Casey Bass: Today on ClubHouse Gas, we are joined by sport psychologist and friend of the show, Crissy Rapp. And we are going to talk about how to help your kids and players get the most out of their youth sport experience, and help them enjoy it. So stay tuned to ClubHouse Gas.
We are fortunate enough again to be joined by the friend of the show Crissy Rapp. Crissy, thank you so much for joining us.
Crissy Rapp: Thanks.
Casey Bass: Today I want to talk about what parents can do to help ensure their kids have a more youth sport experience, and then we come to you. You are the expert in the field, hoping that you can give the parents a couple of tips for enhancing their kids experience on the youth sports field, or court, or whatever they might maybe.
Crissy Rapp: Right, yeah, there are a couple of things based on my experience working with kids that I tend to see repeatedly coming from the kids perspective, that maybe they wouldn't tell the parents, and then when they get to me, they feel that they can talk about these things. So it's just something to keep in mind, it's likely that you don't do most of these things, there might be an occasional time, but just to kind of keep in mind, if your kid may experience this, you kind of put yourself in their shoes, from their perspective, and see if maybe, if any of these things kind of hit home with you, and your child, or your situation.
Casey Bass: Some of them are much frustrated even as a little guy playing it up into high school, either for me or for another player one of my peers, and even now was a coach I see it even more as a matter of ballparks, in the game of baseball. As a kid go up to bat, swings at strike-3 and misses, tracks out. He is going to walk all the way back and got to sit down. He is fully aware that he has failed. He didn't hit the ball. He stroke out, he didn't get a chance to run the first base, and then he hear a parent or a coach yelling at them, like they intentionally missed the ball, and all it seem to me like you are adding more pressure on this kid, so the next time he gets up there, there's even more less likely to hit the baseball, always seems so to me.
Crissy Rapp: Perfect example, and that was my first point, is the pressure that kids can feel from various angles, and the last place you want it coming from is your parent. The people that you ride home with, and that you have dinner with, and you are talking about the game, you want to feel that they are supportive and encouraging, and a quote that comes to mind is that, "it's easier to criticize than to correct." So and that's big for coaches that it's easy to tell the kid what they did wrong - like you said, you know, that you swung and missed it and you struck out, but --
Casey Bass: You got to walk back and sit down.
Crissy Rapp: The kid knows that. Right, so instead, maybe try to boost them up give them some chocolate criticism of what they can do to make a correction the next time. So the pressure is the first one that stands out to me, is just that you want your kid to improve their love of the game, and that only comes from enjoyment, and enjoying the process, and learning, and feeling comfortable, and being able to make a mistake and not feeling failure.
Casey Bass: Well, what about winning? Parents who put so much pressure on the kids to win, and then the competition gets rather, kids are so important, is that healthy, or is there something that the parents have to do otherwise than that.
Crissy Rapp: There is fine line, of course, in any sport, and me being a former athlete, I have a competitive edge too, we all do. But at the same time you don't want your child to only start to focusing on having the highest batting average, hitting the most home runs, being better than your neighbor or the person that he is always hanging out with. You want him to instead focus on themselves, and how they are improving. If you have each kid doing that, your team is more likely to improve and beat other teams, and that's all going to come along with it, but you don't want the sense of competition in being better than somebody else to take over.
Casey Bass: I have never met a kid who doesn't want to win. They have it more to win, so it always seems silly to encourage more of that.
Crissy Rapp: Right.
Casey Bass: Everyman wants to win. If you put kids on the field and say, well, I am going to keep scoring, just going to play, they know the score. Everyone of the kids on the field knows the score. So can you encourage them to compete against themselves, more than they are competing against everybody else? That's one thing I love about golf, is you are always competing against yourself. And you can just go play by yourself. And I think a lot of times Major League Baseball players will do that, they are competing against themselves, as much as they are competing against the other guy.
Crissy Rapp: Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, that's the message that you want to get across. If your kid isn't as competitive, it might come with the time, it might be a good thing, but specially with the young kids, you just want to let them learn about the game themselves. You don't want to project all of these thoughts and feelings upon them, and you want them to learn that they like the game, because of what they get out of it. And if that's not such a competitive thing that they get, it might be something else. So that's a --
Casey Bass: In case though, if your kids strikes out, and you say, okay, that's okay little Johnny, and then your kid strikes out, and you say, it's okay little Johnny, he strikes out again, that's okay little Johnny. So at some point little Johnny starts thinking you know what, it really is okay, I really don't even need to try to hit this ball.
Crissy Rapp: Right, and that's another point that something you bring up is, the idea of -- I refer to it as enabling, but just kind of creating excuses for your kids which you don't want to do. Maybe they went out and struck out, and then they come back and you tell them, well, you have been dealing with this, you have been dealing with this, you are kind of hurt.
Casey Bass: Umpire made a bad call.
Crissy Rapp: Umpire made a bad call, giving them excuses, then they start to learn that, hey, that's a way that if I am unsuccessful, there is always something else I can grab at that was, maybe the reason for that and you don't want that either. You want them to realize that you can be unsuccessful, and they are not bad, and still be improving, still be happy with yourself, and not feel like you always have to have something else to grab on to if you are not successful.
So you don't want them just creating excuses, and you don't want to create excuses for them, even though as parent it might make you feel like, I am encouraging them, and I don't want them to feel bad, but they need to understand that there is a feeling of failure and being unsuccessful that comes with it.
Casey Bass: Crissy thank you so much you have given us a lot to talk about, and I am sure that a lot of you agree, and even more of you disagree, because that's what you guys do. So go over to our message boards, and start a thread and let's talk about it. That's going to do it for us today, we'll see you right back here next time, for another great edition of ClubHouse Gas.
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