This is Going to Be FUN: the Podcast
Episode 33: Support Your Teen From The Sidelines
Episode Summary:
Support Your Teen Athlete From The Sidelines
Sports and other extracurricular activities are a huge part of our teenagers' middle and high school experience. Learn simple strategies to support your teen from the sidelines from an elite athlete mental performance coach.
Whether your teen isn’t getting the playtime they want, things don’t seem fair, they don’t get the position they want, or their performance changes because something’s going on for them and they aren’t playing as well as they know they could, disappointment is going to happen and we need to know how to support our teen through it.
These tips will help you be there for your teen and avoid adding to their frustration and disappointment or making things worse.
I interviewed my friend Lorrine Headrick, a mental performance coach for elite athletes, to find out how parents can support their teens from the sidelines. She shared a few great tips that parents can use to support their teens in sports, but the same tips can also work to support your teen in any activity they participate in.
The Toxic Sports Culture
With so much pressure on winning and high performance in the world of sports, our teens can burn out and get to the point where the game they love isn’t even fun anymore because it is so high pressure.
But we also want our kids to get all the benefits that come from being a part of a team, learning to push through challenges, and strive to be their best.
Lorrine shared a few ways parents can support their teen when they come up against disappointment in their sport.
Whether they aren’t getting the playtime they want, things don’t seem fair, they don’t get the position they want, or their performance changes because something’s going on for them and they aren’t playing as well as they know they could, disappointment is going to happen and we need to know how to support our teen through it.
When your teen experiences disappointment
Lorrine shared her experience watching her daughter’s first volleyball tournament of the season. They recently moved from Washington state to St. George, Utah and is playing with a new club, new team, new experience and they didn’t really know what to expect.
So when she ended up not getting the playtime that she's used to, as a parent and coach, Lorrine had to take deep breaths on the sidelines because she felt so much empathy for her daughter.
Her daughter tried to keep it together, cheer for her team and not let everyone else see the disappointment, but as a mom, Lorrine knew that she was disappointed.
“Even when we have these tools, it's not going to make life like roses,” Lorrine shared. “It just means that we are going to know how to respond to it better.”
Instead of being frustrated with the coach, yelling at them during the game, or whatever else we want to do, allowing yourself to take some breaths and experience the emotion for yourself is key.
Take responsiblity for your own emotions
Sit back and process what is going on for you, as the parent. Ask yourself: what’s going on for me and why am I feeling this frustration? And whatever the answer is, don’t judge yourself for feeling that way. You are a parent watching your child struggle and it is totally normal to have some feelings about that.
When you feel those emotions coming up on the sidelines, take the time to observe yourself more than you're observing your child and ask yourself how you want to show up as a parent in this situation? What does your child need right now from me that's going to be the most supportive?
You might want to distance yourself from other parents, even if you have to leave the room, if getting some physical distance is helpful for you.
Or maybe you want to redirect your focus to being a comforting face for your child to see when they look at you. Check your facial expressions.
Instead of looking mad or like you are going to cry, hold space for yourself to feel whatever emotion you are feeling inside while being a safe space for them to see you there supporting on the outside.
You have to learn what works for you.
Give your teen space to process their emotions
Even though you might want to run up and give your teen a hug, that probably isn’t what they need, it isn’t going to support them and they probably don’t really want that because it isn’t cool. Give them space to process their emotions.
After a practice or a game, sometimes they don't want to talk. It is ok to just be silent or even change the subject and ask them where they want to eat or talk about something totally unrelated. Something that has nothing to do with what just went on for them because they still need time to process it.
Your teen is very aware of what's going on, and sometimes they just need that space to process it by themselves without feeling like they need to deal with what their parents are thinking.
If they feel like they need to explain themselves or listen to you work through your emotions, that can add another level of heaviness.
Another option is to use technology to your benefit. Even from the front seat of the car on the drive home, you can text your child if they don’t feel like talking and they might be willing to communicate that way. They might not want to talk, but still be open to texting.
You could also involve an older sibling, aunt, uncle or grandparent. Send them a message and have them check in on your teen. It can give them some distance from you as the parent, but also give them some support and love from someone else that might connect with them or relate on a different level.
There are usually rules like don’t talk to your coaches within 24 hours, and you can apply that to your parenting to give your athlete some space right after a game.
Even if it's only 20 minutes – you will know what amount of time would be best for your child. Commit to giving yourself 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes before asking your teen any questions about their game.
How is this exactly the experience you need?
Last year, my son ended up sitting on the bench more than I thought he should. (Of, course, any amount of time on the bench is more than I think he should be on the bench because I am his mom and think he is great).
While this was happening I was going through coach certification and I got a lot of opportunities to look closer at my emotions around it and what was going on for me.
Ultimately, through a lot of coaching and putting my brain to work figuring out how this experience could be happening for our good, I was able to see a whole different side of my son that I hadn’t before. I shifted my focus from desperately wanting him to have a different experience to finding the ways that this was the exact experience we needed to be having.
Instead of needing all of us to feel better right now, I decided that I could handle being disappointed and he could handle being disappointed. And I realized that as I got better at being disappointed, he would see how to do that better too.
And instead of just spending this time feeling frustrated and disappointed all season, I got to watch my son just be an amazing human being and support his teammates when he wasn't getting what he wanted, and smile when he wasn't feeling great about what was happening.
Instead of feeling heartbroken every game, I was filled with so much love watching this child of mine navigate something hard with so much grace. I gained so much confidence in our ability to handle disappointment.
I was responsible for handling my disappointment, and he was responsible for his and I was there to support him through it.
Trust your teen to be able to handle hard things
As parents we are used to trying to fix things for our kids. When they were little and would get hurt, we would give them a band-aid to make it better, but we need to trust our teens to be able to regulate their own feelings.
“If they're in sports, they are already learning from a coach and they're old enough to learn how to emotionally regulate too,” Lorrine said, “which might be the hardest for us to step back and trust. They've got it.” Encourage them to trust the process, trust their coach, and trust themselves.
They might need time and space to do it, but the goal isn’t for them to feel better, the goal is for them to develop the skill of handling the disappointment and coming back from it. That is how they learn resilience.
We won’t always be able to fix it, so the best way we can support them is by doing what we can to allow them to go through this experience authentically for themselves.
Taking care of things for our teen is really hindering them from learning these tools now. We are really giving them a gift when we allow them to process their emotions and get through hard things and know that life will always have a mix of positive and negative emotions.
How to Support Your Teen Athlete from the Sidelines
Take responsibility for your own emotions:
It is normal to experience negative feelings when you watch your teen struggle, observe yourself more than you are observing your child, decide how you want to show up for your child in this situation, give yourself some physical distance if you need it or focus on being a comforting place for your child to look.
Give your teen space to process their emotions:
Silence is ok, use technology as an alternative to talking, change the subject to give your teen room to process their emotions, call for backup support from family or establish a “wait to talk” rule
How is this exactly the experience you need:
Challenges are part of life, how is this challenge actually the best thing for you and for your teen right now?
Trust your teen to be able to handle hard things:
You don’t need to fix this for them, encourage them to trust the process trust their coach and trust themselves, giving them the opportunity to learn this skill is a gift.
About Lorrine:
Lorrine grew up in New Zealand and started participating in a running club when she was 2 years old. She went to college in Hawaii where she met her husband and they moved to the states. She got her degree in Exercise and Sports Science and was a personal trainer for 18 plus years adding a variety of certifications and sports conditioning coaching experiences along the way. Finally she got certified as a life coach so she could help her clients with their mindset so they could believe in themselves and have the tools to stop the cycle of going through the motions, getting off track and having to start over again with their health and nutrition.
She felt called to use her many years of experience to reach out to young athletes because after Covid, their mindset and mental health has really declined. She has four teen and adult daughters and as she saw their experience struggling with their mindset, and recognizing her own challenges as she supported them even with all the tools and training she had, she knew that the tools she had learned could really help so many people out there struggling to navigate the world of athletics and diet culture.
Lorrine doesn’t just help athletes to level up and perform their best, she helps them apply all the tools to their life as a human too. She helps them see that they are more than an athlete and that the tools that help them perform in their sport also help them in their life and relationships so they can find balance and avoid burn out.
Mentioned on the Show:
Podcast Transcript
Jen: I am so excited to welcome you to the podcast today because we have a guest with us and it is my dear friend Lorrine Headrick, and she is a mental performance coach for elite athletes. If you happen to be a friend of mine, you probably already know about her because I literally recommend her to everyone I know who has a teenager who plays sports, because I just think the world of her and what she's doing in the world is so important. I am going to let her introduce herself and how she got into this. Welcome Lorrine! Lorrine: Thanks, first of all, that was an awesome welcome, so I appreciate it. I didn't know that you did that, but I do love what I do and I've felt really compelled to land where I have as a mental performance coach. A little bit about my background is I grew up doing sports. I’m from New Zealand and we started at the age of two in this running club It was crazy when I think back about it after moving here, but I moved to the States after I went to college in Hawaii. Met my husband from California. I got my degree in exercise, sports science, and I thought, I just wanna be a personal trainer cuz then I can raise my kids and I can set my own hours. And so I did that for maybe around 18 plus years. And throughout that journey I added on different certifications and sports conditioning coach. I was an athlete in college too. At a certain point, I realized I was adding all these certifications to help my clients with nutrition and so on, and I realized, the root, the foundation where I can help them is the mindset. Because they can have all these habits and just kind of go through the process, but without believing in themselves and learning the mindset tools, it's just like they would just go on a repeat of falling off track and then coming back. And that's where I was like, that's the last piece of the pie that I just need to add. And then I recently got certified as a life coach and. Honestly, first I wanted to stop doing anything with the health and fitness world. I was actually burned out myself because I was tired of the six pack abs, kind of, you know, that culture this is how you're gonna be happy if you look a certain way. And I wanted to run as fast as I could away from it. And then I think the Lord told me, you need to be here. You've spent all this time learning all these things. You have this background. There's people out there who need you. And specifically, I felt compelled to, to reach out to athletes, to youth, because I think especially after Covid mindset and mental health has really declined. And this was an area where I felt like, I could be relatable and they could trust me. And I'm raising four daughters of my own teenagers and adult daughters that have had their own personal experiences as athletes that I was like, if they're going through this and I'm feeling it as a mom, how many more athletes are experiencing this and don't have these tools? And so that's kind of how I landed where I am. And that's my mission to help as many as I can. Jen: Yeah, I think that's so amazing. I have been teaching fitness classes for the last 5 years and so I totally get what you're saying about like that kind of toxic culture that we are surrounded by and we don't want to pass that on to our kids because there is a better way. It's how we approach these sports so that we don't get to that point where it isn't even fun anymore, it's not even enjoyable for our kids. And it's not enjoyable for us either when it's got that really high pressure experience. I am so excited to have you here though today because my listeners are moms of teens and they have kids that play sports, and I am so excited for you to share with them some ways that they can support their teen when things are not going their way in their sport. I think every mom of teens can relate to the idea that sometimes they don't get to play as much as we want them to. Or the coach makes decisions that we as their mom are like, no, that is not fair, that's not how it should be. Or they just don't play as well as they want it, or they're not hitting the same times or maybe their skill level has dropped a little bit because something's going on for them. So how can we as parents support our teens when they go through this disappointment in their sport? Lorrine: So you are asking me at a time when I'm kind of fresh out of my first tournament with my daughter volleyball this weekend and we recently moved from Washington state to Utah about seven months ago. So we live in St. George and she's made new friends, settled in, this is her new team, new club, new experience. And we were really excited but I didn't quite know what to expect and she ended up not getting the playtime that she's used to. And as a parent and as a coach, I'm sitting there kind of taking those deep breaths inside, watching, but feeling so much empathy as I'm watching her on the sidelines, trying to keep it together and trying to cheer for her team and not let everyone else see what she was really feeling. But you know, as parents, we can see right through, right? Like we can see them, we're feeling for them. And so I got to experience and use the tools that I teach firsthand over this weekend to remind all of us, right, we're human. Even when we have these tools, it's not gonna make life like roses. It just means that we are going to know how to kind of respond to it better than maybe: I'm so frustrated that coach shouldn't be there; they're fired; I'm gonna mess with them straight away. I'm going to talk to them while they're in the game; whatever it is that we might initially be thinking. Instead, what might be helpful is allowing our children to just process it. Even though we might want to run up in that moment and give them a big hug, but that's not what they need, that's not gonna support them, and they really probably don't want that the older they get: it's not cool. Just being able to sit back and process ourselves, as parents, like, what's going on for us and why are we feeling this frustration -- without judgment? Because sometimes when we know the tools we can sometimes get frustrated with ourselves and angry, like we should know better. I just have to sit here and be quiet. And so it's kind of a moment where you get to observe yourself more than you're observing your child and say, Hey, how do I want to show up as a parent in this situation? What does he or she need right now from me that's going to be the most supportive? I've seen parents kind of even distance themselves from other parents, even if they're standing on the side of it, because physically giving them some space is helping them. And so it's learning to know what works for you. Or even focusing seeing your daughter or son, if they look over at you, just so that you're a comforting face to look at in that moment. So kind of check your facials even cause they don't want to see you looking like you are going to start crying or whatever it is: that emotion. How can I hold the peace for myself and that space for them when they look over? So those are just some little tips during the game or during, the event that they're in, if you happen to be there. If it's like a practice and they're coming away or after a game where you know they want to see you and have that conversation. Sometimes they don't want to talk. So that might look like some silence or even asking them, “Hey, where do you want to eat on the way home?” Something that has nothing to do with what just went on for them because they're processing it. They are very aware of what's going on, and sometimes they just need that space to. Process by themselves without feeling like, oh, what are my parents thinking? You know, because that can add another level of heaviness. One other way that I try to communicate with my daughter, was I text her in the car even though I was sitting, you know, a few feet away from her because I could tell she's just like, I don't need any more questions from you mom and dad. So I just said, Hey, just letting you know, like, how are you doing? And she responded that way. So there's other avenues and it might not be the way we grew up but there's different things where social media or electronics might be helpful in that. And one more is if they've got an older sibling, maybe they trust, or an aunt or an uncle, you can always message them and go, Hey, can you check on my child? Because that might give some distance from you, but it's still showing that they're getting some love and support from someone else that might connect with them more in those moments. And there's always rules, like, don't talk to your coaches within 24 hours. So maybe set up a rule with the parents, like, give yourself some space, you know, just even if it's like 20 minutes. You read your child, you know how they are, and you can figure out like, okay, I'm going to give myself like five minutes, 10, 15, 20 before I approach my child with questions or whatever it may be. Jen: I think that first piece of advice, you've got to process your own emotions first. That's the key. I remember last year. My son ended up sitting on the bench more than I thought he should. Of course. As his mom, any sitting on the bench, is more than I think you should. Right? But at the time, I was going through certified coach training and so I had all of this introspective time to really look at like, why this was so upsetting for me. And what did I think should be different? And I really was able to see his goodness in a different way. When I turned the attention from: we all need to feel better right now, to: I can handle being disappointed and he can handle being disappointed. And as I get better at being disappointed, he's going to get better at seeing how that works too. And instead of just spending this time feeling frustrated and disappointed all season, I got to watch my son just be an amazing human being and support his teammates when he wasn't getting what he wanted, and smile when he wasn't feeling great about what was happening. And it was just such a total 180 of how I experienced his games from like this heartbroken, heartwrenching, horrible experience to: this kid is incredible and I am so blessed to be his mom. And we can do disappointment, he and I, we can do it. I’ve got me. He's got him, and I am here to support. But until I started focusing on me, I was a total wreck. So yeah, I love that. I can totally relate to that. Lorrine: I love that one part from what you just said that stood out the most to me, is when it's almost like you can trust them to be able to regulate their own feelings. You obviously have those moments when we can be like, “Hey, it's okay, you know, to feel this way. I mean, maybe it's part of the process. Trust the process, trust your coach, you know, trust yourself and everything.” But as a parent, trusting your child to be able to take care of themselves when I think we're so used to fixing things when they're little. Like, I'll stick a bandaid on, or whatever it is, I'll take care of you. There's a, there's a point in our lives and if they're in sports, you know, they're already learning from a coach and they're old enough to, to learn how to emotionally regulate too, which might be the hardest for us to step back and trust. They've got it. They're taking care of themselves. Jen: And it's okay if they need time for that. And it's okay if they need space for that. And our job as parents, we so often think is to fix it. Like we should just fix this for them. Like you said, the Band-Aid, we want to put the Band-Aid on and help them stop crying, but the skill that they really need isn't to feel better. The skill they need is to know how to do this and come back from it. That resilience of learning how to handle any emotion that comes up. Learning how to deal with any situation because we aren't always going to be there. So the best way we can support them, is through, you know, doing what's right for them to be able to go through this experience authentically for themselves. Lorrine: Yeah, and, and I love that because I think before I knew these tools we think that we're helping them the most and supporting them the most by just taking care of it for them. But really we're hindering them because they're not able to learn these tools now. When so many adults don't even know these tools, so we're actually, we're giving this gift, right? So learning that they’re going to be able to process it and get through hard things and still know that life can be great because it exists with 50 50, you know, positive and a negative emotions. Jen: I love that. I know that my listeners are going to be so excited to learn more from you because if you've got kids in sports now you know why I recommend her to everybody I know. Because if your teen needs that extra level of support to navigate the world of being an athlete, they need that mindset support. They need that mindset help. And sometimes you, as their parent, can model that for them and you can teach that to them. But sometimes they need another person that they can trust, an outside perspective that they can trust. So will you tell them where they can find you and how they can connect with you some more? Lorrine: Yes, and, and just one more thing I forgot to mention is I coach them as a mindset coach for their sport, right? To level up and perform their best. But even more importantly, I coach them. All the tactics and the tools that I share can be translated to life as a human. I've had some athletes come in and say, thank you, because I feel like you're helping me with my relationships too, or you're helping me with balance with my schoolwork. Trying to figure out how I can do it all as a student athlete. So one of the mottos that I kind of have is you're more than an athlete and redefining what athlete is. And the ways that you can connect with me outside of this podcast would be, my website is https://lorrineheadrick.com. My Instagram is @lorrine.headrick (https://www.instagram.com/lorrine.headrick/) . I also have a Facebook group usually for the parents, which is. Athlete mindset (https://www.facebook.com/groups/448374850296142). Jen: I will put them in the show notes. So if you want to find Lorrine, you can just go to the show notes and I will make sure you can link to her website and to her Instagram and that Facebook group for appearance. Anything else you want to share about? Lorrine: Yeah, I do have a, a free download of Empowering Beliefs that Winning Athletes Have (https://view.flodesk.com/pages/637bf83eb1116b6aa2188a97) on my website, or you can find that on my Instagram link. So that's another thing that you can just print out for your athletes and have them start practicing these beliefs that resonate with them so that they can take it with them in the sports world and outside of it. And it just becomes more natural as they practice that like they trained for their sport. Jen: That's so awesome. I'm so glad that you were able to come on today. I feel like we are just so lucky to learn from you and I have loved spending this time with you and I have to say I just like to listen to your voice because I just love your accent. It's so much fun. Lorrine: Thanks so much. Some people say I'm losing it, so I'm hoping it's still there. Thanks for everything, Jen.
