Is Your Parenting Style Killing Your Child’s Motivation In Sports?
Is Your Parenting Style Killing Your Child’s Motivation In Sports? 70% of kids quit sports by the age of 13. Think about that. That’s A LOT of kids. The way you parent can have a large influence on your child’s motivation to stay in sports, love their sport, want to work hard at their sport and succeed. Unfortunately, too often, parents are doing the exact opposite.
If you fall into one of these three categories, it’s not too late to turn things around, but you may want to reassess your methods.
The Over-Praiser Parent: I’m sure you know one of these parents; they are the ‘my kids sh*t don’t stink’ parent. They think their kid is the best, and they aren’t afraid to let everyone know. There’s a fine line between building confidence, which involves praising effort, and demotivating your child, which is praising outcomes and fixed qualities. Research on the psychology of success by Carol Dweck and several other studies have done groundbreaking work in this area. Kids who are told they are ‘smart’ or athletically gifted’ and praised for things out of their control are more likely to struggle when faced with challenges. This is because they think their abilities are fixed and not something they can improve upon, so they internalize the struggles as failures, which can often lead to them quitting. Whereas kids praised for their effort view struggles as challenges, another opportunity to overcome or improve upon their last game or practice. To praise effort, you give valuable feedback and encouragement about the process and not the end goal. So instead of saying, ‘You played awesome today, great win.’ You could say, ‘You did a great job of motivating your teammates when you guys were down a goal,’ or ‘I know you’ve been working on your left foot. It looks like it’s paying off.”
It Means Too Much Parents: Another way parents de-motivate their kids is through too much pressure instead of support when sports take on too large of a role in their family’s lives. Pressure and support can look very similar; often, parents think they are supporting them when, actually, it feels like pressure to the child. And this small shift can be very damaging. You know, the parent with the mad face in the stands when their kids aren’t playing well, yelling at them, or dissecting their mistakes on the car ride home. These parents are over-emphasizing the importance of sports in both obvious and subtle ways. When support crosses the line to pressure, not only is the fun stripped away from the game for the kids, but it’s also de-motivating, causing kids to stop trying. It’s human nature to feel that if you don’t try and you fail, that’s somehow better than trying your best and failing, thereby disappointing your parents. What appears as ‘not trying’ is actually fear of failure or avoiding it altogether. For parents who take it a step further and use intimidation or threats to motivate, those methods are short-lived. They will only teach an athlete to avoid doing something; it doesn’t encourage them to try harder and enjoy it, they will want to quit. It’s also the best way to permanently damage your relationship with your child.
The Bribers: Finally, misguided parents try to motivate through incentives like toys, money, or ice cream. None of these methods will get you too far. Bribing with extrinsic motivation leaves an athlete unfulfilled and robs them of a higher, more authentic sense of purpose. We’ve all probably tried this at one point or at least thought about doing it. But in essence, you are literally stealing from them the innate gains and intrinsic goodness of playing a sport. Instead of bribing, try modeling a love for sports and helping your child find their own motivation for playing. Talk to them about the gifts of being on a team, learning grit, teamwork, the power of what a team can accomplish, discipline, working towards goals, and the honor of playing for something bigger than themselves.
Read Here For 5 More Reasons Your Child May Not Be Motivated In Sports
