How to help your child boost their CONFIDENCE
Find out what you as a parent should be aware of to raise a child with confidence.
My name is Ann Zaprazny, and I help parents and athletes succeed in sports and life.
Your time watching and supporting your child participate in sports will fly by. Depending on the age(s) of your child(ren), you may not believe it.
As a parent of three children - the time will fly by.
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Athlete Journal
The 90-day game plan on how to succeed in sports and life
Athlete Meditations
It's time to let go of stress, feel calmer, and learn how to trust yourself.
Athlete Mental Training
On-demand video-based mental performance training and exercises.
Helping your child strengthen their confidence
The Webster dictionary defines confidence as a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something.
Confidence is an essential mental performance skill that helps athletes perform well.
As parents, we want to raise confident children. When our child works hard for a goal and struggle with confidence, they hurt, and we hurt when they hurt.
Are you adversely impacting your child's confidence?
Parents with great intentions can behave in a manner that adversely impacts their child's confidence.
Circle the statements that apply to you or your spouse or other significant family members regarding your family's youth athlete(s).
- Have unrealistic expectations of their performance
- Over coaching your child before, during, or after the competition
- Criticizing your child's performance
- Dwelling on your child's mistakes
- Criticizing your child's coach
- Comparing their performance or effort to another athlete
- You bring up past performances
- You focus on results (winning, scores, times) vs. effort.
Reflect on the statements that are true for you.
Unfortunately, well-meaning parents can unknowingly undermine their child's confidence.
How can you adjust your behavior?
Ultimately, we want to help our child to become self-confident.
One way to do that is to ask, what are all the reasons why you should believe in your skillset today vs. a year ago?
I will occasionally ask my daughter this question to help her remember the amount of work she put in:
- Playing club
- Lifting weights
- Studying the game
- Playing well against team x
- Etc.
I let my daughter answer the question. Her responses help to fuel her self-confidence.
We are purposeful with my coaching clients to develop confident resume audio that the athlete is encouraged to listen to every day.
How to help your child perform their best.
- If you circled any of the items 1 through 8 above, avoid repeating them before competition or practice. Work to change your behavior.
- Encourage your child to have fun, show good sportsmanship, be a good teammate, and give maximum effort.
- If your child is on a team sport and substitutes into the game, encourage them to cheer for their teammates and use the bench time to learn and prepare for when they play.
- When the competition is over, tell your child that you love to watch them play and ask what they want to eat.
