#1173 - The Fine Line: Coaching Anxious Kids Without Parent Drama

Your child is hesitant about sports, the coach wants to help, and you're caught in the middle—what now? Today’s tricky question tackles the complex dynamics of youth sports anxiety from both the coach's and parent's perspective. 

Quote of the Episode: "Your child signed up for it. Your child wants to play the sport. It's their experience, so let them have that experience."

Key Insights:

• Parent involvement can often increase rather than decrease child anxiety.

• Individual acknowledgement by name creates belonging and confidence.

• Reframing anxiety can help children approach challenges differently.

• Trust between parents and coaches is essential for child development.

• The "uphill" moments in sports build character and resilience.

• Minimising children's feelings about anxiety is counterproductive.

• The three E's approach: Explore, Explain, Empower.

Action Steps for Coaches:

1. Minimise parent involvement during practice/training.

2. Get curious about individual children and their concerns.

3. Acknowledge each child by name and build personal connections.

Action Steps for Parents:

1. Trust the coach and step back from direct involvement.

2. Embrace the challenging moments ("love the hills").

3. Validate feelings without minimising them.

4. Use the three E's: Explore, Explain, Empower.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
You have a child, they're anxious, they're unsure, they're apprehensive.
Do they or do they not want to participate in
this extra curricular activity that you think is going to
change their life and enrich them so much. You're the coach.
You're trying to juggle the relationship between you and the
parent and the child, and it's all very complicated. Today

(00:26):
we answer your questions what you do when your child
doesn't want to play sport, or when you're the coach
and the parents are pushing the kids too hard. Hello,
Welcome to the Happy Families podcast, Real parenting Solutions every
day on Australia's most downloaded parent podcast. We are Justin
and Kylie Coulson. Every Tuesday, Kylie, we answer your tricky

(00:47):
questions family stuff, relationship stuff, kids stuff, well being, screens, discipline,
you name it. If you would like to submit a question,
send us an email podcasts at happy families dot com
dot Au or jump onto the web site, scroll down
to the podcast section and use our super simple system
Happy families dot com dot Au. Just click the record
button and start talking. Like this one from our anonymous

(01:10):
listener who asks, I.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Have a question about talking to kids in a coaching situation.
As I've just started coaching kids age nine to thirteen,
I understand I'm often the voice of my kid's head.
As a person with anxiety who hates experiencing it, I
try to encourage my kids to step beyond their fears
and worries and to make their world a bigger place,
to not restrict themselves by fear. Sometimes this work, sometimes

(01:34):
they need more time. So when you have a nervous
kin and a team and you hear parents discouraging or
even insulting their kids by saying they are too afraid,
they will just stand there. What do you do? I'm
not their parent, it's not my kid. I'm not here
to judge. Sometimes we need a person who offers an
alternative voice, one that says, hey, maybe you can try

(01:54):
this new thing. What's the best way to do this,
especially if the parent is right there without overstepping.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Thanks tricky relationships, Kylie, Tricky situations.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
We've got four tips four coaches in this situation.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
And then a handful of tips for parents, because, let's
face it, sometimes we do as parents want to make
it all about us when it's all about the kids.
Let's kick off number one, if you're the coach.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Best piece of advice I can give you minimize parents involves.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
That's so much more polightly than I was going to
say it. I was going to say, kick the parents out.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
I remember when our kids first started swimming lessons, we
actually were stuck in a room behind the glass.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, several of the
places where our kids have had swimming lessons over the
years have adopted the same strategy. The parents don't go
into the pool space.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
We actually become a distraction to our children when we're
paying for them to have this experience. They need one
voice to listen to, one person they can look to
for guidance, direction, and we just add a holy then
noise and confuses them.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, coaches, keep the parents out. This is between you
and the kids now, I think, and parents remember it's
your child's experience, like your child signed up for it.
Your child wants to play the sport. Your child wants
to be with their friends to their experience, so let
them have that experience. That's theirs.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
Now.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Number two for coaches, get curious, so important you get
to know the kids. And that's not something that you
can just do on the field. You really actually have
to take a little bit of extra time to spend
with them to know how they tick, to know what
excites them, to know how they actually work.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Something that we didn't say in listening to that message
is just and we're keeping the person's name anonymous. But
what a great thing to be volunteering your time, to
be making a contribution, to be looking at young lives
and focusing on building them up and enriching them and
enlarging them. I just think this is such a good
thing to be doing. And as parents, again, our job

(03:58):
really should be so as long as we have the
confidence that the coach as a safe person. And usually
most states have all sorts of legislative things that people
need to jump through hoops to jump through so that
you can become somebody who works with children. These people
are giving up their time and their energy and their
effort and their resources to help the kids. I just
I think it's great. And what I also would say

(04:19):
is most coaches will be curious. They'll be curious about
the kids. And if you're a coach with a child
who is anxious, apprehensive, worried, ambivalent, the best thing you
can do is say Hey, tell me, how are you
feeling about that? What's going on? Like, have the conversation
and see what insights they give you.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
I am currently volunteering in a youth group at our church.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, you look after all the kids, all the girls
from what twelve to eighteen?

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, And I've taken the opportunity this year to spend
some time with their families and get to have conversations
with parents, And I've asked them, what is the one
thing that would make the biggest difference for your child
this year in feeling loved and appreciated? You know what
they say, tell me literally just acknowledging their child by name.

(05:06):
Too often, especially in a team situation, we talk to
the teams.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
So that's so profound, it's so ridiculously since what need
to be said? Yes, and yet it's so powerful because
when people know that you know their name and that
your acknowledging them, they feel like they belong.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
And just that individual acknowledgment, Hey, Lily, it's so great
to see you here today. Thanks for joining us or
whatever makes all the difference, because all of a sudden,
those kids feel seen.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
And of course, because we're talking about this issue of
children feeling anxious and parents overstepping the willingness on the
part of the coach to step in, lean in, ask questions,
get curious rather than being judgmental. I just think there's
so much power in that, so valuable number three.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, so you've got a wonderful opportunity to invite or
challenge kids to try something different, to experiment on different
ways that they might approach things.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, empower them, especially if the parents are out of
the picture a little bit. You've got the opportunity to say, well,
let's read write the script, just because that's how you
feel when you've got that audience, or that's what you've
told your parents, what would look like if do you reckon?
We could try that. Reframing the anxiety is so powerful.
In fact, Emma McKean was on the podcast recently. Emma
is Australia's most decorated Olympian in history, and she was

(06:23):
having a chat with me about this very thing. Here's
what she said.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
It's definitely still got nervous when I was young, and
that's just because I cared about what I was about
to do and didn't know what I might be about
to do, and so the nerves are actually the same
whether whether I was at a state level meet or
through to when I eventually was at an Olympic. So
I think it's refraining it in your head and seeing

(06:47):
the nerves is a good thing. The nerves are like
little bouts of energy that you can use in your ace,
and nerds are showing you that you care. Nerds are
showing you that you're doing something brave and worthwhile. I
think it's reframing it in more of a positive way.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Kylie, great advice, So simple to reframe that. After the break,
we'll talk about what parents can do if their kids
are anxious about participating in sport. Okay, you've got the
coach who wants your kids to do well. You want
to do well, but your children are feeling nervous, apprehensive, worried.

(07:27):
What are you supposed to do? How are you supposed
to do this? Kylie and I have got four quick
things to run through if you're the parent, to help
you to navigate this tricky situation. First one, in all my.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Time working in childcare, the number one advice that I
would give to parents when their children were distressed as
they left was to just go the longer they stayed
involved in the situation, the longer the child was distressful.
Nine times out of ten that parent walked out the door.
I gave those kids a gentle hug, and within minutes

(08:00):
they were settled and ready to get on with the day.
And that's the same with our kids in these situations.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
Get out of the way.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
I feel like there's some repetition here. We said that
in relation to coaches. But let me extend this by
just a smidge. What you've got to do as a
parent is trust. Now, my definition of trust is that
you believe that the other person is going to act
in your best interests or in this case, in your
child's best interest. If you can trust the coach that
they really are there with great intentions, great motives, and

(08:27):
they want to help your child, then trust the coach,
remember that it's not about you, and leave them to
work it out. I think that's where the value is
in this conversation.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
This question number two might be a bit provocative for
the anxious parent.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
You've got to love the hills.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
So I've shared this so many times on the podcast
and in my Resilient seminars. When I travel around the
country and give these workshops and presentations in schools. As
a cyclist, what I discovered when I was competing many
years ago was that I could only become the strong
cycle I wanted to be by riding uphill, not by
riding downhill. Everyone likes the downhills. They're fun, they're fast,

(09:05):
they're free, They're just delightful, and you smile all the
way down uphill. You're gritting your teeth. It's hard, there's
no joy in it at all, really, But when you
teach your kids to love the hills, you teach them
to develop character, determination, persistence, and an attitude that when
I do hard things, I reap the rewards. The rewards

(09:26):
being you get to the top and feel the sense
of accomplishment.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
And then you get to go downhill.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
You get to go downhill and you get to enjoy
the view. That's what I was going to say. Just
the scenery when you get to the top of those
thirty minute climbs is amazing. Quick side note, very embarrassing.
Several years ago, I took my bicycle with me when
I went on a writing retreat. I went to my
mentors home in the Rocky Mountains in Utah, in the
USA and stayed there for two weeks while I wrote

(09:51):
Ten Things Every Parent Needs to Know. But each morning
before I wrote, I'd jump on the bike and I'd
ride to the top of this thing called the Alpine Pass.
The first day I did it, it took me about
an hour and twenty two minutes, and I worked so
hard to get to the top of that hill, Kylie.
I checked Strava when I got back to the office
to see what the record got. The fastest time up

(10:14):
that climb was the Tour of Utah had been on
a couple of weeks earlier, so all the professionals had
gone through there. The fastest time was like thirty seven minutes,
and I nearly had a heart attack doing in an
hour and twenty or something. It's just brutally anyway, teach
the kids that they've got to love the hills. Stay
out of the way. It's not about you. Two more
quick ones.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
Number three, don't minimize what your child's feeling.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, like you'll be right. No no, no, no no no,
that's not going to work. Just get out there and
give it a crack. It's not hard to say to them.
I know this is scary for you, or this feels
tough for you, doesn't it? Or this wire is you
give them that little rub on the back, that little
pat right there so that you can stimulate their vagal
tone and help them feel a bit better about life.
And then step into number four, which is probably the

(10:57):
most important thing that I talk about in all parenting
stuff that I talk about.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
The three is we're going to explore with them, We're
going to explain, and we're going to empower.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, Explore is getting curious and understanding where they're coming from.
Explaining is stepping out for them. Why there's value in
this enriching activity and empowering goes back to what we
talked about with the coach. Say to them, what would
it be like to experiment? What would it look like
if you were going to be successful? What things would
you do? How do you want to proceed from here?
It's about moving them through it with confidence and positivity,

(11:30):
love the question, really grateful for it, and a little
bit out of the ordinary. Not what we normally answer,
but we've literally said, ask us anything, Send us your
emails podcasts at happy families dot com dot you or
go to happy families dot com dot au to ask
whatever tricky question you'd like. We're literally happy to answer
anything that's on your mind about not pretty much, anything

(11:52):
that we can squeeze into the pod Happy families dot
com dot AU Click the record button, start talking. The
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