely,

Patrick Cohn, Ph.D., Mental Training Expert

P.S. The Ultimate Sports Parent workbook program comes with a neat
bonus that helps parents act and say the right things before a game or
competition:

http://youthsportspsychology.com/

©2007 The Ultimate Sports Parent by Peak Performance Sports
Instilling Mental Skills for Sports & Life!