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Parenting Child Athletes

By Jam Hops, 04/09/19, 11:00AM CDT

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Tips and advice for parenting your child athlete

Parenting Child Athletes

There is nothing easy about parenting, especially when it comes to parenting child athletes who are constantly on the go. Whether it’s for practice or competition this leaves many parents struggling to find a balance between everyday life and encouraging their child’s athletic hobby/ies. Not only is the daily balance a real concern, but parenting child athletes brings up numerous unique questions and concerns about how to be a winning parent.

1. Encourage Your Child to go After What They Enjoy

While it’s tempting to want to steer our children in the direction of what we feel they should pursue, it is important to allow your children to pursue what they truly enjoy doing. Enjoyment is key to helping develop a dedicated high performing athlete.

2. Teach Them to Compete Against Themselves

While competition against others is unavoidable in many sports, it is very important to teach your children to compete first and utmost with themselves. This means, that instead of working to be “better” than others/the competition, they are constantly working to be better than they were yesterday. Celebrating the small victories and making note of their continual improvement.

3. Success is Not Defined by Winning  - Failure Will Happen

Success is not solely defined by winning. Be sure to teach your children the importance of failure and that it will happen. Help them understand how failure makes us stronger, teaches us valuable lessons, and all around makes for higher performing athletes.

4. Support

Your most important job as a parent of an athlete is to support them. Remember you are not their coach, you are their parent. Show them love no matter if they perform at the highest level or not. You are their support system and they are relying on you to be there for them especially if/when they fail.

Remember you are not alone when it comes to parenting child athletes. We encourage each and every parent to reach out and have an open dialogue with fellow parents about their questions, concerns, and feelings. When in doubt simple always aim to show your child love, affection, and support.