Dr. Alan Goldberg-Sports Psychology for Athletes, Coaches & Parents
Dr. Alan Goldberg-Sports Psychology for Athletes, Coaches & Parents
Your job as a parent is to do your best to continually help them keep the bigger picture in mind. This means that when they have an absolutely dreadful performance, you help them understand that these bad performances are a normal and expected part of the sport, that you can't always be at your best and that in every bad outing lie the seeds for long term improvement. That is, "what can you learn from this that will help you play better next time?" When they have a decent performance, your job is to help them appreciate what they did well by "underlining it" and at the same time, helping them begin to look for areas where they can improve. When they have an amazing performance, your job is to be sure that they are able to appreciate how well they played. If their perfectionism gets in the way and they want to view this good performance as a failure, then it's your job to interrupt their negativity by pointing out what they did well and highlighting how unrealistically hard they are being on themselves.
When helping kids gain a perspective, it is never your job to focus them on what you think that they did wrong and then "helping" them correct their problems. Your job, instead is to be an unconditionally loving parent who continually tries to help your child see the bigger picture. Part of seeing the bigger picture involves downplaying the overblown importance of a game, match or race.
Learn more here:
When helping kids gain a perspective, it is never your job to focus them on what you think that they did wrong and then "helping" them correct their problems. Your job, instead is to be an unconditionally loving parent who continually tries to help your child see the bigger picture. Part of seeing the bigger picture involves downplaying the overblown importance of a game, match or race.
Learn more here:
