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The Fears Kids Have in Sports
What do your kids tell you about their sports participation? Do they tell you how they feel about their sport? Do they let you know what is on their mind? How well do they handle the thrills, stresses, frustrations, adversity and expectations that come with sports participation? Sport IS an emotional endeavor. That rich blend of excitement, thrill, challenge and fear is what draws many of us to this singular experience.
A child's emotional life is not often addressed by either coaches, parents or by children themselves. It is often a neglected, if not purposely suppressed arena. But it directly affects your child's success and satisfaction throughout their sports career.
You as their parent are in a special place to observe and guide these emotions in your children. You can directly shape their success.
Your goal as a parent? To provide a thorough, robust support system for your child so they can withstand the physical, mental and emotional demands of their sport. To do this, you want them to be able to process these strong emotions. You want to help them identify them, speak about them and reframe them from fear to confidence. You want your child to easily speak about their inner life, with the ultimate goal of helping them create mental toughness and confidence.
As President of The International Mental Game Coaching Association, one of my goals is to spread the concepts of mental toughness and self-coaching throughout the world. I want children to become more self-reliant, have higher self-esteem, make better decisions, learn better judgment, manage their stress, engage the zone in performance and achieve to their full potential.
I partner with parents the world over to help them help their children succeed in sport. The very first step in this task is to become aware of your child's inner life. There is almost nothing more frustrating as a human than being misunderstood or minimized when it comes to telling our personal story to others. Children in particular are not yet very accomplished at this life skill. Your responsibility as a parent is to take the leadership role in this and assist your child in opening up to process their emotions and thoughts.
I recommend you become very familiar with this list of common concerns that many children have as they move through their sports career:
81 Fears And Concerns Kids May Have Around Their Sports Participation
- Fear of loss of acceptance
- Fear of potential embarrassment
- Fear of injury of self or others
- Fear of career-ending injury of self or others
- Fear of being shamed
- Fear of being judged
- Fear of being laughed at
- Fear of being misunderstood
- Strain of being in a sport they don't enjoy and not being able to say so, or to get out
- Stress of being a team sport kid in an individual sport and vice versa
- Fear of losing individuality on a team
- Fear of not being able to blend in and avoid pressure in an individual sport
- Fear that their parents will decide the sport they should play
- Fear that their parents will decide the level of seriousness in the sport for them
- Fear of being seen as a bully or overly aggressive when winning
- Fear of being seen as weak if losing
- Fear of being labeled as a loser, choker or mental case
- Fear of being seen as a quitter if they stop or take a break from sports
- Fear of being picked on, bullied by peers, coaches or parents
- Fear of losing status
- Fear of disappointing an important person
- Fear of being placed at an inappropriate experience level, weight class or age level where they can't succeed
- Fear that they will be expected to be perfect
- Fear of being singled out as a star when they don't want to be
- Fear of being bumped down to a lesser team when they are a more veteran player
- Fear of the media writing a negative story about them
- Fear of all the problems that come with success
- Fear of achieving success, yet not being acknowledged for it
- Fear of being lectured and criticized after a contest or practice
- Frustration of being on a team or in a sport that does not match their personal values
- Frustration of being rushed to learn sports skills and worrying that they will not master the fundamentals
- Pressure of wanting to be loyal to multiple teachers, trainers and coaches, who use different approaches, systems and techniques, leading to their being confused and being torn in loyalties
- Fear of not getting enough practice before games to make performance automatic and to be confident
- Frustration of having their parents tell them their sport is easy, and why can't they easily excel?
- Frustration at having to listen to a parent lecture them on sports techniques, when the parent does not play the sport, or plays at a low level
- Frustration at being expected to have the emotional maturity of an adult
- Distraction of a parent behaving in a distractingly obviously emotional, negative or nervous manner from the sidelines where their child can view them during a competition.
- Not having any or many friends on a team
- Fear of being embarrassed by their parents behavior
- Pressure of expectations to win a college scholarship
- Pressure of expectations to make an elite team
- Pressure of expectations to enter an elite school
- Fear of letting the team down
- Fear of failing in public
- Fear of not making the team
- Stress of difficult and stressful practices
- Stress of difficult and stressful team try-outs
- Fear of being cut from the team
- Fear of being placed in a lower part of the team
- Fear of not living up to self expectations
- Fear of not living up to other's expectations
- Fear of being nervous and having it escalate to panic
- Fear of having to explain a loss or poor performance
- Fear and frustration of not having coaches or parents understanding their emotions, concerns and trepidations
- Frustration of having a parent or coach not believe what they say or discount what they are feeling
- Fear of having to counter mind games from opponents and spectators
- Fear of dealing with cheating from opponents and spectators
- Fear of dealing with poor sportsmanship from opponents and spectators
- Stress of being over-programmed with school, sports, hobbies and social activities
- Stress and strain of a long sports season or multiple sports seasons
- Burnout from limited rest and breaks from sport
- Fear that time spent in sports participation will take away from school study time or other valued activities
- Pressure to maintain success
- Pressure to uphold family and school sports traditions
- Pressure to play while sick or injured
- Pressure of learning new skills, strategies, tactics, plays or positions
- Pressure to win from parents under the unspoken (or overt!) guilt of the parents spending money and time on the sport
- Fear that their genuine and legitimate concerns will be interpreted as whining and complaining and not be taken seriously
- Embarrassment of losing to someone younger, smaller, weaker, etc
- Fear of losing a once secure team position
- Fear of dealing with an abusive coach
- Fear of matching results with a sibling who is currently a sports star
- Fear of following in the footsteps of an older, successful sibling
- Equating parental approval of sports performance with love
- Fear of following in the footsteps of a successful parent, sports or otherwise
- Fear of being forced into a sport not of their own choosing
- Fear of not understanding a coach's vocabulary, instructions or expectations
- Fear of not understanding what is happening in a game or practice
- Fear of not being able to focus and stay tuned in
- Fear of having a parent as coach and not being able to simply be a kid at home
- Fear of having to explain a loss or less-than-ideal performance to parents or coaches
Your child participates in sport as a whole person -- as an athlete who has thoughts and emotions -- and you as their parent should be tuned in to these arenas. Children are not emotionless automatons who can simply brush off stress as easily as many adults. Make no mistake -- sports participation is a true joy, but it can also carry extreme stress. We need to help our young people learn as much as they can from their sports experiences. Addressing their fears and concerns is one of those ways.
Listen to your child carefully and deeply when they speak. Show you are listening fully. Take their concerns as genuine and heartfelt. Be compassionate when they speak about their stresses, their frustrations, their hopes. They will return your concern and your bond will grow ever stronger.
If you are a parent reading this, you clearly want to help your child improve their mental game. A complete mental training program includes motivation and goal-setting, pre-event mental preparation, post-event review and analysis, mental strengthening, self-regulation training, breath control training, motor skill training, mental rehearsal, concentration training, pressure-proofing, communication training, confidence-building, breaking through mental barriers, slump prevention, mental toughness training, flow training, relaxation training, momentum training, psych-out proofing and media training.
For a comprehensive overview of your child's mental abilities you need an assessment instrument that identifies their complete mental strengths and weaknesses. For a free, easy-to-take sports psychology assessment tool, visit our website. We offer extensive resources with which to improve your entire mental game, for any sport or business application.
This article covers only one small part of the mental game. A complete mental training program includes motivation and goal-setting, pre-event mental preparation, post-event review and analysis, mental strengthening, self-regulation training, breath control training, motor skill training, mental rehearsal, concentration training, pressure-proofing, communication training, confidence-building, breaking through mental barriers, slump prevention, mental toughness training, flow training, relaxation training, momentum training, psych-out proofing and media training.
Click here to read other articles by Bill Cole.
Copyright © 2006 Bill Cole, MS, MA. All rights reserved. Bill, a leading authority on peak performance, mental toughness and coaching, is founder and President of the International Mental Game Coaching Association. Bill is also founder and CEO of Procoach Systems, a consulting firm that helps organizations and professionals achieve more success in business, life and sports. He is a Wall Of Fame Honoree, an award-winning scholar-athlete, published book author and articles author, and has coached at the highest levels of major-league pro sports, big-time college athletics and corporate America. For a free, extensive article archive, or for questions and comments visit him at his website. Reprinted with permission.
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