Ask PCA: Tools for Discouraged Athletes?

When my kid comes up against something hard, they tend to shy away and I am worried they become discouraged and don’t put in as much effort. What are some tools I can use (or share with them)?

Response by Brett Haskell & Abigail Eiler, Momentum Labs, LLC

As parents/caregivers, one of our greatest hopes is to equip our children with the tools they need to navigate life’s challenges. Resilience training is an essential resource that helps children face difficulties and emerge stronger. Building resilience requires developing a tolerance for doing uncomfortable and new things, engaging our body’s “stress response” incrementally and building comfort in pushing through the “fight or flight” sensations that come with our natural response. 

When we do something new for the first time and we don’t know how it will go, our brain identifies that situation as threatening. That threat  then triggers a stress response. 

While prolonged exposure to stress can be harmful, stress in the right amounts, buffered by consistent, supportive relationships, teaches us how to do hard things and also improves our success along the way. Some signs of a “stress response” include a faster heart rate, increased respiration, sweaty palms, or a stomach ache. Often stress is our brain mobilizing our body to perform. When we misinterpret those sensations as a threat our bodies want to retreat and avoid rather than tackle the challenge. If we regularly avoid hard things, it becomes a habitual pattern making us less likely to rise to the challenge in the future. 

Here’s the good news! We can  protect our athletes and children from feeling stress in the first place and help them cope with it more bravely when it does happen. We do this by educating them about the power of the mind, and giving them the tools to harness their mind as a weapon for resilient action. This must be done in a safe environment with a trusted adult. Parents/Caregivers should determine if their child’s coach is creating an environment where tolerable stress occurs and can be learned from.

The key in all of this is  recognizing when our mind is tricking us and  equipping ourselves with strategies to get through the discomfort. If you’ve noticed your child shying away from challenges, there are many effective strategies you can implement to help them build resilience.Here are three common actionable tools to help support your child’s growth:

Teach them that not all challenges are life-threatening! Help your child recalibrate the brain’s perception of real risk, reduce anxiety, and making them braver over time using the following strategies:

• Together, create a list of situations that invoke fear or higher levels of stress, rating each from 1 to 10 based on fear level. Begin by tackling the least “scary” tasks first, together, and work up to the hardest ones. This practice helps recalibrate the brain’s perception of real risk, reducing anxiety and making your child braver over time.
• Reframe mistakes as learning opportunities. Help your athlete recognize that there is no shame in making a mistake – rather that it is an important part of the learning process. 

Develop a ‘Stress is Enhancing Mindset’! To help your child develop resilience and a growth mindset, teach them it is possible to do hard things even when they are in a “stress state.” With regular practice,this can also improve their performance over time. Help your child do this by using these strategies:  

• When you talk about their performance don’t make it a zero sum game. Winning isn’t “good” and “losing bad”. Emphasize the benefits of hard work, effort, and improvement, rather than outcomes by giving process praise.
  • For example: “I can see how much you practiced passing the ball with your left foot and that work helped you in the game today!  
• Remind them to be brave, even when they are scared, and emphasize that taking on challenges reduces future fear of failure. 
• Help them build a “resilience blueprint” for the future by asking questions like:
  • What new thing did you try? What challenge did you work through? What skills did you use to get through that? What did you learn? What are you proud of yourself for? 
  • These questions help them concentrate on the process of growth, helping them focus on what they can control. 

Seek out a Certified Mental Performance Coach! A mental performance coach can help your child advance their mental performance skills and build resilience quickly.

• Research certified mental performance coaches in your area that have received specialized training from an accredited university just like you might get a personal performance coach.
• Many professional and collegiate athletes are using mental performance coaches to help enhance their resilience and mental resolve because they understand the importance of training the mind in tandem with training their bodies. This can be a focused way to help your child train the mind as well as the body. Check out our trusted resources list!

Resilience training can improve your child’s mental health. Teaching your child to embrace stressful situations as opportunities for growth reduces anxiety and builds confidence over time. By focusing on effort and skill development, children are more capable of handling challenges that arise in the future, which positively impacts long-term mental health and well-being. 

About Momentum Labs, A PCA Trusted Resource

Momentum Labs is a mental performance coaching group that helps athletes and coaches build the mindset to pursue their passions with grit, resilience, and wellbeing. Through one to one virtual sessions, Momentum Labs teaches the mental skills athletes need to think, feel, and perform their best. Through the development of these skills, athletes learn to be more resilient, healthier, and to excel in sport and life. 

Dr. Haskell is a licensed high performance psychologist and certified mental performance coach. She is the Chief Performance Officer for Momentum Labs, the Director of Mental Health and Performance for the NWSL, and a team psychologist in the MLB. 

Prof. Eiler is a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Michigan. She is the Chief Education and Product Development Officer for Momentum Labs. Prof. Eiler is also a mental health & high performance coach with the Detroit Lions and in the MLB.