Showing talent early in sport or studies is a double-edged sword. On one side, your child learns things quickly, initially feeling confident with new skills and activities. On the flip side, there is a mental dilemma young talent often face in learning to cope with achievement.
It’s not uncommon for worried parents to call me about their child who is showing a decline in mood and performance, after presenting early promise in their sport or winning a significant competition.
In my work, I have witnessed how young student-athletes and their parents can benefit greatly from mental skills training to help them cope with achievement and learn to use it as a springboard into a bright future, rather than a heavy burden that leads to performance or test anxiety.
The Burden
Dealing with achievement isn’t something our children are hard-wired to manage or taught skills to cope with, and this is exactly the process I work to facilitate.
For some budding athletes achievement can feel burdening and change what competing means to them in a negative way. At first, a child competes for fun, a chance to race their mates and see what happens, with no expectation and an air of excitement about the possibilities. The sudden experience of achievement can open their focus toward a number of external distractions they haven’t considered before such as, other’s expectations, status, and a fear of letting their parents and coach down if they don’t repeat the top result.
You might read this analysis and think, “well this is life isn’t it, and children naturally need to go through this.” I completely agree that these events are important for our children to experience, however, the question becomes, what skills are we teaching our children to cope with new expectations and the experience of achievement? It isn’t something they are hard-wired to manage or taught skills to cope with and this is exactly the process I work to facilitate.
Praising Results over Process
A change in focus is often directly linked to the feedback the athlete attends most to. If there is an imbalance between the praise they receive for out-performing others, or attaining a certain result, over and above praise for showing effort and bouncing back from errors, the athlete begins to establish a result orientation toward sport and their self-worth is synonymous with achievement.
For athletes who feel burdened by success, each time they compete and fail to achieve a new personal best (regardless of the effort they may have put forth), they perceive it to be a failed experience and a direct blow to their self-esteem. Over time, this can lead to a fear of failure and change their approach to sport or studies. The mind-set that develops is one that undermines effort in the process, which is often expressed as a feeling of despondency:
Even when I try hard, I still fail, so what’s the point in trying, it only leads to disappointment.
It’s important to be aware that this expression is not only a reflection of a drop of motivation, but a performance orientation that does not consider one’s effort in the measurement of success, only the attainment of a certain result.
Conscious Awareness of the Performance Process
You must be in control of your performance, before you can control your performance.
When young athletes are new to competing, performance is created organically, as an extension of training in which, cognitive and physical patterns are replicated without much deliberate thought or awareness. Therefore, when young athletes are required to repeat a certain result in a subsequent event, they actually don’t have the ‘know-how’ or the resources readily available. It is this experience that creates a new feeling of anxiety and a loss of control over their performance. I work with athletes and students as young as 8 years of age to build an awareness of their focus, thoughts, feelings and actions that help to create their individual flow and performance.
Even in the case of the elite athlete, “you must be in control of your performance, before you can control your performance”, and this in itself is a learning process that continues to evolve with each new level they reach in their journey.
The process of achievement especially in sport, is not a linear experience.
Children cannot achieve a certain result and then simply maintain that level or better every time they compete. On the flip side, when they show a significant drop in performance from one event to the next, this is NOT an indication of loss form, skill, or athletic ability. There is a plethora of factors internally and externally they need to learn to negotiate and manage. Understanding the “process of performance” as a parent is also fundamental in managing your own expectations and goals you have for your budding athlete.
If your notice your child is suddenly avoidant toward their sport, despondent or experiencing symptoms of anxiety, then mental skills training can be a positive avenue for building tools and strategies to cope better with achievement and competition and most importantly help your child enjoy their activities again.
