How can I help my sporty kids if they blame poor performance on someone else?

A quick and easy tip this month which is useful when your child’s performance doesn’t go well, and you feel they might not be taking as much responsibility as they should for how things turned out!

Regular readers will know how important it is for kids to spend time thinking about what just happened and what they would need to do to be better in future.  This reflection time is when a lot of crucial learning takes place and is a great habit for kids to get into.  However, sometimes it can be tempting to reflect that someone else was to blame and not them!!  So, what can parents do to help if this is an issue?

Try asking them, “what would you do now if you were the coach?”.  This is useful because…

1. It helps move their focus away from ‘blaming’ and is another way to encourage them to think about the things they (and their team) need to work on to perform well next time
2. When they come up with some options, like getting the team to work on specific things in training for example, it allows you to follow up with, “that sounds good, what can you do to make sure you work on that at your next session?”. This helps move their thinking back to the things they can control and THEIR responsibility to get as much as they can out of training

As always with young people, pick your time wisely and don’t overdo it.  And if the conversation doesn’t go well the first time you try it, you can always blame your kids ?

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