Over the past few years, there has been an increase in visits to my office by parents with young athletes between 11–13 years of age. At first, this seemed like a positive movement, perhaps motivated by a desire to introduce mental skills training to help their children get ahead. However, there is one glaring dilemma across all these cases that is not so positive. These children are not thriving. Parents describe this as a change from enjoying their sport and showing natural talent to becoming more hesitant and fearful in their game approach, looking less confident and demonstrating a drop in performance.
This experience is counter to what you would typically expect from a child at this age who is developing physically and mentally in a way that would naturally enhance skill development through consistent game time without much intervention.
So, what is happening in the sports environment that could be negatively interfering with this trend?
See HERE for the full article published at Fractus Learning Online
