3 Ways to Become a Better Parent of an Elite Athlete
Parenting an elite athlete is HARD! You care so much about your child. You want to give your athlete the best opportunity to pursue their passion and to reach their full potential.
So you spend money, do research, read books, travel to tournaments, tryout for different teams, get better equipment, listen to podcasts, utilize technology advances, and hire coaches. You work to balance supporting your child with pushing them, never truly knowing if you are giving them what they need when they need it.
What started out as a fun game that your child fell in love with starts to feel more like a high-stakes life-defining experience. Rather than faltering under the pressure, use these three strategies to regain balance and create a path forward.
Love the Whole Athlete
Your child is more than their performance on the field, court, or in the pool. Yes, you already knew that, but it can be easy to forget to show it during tournaments, long seasons, and driving back and forth to training sessions.
Take some time to think about your values as a family. What is important to you? How do you want others to describe your child? Maybe you value honesty or integrity. Maybe you really appreciate giving effort or being kind to others. Acknowledge these when you see your child training or competing with those values.
Take it a step further by acknowledging the positive things happening within the other roles of your elite athlete. How are they succeeding at being a student, a sibling, or a friend? What other areas of their life are important for you to recognize growth, improvement, and success? This could be spiritually, financially, academically, relationally, physically, or personally.
Doing this makes it apparent each day that you love ALL of your athlete, regardless of their performance.
Define Success Beyond Outcomes
Yes, winning is always going to be a desired outcome in sport. No one will ever enter into a competition with the goal of losing. However, winning is NOT everything. Help your athlete go further by defining success beyond the outcome.
Winning aside, what else do you want your elite athlete to showcase to the world? How would they be a success if they did not reach their desired outcome? What would you be proud of them for? What are the things that lead to positive outcomes? Maybe this includes: strong work ethic, never giving up, recovering from failure, showing good sportsmanship, or being a leader.
Winning in sports is always enjoyable. Winning is also never guaranteed (unless your 18 year old is always playing against 5 year olds). Being clear on what you will be proud of when it comes to your athlete, despite unfavorable outcomes, goes a long way. Try telling them after the competition and be specific in what made you proud. Since your athlete may be a bit emotional right after the event, tell them again the following day.
Model Recovery, not Perfection
While you may be very aware of your imperfections, your child often only sees you excel. When you do fail, whether this is at work or as a parent, use that moment to show what recovery looks like.
Pause and address your emotions related to the failure. Then identify how you will move forward. Narrating your experience to your athlete throughout this process will help them begin to implement their own ability to recover within sport, as well as other areas of life.
Another way to showcase your recovery strategies is to discuss it as a family. Take time around the dinner table to:
share how you have failed that day
what you did to manage the frustrations, embarrassments, and disappointments connected to that failure
how you continued on without letting that failure derail the rest of your day (or even how this aspect was a challenge for you – sometimes it will still be hard or you will fail at the recovery process)
Stop trying to teach your athlete WHAT to do and instead lean into teaching them HOW to do it – teaching by example and teaching in the moment works incredibly well!
Whether your athlete is 8 or 18, they will benefit from you adopting these three strategies. You have a great influence on your child (even when they seem to ignore you). Working to improve your own skills will allow you to be a better parent for your elite athlete.
Do you know another parent who could benefit from developing these strategies to help their elite athlete?
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