The mic is hot and the game is on. You're listening to News for the Nation podcast by Aces Nation, where we talk about nutrition, sports performance, the journey of a student athlete, and more. I'm Claire. I'm Zach. Time to level up. Welcome back sports fans. Today we're talking about perspectives in youth sports. We're going to cover some topics that are based on our own experiences. our work, our research, and things we've heard from other
coaches. We're really trying to highlight viewpoints, things to think about, issues that may arise, and then give our experience and our opinions
behind that. So really, this is just about us expressing or shedding light on these areas that have come up in conversations, that have come up in research in different areas about how to support your kids as they go through youth sports, high school sports, college sports, like how to be, issues that may arise from a kid's perspective, from a parent's perspective, even through the coach's lens. As we go throughout sports, sports in the modern age with all this social media,
all this. new money floating around to support it, even gambling at some point. I mean, they're now gambling on high school games. So there's an added level of pressure, expectations, disappointments, you know, setbacks because of many different things and just trying to shed light on how to be supportive and managing all these different things and whatnot. Tiana's already done some great work on this as well. So really looking forward to her insights here and then whatever
I can provide in support of that. So Tiana, let's get started here. We said we're gonna start from the coach perspective because this is what we kind of hear and deal with from our clientele in the club organization and high school level.
Yeah, one of the things that we hear often in meetings kind of within ACEs and from our CEO is a lot of times there's concern from coaches that we speak to or directors of clubs that they feel like there's expectations from parents that are placed on the players or athletes in their club that may be unrealistic for the players and a lot of times they're looking for ways to you know put down on paper kind of where they're coming from to show you know well here's how
your athletes improving or here's how many times they've attended a practice and really put an effort versus you know maybe another kid that's getting more playing time or something so it kind of spurred this thought for me as to what From the coach perspective, we would love to see as parents in support of their athletes, the things they can do to help their athletes become better and maybe have a longer experience
in their sport. Or maybe the things that we see that maybe are taking away from that athletes experience and leading to early burnout in that
kid. So I just think, you know, there's there can be friction between coaches and parents or athletes and parents or any combination of these and I think everyone has a different perspective on this from each of those kind of buckets and everyone has some pros and cons to their stance and position but there are always things we can do to better support our athletes and this is just I think starting this coach perspective I'd like to hear kind of from Even from the college
coach standpoint at this point for you, just day to day interacting with your athletes, what are some things that you would love to see your athletes coming to you supported at home in a certain way and kind of the athletes that show up consistently put in the work? What are they doing or getting from their families and then kind of the younger ages going down from there? What do you think parents can do to best? support their athletes to show up to you in a way that's
going to be most productive. All right. I'll start off from the high school lens. I don't know if you know, but I started off my coaching career and I was actually had the chance to be a volunteer high school basketball coach. So I've actually worked in this area early on. And then I've seen different paths coming from this
coach perspective. One of the things that I've seen videos on that have been viral, I've heard a lot of stories, or I hear people talking, like parents or something talking about it later or at a game, if I'm not coaching, is I definitely don't think it's healthy that parents would like bash the way that the coach is coaching to their kid right like maybe they don't agree with like the system that they're running or something in a particular sport or how they go about whatever
it is in the sport now especially i would say especially if you're not a parent who is a coach or who understands maybe what the game plan and the rationale is behind if you've got the inside information then you probably are able to talk to the coach a little bit more directly in a personal manner. A lot of people doing in the stands talking probably have no idea what's going
on. So and then they just bash that coach later on the drive home when they're at home when their kids are sitting watching the next game after and everyone's just like doing that right. I don't like that at all right like you can have an opinion like that was not good. That was bad.
That's fine, but I Think you're injecting this negativity this criticism into your kids and then that's creating this visual represent like this mental representation of Who that coach is now and whether or not they're actually fully invested anymore, right? They probably have without you saying anything. They probably have their own Image of their place on the team their view of the coach, you know where all that stuff goes, right? They probably already have that without
you. So for you to Change that or continue to evolve it in a negative way. I just I don't think helps their experience at all I don't think you're supporting them by saying Anything negative about what's happening there on the sidelines or whatnot? This is all assuming that this coach is a great human being and there's nothing else, you know, everything's all about the sport. Okay, so I think that for me that's one of the things that is just Fueling a really bad fire at that point,
right? So we don't don't want anything to snowball or continue to get out of hand by you adding that in okay you should probably have a conversation with the coach yourself as an adult um yeah i can see that and that's one of those difficult ones with age too because by the time they get to high school you'd hope that that coach has like competency in that sport and is fulfilling their responsibilities as the coach because on the parent side it is really hard to see and
You know, my kids are the oldest is eight. So we're talking about much younger athletes here and coaches that are just volunteering their time and may not have even done the sport. Uh, so they're, it does change kind of depending on the age group, because, you know, I see it in the, the younger kids. And sometimes if the coach is not. real into the sport is just doing
it to help out. It can be so frustrating to see kind of how they're running things or what they're doing and just being like, oh, I really wish you'd just teach them some fundamentals and let them have some fun. So, yeah. I agree. And I think this, I mean, this is picking me back to conversations that we've had with some of our clients before. It's like, I think as a parent, you need to understand as much as you can about the situation and then manage your expectations.
Because if you do have a younger child and they have a coach, that person is probably volunteering. They're not getting paid for that, right? You probably need to manage your expectations or move to a different place where that person is getting paid. I know we've talked to a lot of
our club organizations. They've got so many teams and a lot of these coaches are, you know, willingly you know dedicating their time right if for you do not understand that be upset and i mean that's that's your right to be upset but maybe you should either figure out a way to support that coach so they're you know getting more poured into them from a sports perspective and then able to give that back to your children or I don't know maybe you go to another place or you manage
your expectations. I know that there's a lot of stuff happening where these volunteer coaches have day jobs or whatever and then they're coming in here because they want to help your kids. You know and I don't think they need the extra pressure from you directly about like hey you're not doing a good job. So I think there's a lot of managing expectations that's happening with that stuff. I do think as your kids are younger, they should learn skills, right? It's not about,
is it about winning? Yeah, it's about feeling good winning and understanding what helps you win and all those fundamental elements. They
should learn skills and be able to do that. I know we're gonna get into parent stuff later, but yeah, I think it's about understanding I think as a parent like maybe what who that coach is what what their role is or you know how they even became that coach and then maybe you have other conversations up the road or maybe you just kind of uh you know here's a fun idea I had a strength coach tell uh at a conference one time give a speech and he was saying hey
if if everyone's complaining about there's not research on this there's not research on that why don't you go research it Right. You go do whatever, you know, research the area that you want. Right. As a parent, you don't like the way it is. How about you volunteer to be a coach too? Right. Why don't you volunteer, be an assistant if you don't like the way everything's going. So I think that that may be an option for you as well. You're already going to be at the practice,
right? If you want to make an impact, make a positive impact, why don't you volunteer to do it too? Um, so that may be an option too, but
I think it's. being a supportive parent you know is maybe kind of understanding as much as you can about the situation because if they're in youth sports it's different if they're in high school it's different if they're in college you got you got nothing right unless you're number one donor for the entire school you got you got no say when they go to college right most of the time you in high school you shouldn't have a say anyway I mean, unless you're coaching,
right? You really shouldn't have a say on what is happening from a tactical perspective. And if you sit back in that type of situation, you know, I'm picturing like high school football, for example. Most people, like you said, are not going to know what's going on, what the strategy is behind this, and they're going to think that their own child deserves. You know the most which is fine and that's great you should have confidence in your children but i guess i would challenge
people to sit back and think about. What benefit that perspective would have if you're saying that your child and like you said kind of undermining the coaches strategy or coaching. Is that going to benefit the team as a whole? Is that going to help your child contribute to that team in a way that allows that team to win and get your
child more exposure? Or is that going to then just lead to problems and issues amongst the team and poor performance from your kid anyway, which is obviously not going to help them achieve the goal of them playing more, doing better in the first place? Yeah, I agree. And kind of moving into that, that kid area there, I mean, why? Why would they even be playing that sport? You know, and is it because it's something that they like, something that they're doing for you, you
know, as a parent? Or what is that? Or how do we support those kids who are actually the ones playing the sport, you know? So obviously not injecting these undermining comments and negativity about the person that they're playing for. And here's another thing, not doing that for the people they're playing with either, right? So I mean, you may say something about coaches, but also, you know, trying to be supportive of
the collective as a team. So what are some, from your experience, as a parent here, how do you think that your kids want to be supported? Or how do you go about supporting your kids as they have started to play sports? Yeah, and like I said, my kids are young, so we're kind of just getting into this area. And we've got so many dynamics, you know, when it personally comes to me and my children, because they're playing soccer. They do jujitsu, which their father coaches
them in. So that's another kind of dynamic to explore. We've got motocross, which also the father teaches them. So we're kind of exploring and starting to dip our toes into lots of different sports, but also trying to balance the not pushing our child to do something just because we do it or we would like to see them do it. So that's something where my you know, they've started to express some interest and track and obviously that's my bread and butter background all the
way through college coaching. So that is exciting to me, but I also would never want to push them into the sport and then cause burnout and have them think, well, I just I'm doing this to impress mom or I'm doing this to show dad that I can do it and that I'm good at it or whatever that may be now. Given they have shown natural talent to some of these things just because it's in their blood, I guess. But I do like to see them kind of progress and and kind of take it, you
know, step by step. So. We own a jujitsu gym so they get to be there all the time. They get to experience it. I have one child who loves to practice. He wants to be there every class. He wants to participate. And then I have another that kind of stands on the sideline and he's like here and there he'll jump in. But I know he's absorbing it as we go. So it may not be his thing right now, but it could. You know, by the time he's in middle school or high school,
it could be his thing. He may decide that that's really what he wants to do. So I really try not to push as hard as that is. I would love to see him do it because he's talented, but I try to kind of take a step back there. So I think that's something to consider for parents when they're trying to be supportive is to think about. Why? I mean that why your kid wants to participate or doesn't want to participate and kind of what your expectations you're putting on them or and
it does bring up. that kid perspective that you brought up earlier and when i think back to getting started in sports my dad was a sports guy and you know being the only daughter i just really wanted to do something that would impress him or you know feel connected to him in some way so sports was what i could do that really like got him excited so that's kind of what got me started and why i push so hard in those sports because i knew the more that i did like he was
involved and he really liked to watch me so That's another thing to think about from the parent perspective but also the child to kind of consider You know am I doing the sport because I really like it or am I doing it to impress my parents and if that's the case Is it something that I want to do enough that I can continue doing it
till I don't feel like it anymore? Or is this something that I really feel so much pressure to do just for acceptance like that's probably a conversation that needs to be had between parent and child Right. I mean talked about beginnings. I mean right or wrong. I I grew up Sports was playing on TV mostly in my household growing up But I remembered from what my parents tell me when I was very very young is that I didn't I wasn't necessarily like into sports Because
I don't know. I mean kids are probably just into playing back then right so my parents they put
me into sports which is which was good. I think it was a good exposure to have that stuff and um so I ended up playing college football but my first year of football I they said I hated it like I didn't like how hot it was I didn't like being sweaty like I hated it right that was my first year uh but then the next year I actually moved to a different position and I enjoyed it a little bit more and so really kind of took off from there and Basketball, I think
I watched it was playing in my house growing up when I was younger probably more than any sport And so my mom loves Duke basketball, so we watched Duke basketball games all the time but Yeah, that was a sport that I really loved and I Think I liked basketball more than football As a kid And then I got older and I was actually, I found myself like, hey, I'm actually better at football. So I'm probably going to pursue that one because I think I can do more with it.
But like, I'm going to be honest, maybe the first couple of years, I don't, I couldn't even tell you why I continue to play sports other than my parents took me there and paid for me to be in this league or whatever. But But later on, I really started to enjoy the friends that I had on the team. I enjoyed playing for different reasons, you know, whether it was like the physicality of football or I just liked I just liked basketball because maybe because it seemed to be something
my family enjoyed. And, you know, we spent time observing it, either going to games or whatever.
Fun fact, my parents, when they went on their first date, I was jake seven or something like that we went to a basketball game like a college basketball game it was there i think it was like one of their first dates and they took me and we went to a college basketball game so um it was awesome and so i but i i always felt supported like they i think they wanted me to play sports but uh but and i grew to love it so i wanted to as well so it didn't ever become like a i
don't want to play this sport you know type of thing um yeah so i mean I always felt supported for like, hey, you know, we're gonna give you this foundation here of like whatever you need and, you know, try your best. Don't be a hooligan, you know, like treat people with respect while you're playing, you know, don't be like, whatever, this or that. Well, that's a unique balance that comes up, I think. From the parent perspective and the kid perspective a lot because you're
trying to decide. When should i push my kid because i know that that's what they need just to like you said you played for maybe three years before you realize like okay i really you know there's something here i should continue this. Had your parents not continue to pay for and drive you there and kind of say okay well here we go we're going. what you have you know gotten to do all the things that you did so it's making that decision is this a push time is this a i need to give
them. You know space to think this through type of situation because you know i had a lot of exposure as a kid to this is why i definitely feel supported in sports was. It was you know during summer time would be like well what camp do you want to try what sport do you want to
try you want to swim you want. Try track do you wanna do a little cross country thing you wanna like my boys get to do sailing over the summer which is something that i never could have thought of but my mom you know the grandparents steps in and said hey let's try some sailing and some golf. So it's hard to decide like how hard to push those things my six year old tried soccer for the first time this year and he made it to probably two games and he was like meh this isn't
really for me so. I, we talked about it and we continued to go and he had to support his team and he'd kind of get out there here and there, but you could tell he really wasn't into it yet. So I was like, okay, well we're going to finish the year, but then we're going to take a break. Like we'll give you some more time. Maybe it's just not time for you yet. Um, and then the difference now between when we were starting, I feel like it was your kids, your parents put the gear out
there to get a little. build a little character have some fun and we're just talking kind of before i got on the recording about how much we feel like sports has changed for that age group where there's a lot of expectations financially it's a lot more expensive there's a lot of technology around everything in science around everything we're doing now so there's a lot of good that comes with that but there can also be a lot of.
uh stress put on kids or expectations that maybe weren't there kind of when we were just exploring sports and checking things out see what like and what we didn't and there's a lot more that goes into that now that as a parent you have to consider and as the kid that's kind of put on you um that changes the dynamic of the sport itself yeah i mean that's such a interesting uh phenomena that's happening where it's like you're getting kids are getting more exposure
um because of camps and whatever social media and stuff and and with that there comes more expectation on them every time that they are put out there in the spotlight right like it's great because you can have so many opportunities around you it's not like you're going to be pigeonholed into like five different opportunities for you to advance in your you know sports career It could be 20, you know, you've got all these different avenues for you to be successful as an athlete
at many different levels of college or, you know, whatever that may be on any different pro circuits, you know, in whatever sport you have. But the pressure is there because I mean, you mentioned there's a financial burden to it as a parent. And it's like, I know we talked about return
on investment earlier. it's like I don't know it kind of going back to why is your kid in sports so if you're like you really love baseball and that was your thing when you were a kid now you really want your kid to be good at baseball so you can brag about it or they could go get a full ride scholarship or you want them to get into the league or play professionally at some level and you're really pushing for that I mean You said you said at the beginning, you know,
we talked about the kids like why did you put your why does your kid like that sport? why did you put your kid in that sport, right and If it's not because If at some point it doesn't evolve into I'm supporting my kid because they like this sport for them Then I don't know. I mean not telling people how to parent for sure But maybe it's good I think it's always good to reevaluate the core of, you know, why decisions are being made or, you know, why things are continuing
to be pursued, right? It's never bad to reevaluate and reflect on things just so you make sure that you're in line with what you feel like or what your kid, your child is telling you is what they
want, right? So to support them in all those manners, it's just, I mean there's there's a lot of pressure right everybody feels like as soon as you step on the field for a game day like even if it's at some local soccer tournament you're supposed to be the star you're supposed to go out there and five score five goals uh if you're the keeper you're not supposed to let anything come past you and you're supposed to be the most vocal person out there you know Yeah,
like you said the pressure for college scholarship I think is one of the biggest ones because as soon as you see that your child might have some talent at something I think that's immediately what parents are thinking like oh, well, here's our opportunity Maybe we didn't have the money for them to go to this particular school or something and now maybe that opportunity is there so I think from the parental perspective that's where a lot of parents are kind of trying to push their
kid to continue the sport because they can get that advantage from it. But I do see even pressure that comes in these young sports where, you know, I have one that's going to try baseball for the first time at eight years old. We're out here stressing out because he hasn't played and he's only eight years old. But it seems like everyone on these leagues has already played for three years, four years by the time they're eight years old already. So he's he's concerned like, I don't
know how to play baseball yet. That's what you're there for. You're going to learn. They're going to coach you. Don't worry about it. You'll pick it up in no time and it'll be fine. So, yeah, it doesn't matter the age. I think there's pressure.
It's just different. I mean, some of the some of the players in the nfl they didn't start playing football until they were like late high school like so they had gone 17 you know 16 17 18 years without playing the sport and now they're in the nfl right like got the potential for it it's gonna happen right regardless of when you enter it so uh i think that's that's awesome that you know he's gonna make a new experience in a different sport because he wants to you know wants to try
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a demo. Let's go. I have seen examples of these parents that, that push really hard. Kind of the other extreme where it's hardly any input from the child, I think where they're like, well, this is the sport you're going to do. We're going to do it for the best of your ability and you're going to be the star. So the child starts to.
take that on and think okay well this is my responsibility to make this happen and in this particular case it was a young girl who'd been in martial arts for her whole life and they were going to have her be the youngest MMA fighter once she was of age to get in the cage and have her first fight and so she was training you know training the same way the the adult fighters went where she was at multiple practices a day she was there
every day of the week. trying to do everything she could and she was pushed and pushed and she made it all the way to that point when she had her first fight. She took it and then she quit the sport immediately after. So it was like she had been burnt out for so long that she had met that expectation and then said, I'm done. So thanks, but no thanks. And that's definitely not something you want to have happen to your child if they really did love the sport to begin
with. And then they get pushed to the point where they don't want anything to do with it anymore. It's just sad to see. Right. Yeah, that is sad to be pushed to that point where you just fall out of love with the sport that you initially really enjoyed. I want to go back to something else you said earlier about when kids start to show a little potential, like parents can get pretty excited about the potential for college scholarships. I'm going to go back to my personal
experience. I understand people are different and, you know, their personalities and how they go about things is different. But I think when when I actually thought that I showed myself a little bit of potential to be good enough to play college football, I don't even be honest right now. I'm thinking about it right now. I don't even know if my parents ever said anything like Trying to nudge me in that direction. I
I made that decision, right? I think I was like an eighth or ninth grade I was like, you know what? I think I could play football in college. I don't know if I'm good enough to play basketball in college I'm gonna focus on this and go all out for it and Nobody had to tell me that so really I mean support and my parents gave me was like I trained hard over the summer shirt.
I mean they bought me new cleats that I needed each year for the season, bought me protein, brought me creatine, not to sound like a meathead, but then I would just train, train, train, train. And I'm very fortunate that it paid off for me and my parents did not have to pay for any of my college at all. So I'm very fortunate to have that happen. But it's just interesting that I never felt that pressure from them. I felt pressure from me. because I decided to do it and I wanted
to go do it. And I had to make sure I was living up to what my expectations were. And I felt like my expectations were way harder and higher than theirs were for me at that point. I mean, I was probably I don't know if it was a good thing or not. I'm just saying from what I think, probably great for them that they didn't have to really push me to do anything. They were just like,
OK, how can we help you? Do what you want to do and then they just kind of watch watch me do it I think that happens a lot with a lot of successful college athletes Especially when you get it and pro athletes when you get to that point because I had a very similar experience My parents didn't push me necessarily in track.
I just saw that You know i i'm kind of good at this i want to see where i can get you know make this go so they were very um supportive in the way like you're saying where you know my mom would pack me a cooler snacks for an all -day track me and take me you know to drive me to wherever so that i could do that every weekend and sacrifice their time to be there to see me run and do everything they could to support me and just being there so i think that There are
those athletes that are just going to be so self driven and I don't know if you had the same experience, but I Was almost to the point where I needed my parents to To be there to kind of talk me down all the time because I was just so hard on myself When it came to being successful if I didn't do what I had expected to do that particular jump or that race or if I got Tripped and got second or something, you know, I needed them to be like it's okay. It's one me. It's one race
You're going to be fine. It's not your entire career like there's other opportunities. Just pick yourself up and get back out there. So the support there was huge because I probably would have been so hard on myself that it would have been hard to continue all the time. So I think it just depends on the personality of your kid.
I know we talk about intrinsic motivation and you know motivation that comes from external sources and it depends kind of on your personality and how you operate but You are going to have some of those kids that are just so dedicated to being perfect in their sport that they actually need the opposite in terms of support. They just need someone to tell them that they're going to be fine. Yeah, I agree. I think that I needed my parents for the same thing. But I mean, that's
how we felt supported as kids. And I project I hopefully will do the same thing. Personally would love for my kids to play sports and want to do that At whatever level that they decide obviously it'd be great if as a parent if you don't have to pay for college It's great, right?
Like that would be awesome or I mean these days if your kid can get NIL money That would be great, too You know this I it's a whole it's a whole new ball game in Division one athletics and potentially some D2s that you know I don't know if in different situations or whatnot, but it's a whole different
element to have NAL as a potential. I don't honestly know what to think of if one of my kids ends up signing a deal where they make money for marketing some product or whatever just because they play a sport while they're in college. I don't even know how to fathom that. All we got were stipends
each month. the program so i mean i can't imagine my kid making thousands of dollars every month on top of like getting their school paid for or whatnot i mean i that's awesome you know awesome that you know there are opportunities in this uh economy that is america that you know they have those opportunities but um really i hope to support my kids in the same way that I felt supported. He mentioned the talk you down type
of deal. I would want to do that as well. I think with different personalities, I'll have to learn how to speak to that child differently than maybe
the other one. Whereas one person may need like, hey, these are like... you know the world's not over these are like next steps that you know feel like you need to take some type of like how do we move forward talk the other one maybe it's a little more supportive like you know it's it's okay um you know kind of learning to give them what they need as a as an individual you know to feel confident in themselves to feel like we are confident in their abilities as well
um and then i'm not gonna I'm not gonna be that person talking bad about the coaching style or whatever because Even now as a coach, I know
everyone has their own philosophy. Everyone has their own thing I probably feel more confident talking to the coach not necessarily in a I'm trying to judge you but hey, I I'd like to understand, you know, what's going on here not from a perspective like I want to chop it down like I'd like to be invested in it a little bit more than just at the game watching You know, like I'd like to know what's happening here. But I don't know. I think that gets later into the weeds there.
But hopefully, you know, I want my kids to feel I want them to feel confident. I want them to feel like they're they have the opportunity to get out when they're ready to get out. And we're here to support them if they want to go farther
in that sport. Right. Yeah, I agree. So man, I just covered a lot right there, but I'm sure you feel the same way but you had already mentioned you gave us so much good information on the front end about like how your kids are a little bit different with like want to be there every class and get involved or hey I want to just watch a little bit more and then maybe when I feel ready I'm gonna go in right and a school it's cool how that dynamic happens, you know between
different kids and Yeah, just just like you said you're excited for them and you want to be a part of that but also you're like, okay Let's figure out like hey, I really want you to do this for you and not necessarily for me I'd love
it if you did it for me, but I'd love it. I think even more if you were doing it for you It certainly caught me by surprise having to navigate the feelings that you still have as a former perfectionist athlete in yourself versus trying to help your child have kind of a different sports experience in the sense that I don't I don't want them to approach it the way I did where it was just nonstop this is all I cared about type of thing and you know having my son and his first jiu -jitsu tournament
was like a huge wake up call for me because. In those they get multiple chances to compete in matches and seeing him. Win a match and being excited about that and ready to do the next one to then losing a match and having to pick himself up to understand that he's not done. So like we lost, but we had to have this whole conversation about, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to put that in this little box over here and we're not going to worry about it right now.
We're going to go ahead and move on because we have to still compete. So you have to teaching an eight -year -old how to mentally recover from something like that. was a brand new experience for me and it's rewarding but it's also. It throws you right into the fire because i wasn't expecting that and it's kind of like all other aspects of parenting where you're like oh i would never. Whenever do that i would never think this and then you put foot in mouth as soon as that situation
comes along and you're doing it so. Yeah i was. It was an interesting experience, and like I said, now I'm kind of expecting that along the way. There's going to be a lot of situations that I may have handled differently if it was me personally, and now you're having to say, look, we are not expecting anything out of you. We are here because you enjoy this, and we want you to have fun, and we don't think that you have to win. That's not what we want for you.
We want you to come out here and do your best. I want to see you put in a good effort. That's all I want." And you kind of see that look on their face like, oh, really? That's it? Like, I can just go out there and do my best? And it's like, yes, that's going to be good enough for us. So, you know, navigating all these things as a parent, it's going to be a trial and error
type thing. And I'm sure the older they get, the harder it gets with, you know, the aspect of coaching and especially if it's in a sport that we have participated in or coached, I'm sure the dynamic there is going to be a brand new thing every step of the way, but I think like you said, the best way we can support them is just making sure that our objectives align, knowing kind of when and how to push, just to
be there to support them. Maybe they need a push sometimes and they just don't have it in them at that time and they need to hear that from you. And, you know, just in any other way that you think will help them feel confident in that particular day and moment. Lots, lots to think about. Yeah, for sure. Hey, I wrote a note here and I wanted to touch back on this really quickly. Talking about still how to support your kids
here. I know we have a lot of international listeners and really shout out to parents internationally as they send their their children either to the U .S. or to a different country to play sports and and supporting them from afar is completely different. I mean, I've had a lot of international athletes where their parents make one game in
their four year career. Right. Typically, it's around that senior day type of experience, but it is completely different to support your kid from afar, you know, as they're playing sports.
And so I mean, from what I've experienced all kids man they miss their families like a lot and they just they just want to make them proud you know by you know what they do uh in school and uh in their respective field of play so a shout out to those parents who are definitely experiencing it differently than you know having their kids around locally and being able to go see them every every saturday or whatever you know when they play definitely and those those
athletes as a coach you always feel like you know you really you need to be there to show up for those athletes too because they don't have that support from their family right there of course they have them you know a phone call away but it was a definitely a different experience to have international athletes that you kind of feel like become family um in the sense that they may need those extra conversations or You
know that hey, have you been eating? Well, are you is everything okay type of stuff more often than your kids? You have family close by that. They're kind of interacting with all the time Yeah We have some good information on these topics and we actually we utilize some A great questionnaire.
I think to kind of really evaluate Where the objectives that you mentioned are so you want to tell us tell them about the blog tell them about the sport NPS to Yeah, we do have a blog on this topic that we did a little while back and It's just it's called are you good sports parent and it just goes over some basics of things that you can be doing To support your athletes and and these are areas that we've covered today for the most part but You know and some of it
might seem like common sense but. It's you know it's it's good to always check in and make sure that you aren't going too far in one direction with your own expectations or you know maybe forgetting to check in with where your kids are maybe spend years and years in the same sport and. And they may not feel the same way about it as they did when they started. So that's just a good checklist to kind of go through and do a little self evaluation. But as far as the questionnaire,
it's called the sport MPS two for short. But basically this questionnaire is going to give you the opportunity to go through. So it's a self assessment for the athlete. But as the coach, it'll give you good insight as to where this athlete feels like perfectionism pressure comes from. So if this is an athlete that doesn't seem like they have any perfectionistic tendencies,
it may not be that relevant for them. But if you have athletes that are really kind of like Zach and I mentioned we were as athletes, this is an interesting, this would give you some insight that I think would help you better support them. It does break down to different categories where you can see after they've answered. It breaks down into seven categories that are personal standards, concern over mistakes, perceived parental pressure, perceived coach pressure, doubts about
actions and organization. So once they've done the survey and total these areas you can kind of tell like maybe this athlete is getting a lot of pressure from home from parents and you know the best thing to do to support them would be to have that parents sit down and have a conversation about like goals and where you think you know their current statistics are versus the current
the statistics they look to. To attain later and maybe the standards of those particular colleges that they really think their child should go to and say here's you know the general recruiting standards here here's where your child and here's where we're trying to go. The other category there might be you might find out as a coach
yourself that you're causing a lot of. I'm sure you're striving for perfectionism in your athletes and not even realizing that you're putting so much pressure on being perfect rather than focusing on. The method to get there so we're focusing on process over the outcome that can take some of the pressure off of that you know of course everyone wants to win and that's the ultimate goal but we all know that so maybe focusing more on process goals so you say well this game. Here's
where I want to see us do really well. It's in this particular passing or making sure that, you know, our we have accurate shots or whatever it may be for that particular sport. And then you can also see the breakdown of the personal pressure. So maybe this athlete is baby Tiana that just wanted to be perfect in every absolute area and doesn't feel confident in their own skills. Because one of the main questions on there is, do I feel like I've prepared myself
properly to compete? So if they're constantly saying no to that, but you know that you've been preparing them the best that they can be prepared, then that's a conversation that could be had to make sure that their competence level is there just in their own abilities. And that's going to help improve that overall performance. Well, when would you say when and the frequency of This questionnaire would would be best best served
for coaches. Yes, I don't think this is one where athletes are first starting out that it's as relevant because you may not see where the pressure is coming from yet, especially if it's something they haven't been doing for a little while. So I think this would be more so in the high school range. It may be relevant and some younger kids if they've been in their sport for a long time,
but. You know, I'm seeing, I would think probably the biggest insight would come from a high school age athlete and someone who's a couple, you know, a year in. And then I think it's something you could do yearly because you could see has that score changed. Like maybe I found out as the coach that I'm putting too much pressure on my kids in one particular area or causing a negative outcome by the way that I'm approaching. you know, maybe an outcome. I'm saying, OK, we have
to win in this particular way. And if I just change my language around it or I change my approach to how I am setting goals for my team, I can see the result of that changing year over year. Awesome. Yeah, but we definitely have this stuff to be able to help you. And if anyone has any questions about how to use this, how do you interpret the scores? We definitely love to help you out with that so that you can support your athletes the best way Kind of wanted to close by this
thought here. I mean by no means is the Is our experience perfect was it perfect, you know and no one is perfect Ever, you know as a parent as an athlete as coach but really to strive to be the best we can to support kids for what they really want to do, I think is the best that we, it's the best outcome that you could get is to be supportive in a way that's adaptive to that
athlete. So I know that Tiana and I, we've had some pretty fortunate experiences, but I know that that's not everyone's and that, you know, mine. was by no means perfect every step of the way, but it was definitely something I'm thankful for. And hopefully to shed more light on this, other athletes can have great experiences through more awareness around the added pressures that kids may be feeling these days. And that we definitely know that parents and coaches are experiencing
these days because everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to charge you more money to play in this
club or in this league We get it. There's a lot of stuff happening there but to really bring it back to what we have been talking about the whole time is the the well -being the benefit of the athlete themselves to constantly or frequently Be reflecting and remembering that bringing that to the forefront to the core is that It's really about supporting them Ultimately, we want all the lessons that we've learned in sports, which is what we feel like is one of the most valuable
things that our careers have given us. We want to make sure that athletes are continuing to play their sports for as long as they can so they can benefit from those types of lessons and enrichment things that we got to experience along the way. Ultimately, the longer you love your sport and the longer you want to participate, the longer you'll stay in it. That's the ultimate goal here and we hope that this information can shed some light on that and help help somebody
out. Thanks everybody for listening. If you do have any questions you want to reach out to us, please let us know. We'd love to work with you. Maybe we can shed some light into our guaranteed scholarship program that we have through our connect app and partnering with us. So thanks everybody for listening. We will catch you on the next one. Thanks.