Beyond the Win: Tips for Parenting Young Athletes & Dancers | Dr. Chelsea Pierotti - Brainy Moms

Episode Transcript
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Dr. Amy Moore (00:00):
Hi, smart moms and dads, welcome to this
episode of the Brainy Momspodcast brought to you today by
LearningRx Brain TrainingCenters.
I'm Dr Amy Moore here withSandy Zimalis, and Sandy and I
are going to have a conversationtoday with Dr Chelsea Perotti.
Dr Chelsea is a sportspsychologist, a professor and a

(00:20):
sports psychology consultant,typically for dancers, but she
also talks about how we shouldwork with young athletes in
general, particularlycompetitive athletes.
So, as a speaker, workshopteacher and podcast host, dr
Chelsea's mission is to create ahappier, more successful dancer
through positive mental skills.

(00:42):
She's the host of the podcastPassion for Dance and is going
to talk to us about how parentscan help best support their kids
who are dancers or othercompetitive athletes.
I'm super excited to have thisconversation because, sandy, you
were a competitive swimmer, usaswim coach, right and I'm going

(01:02):
to sit here and just not haveanything to say because I never
competed in anything.
I was a theater kid.
But, right, as a psychologist,I think it's super important to
be able to offer advice toparents when they do have
athletes that are strugglingwith disappointment from losses
or when they're in their headsabout what it looks like to

(01:26):
compete at those high levels,and so I'm excited to have this
conversation with her.

Sandy Zamalis (01:32):
Yeah, me too, and it can be really tricky as a
parent to get yourself out ofthe equation and really look at
it from your kid's perspectiveand help them think through what
being competitive looks like,what it means, what who do you
compare yourself against?
What kind of work ethic are youdeveloping?
All of those are great topicsand I'm excited to go over those

(01:53):
.
Yeah me too.

All right, let's welcome Dr Chelsea Parati.
Hello Chelsea, hello, do youhave the super cool Sure Mike?

With the boom.

Yeah, so I did that during COVID and I talk
with my hands and so I wouldkeep, I would hit it over and
over again and finally said thisis not going to work for me.

Dr. Chelsea Pierotti (02:29):
Yes, I know I've done, I've played with
lots of different mics andfinally this one.
I like that.
It like retracts and sits overhere and then it's just ready
when I need it.
And, yeah, all the iterationsthat we've had to learn how to
do.

I can't tell you how many mics I bought, and so
we were Sandy and I were jokingbecause we're on opposite sides
of the country, but we're goingto do some in-person recording
this summer that she's going tocarry.
We both have.
What do we have?
The Yeti, oh, the Yetis.
Yeah, yeah, and she's.
I'm going to just bring my Yetiand they weigh 20 pounds.
I mean, they're so heavy andI'm like you're going to need a

(02:57):
second suitcase just to bringyour Yeti.
Yes, we're so excited to havethis conversation with you today
.

Thank you for having me Happy to be here.

We love to get started by having our guests
tell us more about their passionand how they got started.
So let's start there.
How did you get involved insports psychology, especially
with dancers?

Sure, my passions really aligned.
I've always loved teaching andI've always loved dance and I
realized I could do both, bringin the coaching, bring in the
teaching to that art.
So I grew up a dancer, I was aprofessional ballet dancer and
then alongside was doing theacademic pursuit.
And for a long time I thoughtthey were two different things.

(03:39):
I was going to have my academiclife and then I was going to
have my dancer life.
And not until grad school did Ifind the field of sports
psychology.
But then I realized I couldtake my passion for human
behavior and understandingrelationships and the social
psychology side and bring it tosport.
And so once I realized that wasa field and my two passions

(04:01):
could come together, everythingclicked.
It was easy from then.
That's exactly what I wanted todo.
So now I feel very lucky thatI've been able to do something
that really aligns two of mypassions every day.

Do you wish that you had known what you know now,
when you were growing up anddancing competitively?

Absolutely .
I think that is a largemajority of what I create now is
what I wish I had, and that'snot to shame my former teachers,
and there's just we know somuch that we didn't know then.
And the culture of sport youthsport especially is completely
different, some better, someworse.
But being able to have theawareness that I have now I

(04:42):
think would have had a much,would have had a positive impact
on my training at the time andI still loved my time as a
dancer and was, quote unquote,successful.
But I think it would have beenbetter had I known all the
mental skills and the work thatI do now for sure.
So that's definitely.
My mission now is to createthose happier, more successful
dancers, learning these mentalskills now, in childhood, rather

(05:04):
than waiting successful dancerslearning these mental skills
now, in childhood, rather thanwaiting.

And I would think that a lot of the ideas that
you're applying to the danceworld are pretty mainstream
thoughts with competitiveathletes already right, and so
we talk about optimal level ofarousal or anxiety right, and
the and I.
But we think of dance as an artright, it's artsy, it's along
with singing and musicians, andso to be able to take all of

(05:35):
this great performance, researchand understanding of that brain
body connection into the danceworld must have just opened up.

It's been wonderful understanding, yeah,
and there's not.
It's getting better.
There's not a lot of peoplewho've made that cross and now
we have more and more.
But yes, I think of dancers asathletes first, but they are
artistic athletes and so danceis not always competitive.
Sometimes it is more on thepure art side and sometimes it's

(06:06):
very competitive.
You have national titles forboth, like high school and
collegiate levels.
You have all-star programs, youhave the intense competitive
nature that you see in any youthsport, so it's skill-wise very
much the same.
There's some things that apply alittle bit differently and I
equate it.
Competitive dance, I equate toany sport that has subjective

(06:29):
judging.
So that happens in gymnastics,ice skating, diving.
There's so many opportunitieswhere sport is evaluated by
another human and that brings indifferent challenges as an
athlete.
So I align my work more withthose types of sports where you
have less objective outcomesthat you have to worry about,

(06:50):
but then acknowledging that itis an art and sometimes it is
not competitive, but you stillwant to be your personal best,
right, in a ballet career, youstill want the role that you
want to make, the company thatyou want to make, and it's still
the same.
All the same skills still apply, even if it is an art form and
it's used with magicians.
Actually, that's probably truetoo.
I was going to say musiciansand singers and same.

(07:12):
It all applies.

So my son is a music performance major, my
youngest is a music performancemajor and has done worldwide
tours in music, and he has hadto work really hard on lowering
the stress and anxiety that hefeels right before the
performance, even though, yes,it is creative and musicians do

(07:38):
have a little bit of space thatthey can work within, even when
they're performing in a fullsymphony.
But it's still that.
How do I get on stage and notfall apart?
Yeah, same thing.
How do I get on the field andnot fall apart?
How do I get the dance floorand not fall apart?
And it's.

I think one of the reasons it's
challenging for musicians anddancers or also, similarly, ice
skaters, divers people who havekind of choreography like you
come out and you have a plan, Iknow what I'm singing, I know
what I'm playing, it's scriptedso we don't react as much to
what's going on around us.
It's not like a traditional teamsport where your play is

(08:20):
constantly in reaction to yourteammates and everyone around
you, that you have to be a lotmore.
Your attention has to be lockedin.
As a performer, especially whenyou are advanced and you know
your stuff, your brain canwander because your body will do
what it's supposed to do, oryou can you have more space to
allow for the overthinking andthe panic, and I think a lot of

(08:44):
advanced artists will say, yeah,I can have a whole story
happening in my head outside ofwhat I'm performing, like it's,
you just have the space for it.
So that training of being ableto let go of the overthinking,
to be able to focus on what isactually helpful in that moment,
becomes really powerful forartists to make sure that they

(09:05):
are not thinking the wrong thing.
And then you make thosemistakes on stage and then you
have time to think about yourmistake, which causes another
mistake and you have that likesnowball effect on stage.
So, yeah, that training becomesit's important for everybody.
But I think it's reallyimportant when you have those
closed skills and there's closedskills in other sports, but it
happens a lot for artists.

And the audience is not giving you feedback until
the end of your performance theway they are during a
basketball game or a footballgame or a soccer game, right,
Like you're getting cheers withevery good play, right, which of
course has to be motivating.
But then to be in a sport or aperformance situation where you
don't hear clapping until thevery end, your mind also has to

(09:52):
be thinking what do they thinkof me?

Oh, you have time to interpret
everything, and if you can seethe judges, which is true in
some of these situations, thenyou have time to look at their
face and then you startprocessing.
They're not even looking at me,or they're oh, oh, no, they're
writing.
What are they writing?
And then you're thinking aboutthat instead of thinking about
what you should be executing,and that distraction can be
devastating to your performance.
Even if muscle memory is there,it's not actually good for a

(10:19):
peak performance.
You don't want to just be anautopilot, so being able to have
that attentional controlbecomes really important.
When you can, you're lookingfor feedback, to your point that
there isn't any, so you try tofind it.
You're like oh, they're tooquiet, or was that a gasp or
who's?
You find feedback that's notthere.
You create it in your head andcan spin on it if you're not

(10:40):
careful.

I love that angle .
We're talking a lot of braintraining kind of vocabulary in
this conversation and my brainis pinging but, I, love the kind
of thought of okay, there's themore dedicated sports that have
more objective realities.
I was a swim coach, so youeither get your time or you
don't.
Or you beat the person in frontof you or you don't, but

(11:04):
there's an underlying skillsetof automaticity that really
helps you be able to besuccessful in that process.
And what I'm hearing you say isthat there's a lot of
automaticity that goes into amore subjective sport too, but
it could actually be an Achillesheel because you're not
necessarily in your body reallyworking through the process, and

(11:27):
that's fascinating to thinkabout when they're supposed to.

But if it's purely automatic, for most
people negative thoughts willcreep in.
That is also natural, right.
So if we rely too heavy on theautomaticity, you will go to a
negative place.
And then for anybody who isworking with music, we want your
art to be driven by the music,whether it's paced by the music,
the emotion of the music, thatcommunication, and so you want
the physical skill to be drivenby the music, whether it's paced
by the music, the emotion ofthe music, that communication,
and so you want the physicalskill to be more automatic, so

(12:10):
that the emotion and theattention can be projecting what
it's supposed to Like.
What story are you trying toshare?
What emotion are you trying toconnect?
And that is about being in thepresent moment.
So it's let the physicality bemore automatic.
You can trust your training,you can trust your skills I've
done this many times but thatthe thought in the moment is in

(12:34):
the present moment and emotionalin each count, in each story,
throughout your performance.

And I would think that by like building that
automaticity, by practicing andrehearsing and being as prepared
as possible, like you can'tjust show up and wing it and
expect to be in that place,right, because then you're
worried, oh I'm going to forgetmy next step, or I'm going to
forget my next note, or and so Ithink something beautiful

(13:04):
happens when you look at thedifference between amateurs and
pros, you can see it on theirfaces, right.
There's something in the waythey move or play that's almost
gazelle, when they've gotten tothat point of being fully
present but also have thatautomaticity.

Oh, absolutely, and that's it sounds
like you're getting at thatflow state which is what a lot
of artists are talking about, ofbeing able to have a peak
performance, be your absolutebest on stage.
But that happens at the peak ofyour physical skill.
You're not going to magicallybe better than you were in the
studio yesterday.
It's your physical skill isstill has to be trained and

(13:49):
honed to be its best.
But then in order for that bestto show up on stage, you have
to have the cognitive side andthat ability to combine your
passion to be in the presentmoment and flow on stage is
wonderful.
But I think of that more if itis in the pure art side, or
dancers who are doingimprovisation or actors who are

(14:09):
doing improv, where you'rereally bouncing off each other
and letting that flow.
In sports psychology we talkabout the difference between
flow and clutch is really moreof a sport thing.
That is still true for artistsand especially when it's
competitive.
That flow is more of a stepback and let it be.
Clutch is more of a dialed in.
I'm going to make this happenand I think that's where

(14:31):
athletes are more comfortable.
They understand that I've donethe work, I'm prepared and now
I'm drilled in and I'm going tomake this happen.
I'm not just going to sit backand hope it does, and that sort
of clutch attention can bereally powerful for any athlete.

Yeah, I was the only sport I ever participated
in my entire life was bowling,and so I bowled competitively.
From the time I was six yearsold, I was a clutch bowler where
if I had been distracted, Iknew, okay, I can get a turkey
here at the end and just pullthis out.
And so that was my nickname outthere was clutch, because they

(15:08):
knew, even if I had some badframes, I was going to pull it
out with a turkey at the end.
Right, like you, you can engagewhen you need to.

Right and I think everybody's favorite
athlete, pick your favoriteathlete.
Elite athletes are clutch.
They know how to control theirfocus.
And and I keep saying focus,it's more than that right, it's
your arousal regulation, it'syour thought, it's everything
being able to align to be yourbest.
And it's intentional.
And I think people think atthat elite level, they just it's

(15:41):
that X factor, they just haveit.
And yes, there is some level ofthat.
They're just different but partof it is intentional.
If they've trained how to lockin and make sure they're their
best in those peak moments,right, if you're going to kick
the Superbowl winning field goal, if you're going to have the
penalty kick in soccer like whenyou have all eyes on you big

(16:02):
moment in sport it's clutch,it's not step back and hope it
happens.
It's a very intentional,focused physiologically and
cognitively so that you're yourbest in that moment.

Yeah, it sounds like really one of the themes
that you try to get across,probably to your clients, is
that skill building is necessary.
We don't want to over practiceor under practice.
There's a sweet spot that weneed to focus on.

Yeah, yeah , and I have so much of my work.
We talk about confidence andsome of that is a stage presence
thing, where any artist wantsto be confident on stage.
But any athlete wants to beconfident in those clutch
moments and when dancers willsay I just need to be more
confident on stage, how do I getmore confident?
Confidence comes in action.
It's the training beforehandand trusting I've done this

(16:55):
before, I will do it again butalso trusting that you can do
hard things.
And so it's that training ofmaking small mistakes, being a
little uncomfortable, pushingyourself out of that comfort
zone and knowing you can handleit.
Because too much training forany athlete happens in this
comfort zone of I'm safe here,I'm comfortable here, I'm going

(17:17):
to, I'm going to work hard, sure, but nothing that's overly
scary.
And then you get into a bigmoment and now there's no
confidence that you can handlethat moment because you're not
used to it.
You've never had the racingheart take over, you've never
had your hands start shaking,you've never had your breath be
completely shallow and out ofcontrol.
So it's putting yourself inpractice, situations where you

(17:40):
have to learn to regulate thatin those small mini moments all
the way up to the big ones, andsome of I was working with some
high school athletes recentlythat they were so talented and
the best of the best in theirstate that they rarely made
mistakes.
They were just nearly perfectionall the time, to the point that
they never trained what to dowhen you make a mistake because

(18:04):
they just never did.
And then if you've nevertrained that, they had one small
mistake and a very big eventand they crumbled and it wasn't
a lack of talent and it wasn't alack of work ethic before that.
But that confidence andtraining is also training what
to do when it's not perfectbecause it's never perfect and
making sure you have a planmentally and physiologically to

(18:25):
overcome that.
And in dance there's no liketimeout, it's like you got to
overcome it in the next twocounts before you keep going.
So figuring out that thatpreparation piece like you said
it is the physical preparationhas to happen, but so does the
mental.

Yeah, my favorite story.
So I was a swim coach for yearsand we were very close to the
Baltimore aquaticatic Club,which is where Michael Phelps is
from and one of the beststories ever the year he won
like the 200 fly that year andhis goggles had filled up with
water and he won.
And he's told the story of howone of his parts of his training

(18:59):
was that his coach, bob Bowman,would break his goggles on
occasion so that he'd have toswim with goggles full of water
so that he could, because he wasan elite swimmer always.
He was always really good.
I think he got his firstOlympics when he was still a
teenager, if I remembercorrectly.
So he needed those adversarialkinds of situations so that he

(19:21):
would know what to do in thosemoments and so many athletes are
seeking perfection, and sothat's a lot of my mindset.

Work too is that can't be the goal,
because that's just not humanand that's not how you're going
to behave.
And if you're seekingperfection.
One you're never satisfied orhappy with your performance,
which is a problem.
And two always moves.
Yeah.
And two, if you are seekingperfection and the smallest
thing happens, then you havethat chain reaction where
there's mistake after mistakerather than small tiny thing

(19:51):
that you could recover from, buttraining that recovery is huge.
So we do the same thing indance.
It'll be like the musicrandomly goes out.
What do you do?
Do you finish it?
Do you?
Your shoe falls off?
I had that happen to dancersonce, I like.
How do you handle it If thesesmall mistakes are happening but
you're on stage and you have tokeep going, and being able to

(20:11):
learn that recovery is such animportant skill that you can
learn in any sport, and then I'malso always a big advocate it
translates to the whole rest ofyour life.
If you can learn that skill ofbeing able to recover from small
mistakes in the moment or bigfor that matter, makes a huge
difference, and sport justhappens to be a great way to
learn that.

Yeah, I published this article on accelerating
expertise using, like immersivelearning experiences, and that
article was specific to trainingmilitary leadership.
Right, because we graduatethese 22 year olds from our
military academies and we putthem in charge of life or death
situations.
Right, and they don't have thelife experience to necessarily

(20:56):
be able to handle the rare.
And the same thing happens withairline pilots, and so it's why
Sully Sullivan was able to landon the Hudson.
Right, because of all of theexperience he was able to then
say I know everything there isto know about this airplane and
how it will behave if I do this.

(21:18):
But without training for therare, without building the what
ifs and all the contingencies,it's easy to see how a young
athlete would fall apart whensomething unplanned for happens.

Yeah, it becomes really powerful in your
training to talk about it, topractice it, and it's scaffolded
just the way we learn anythingelse right?
What you would use to interruptthe training of an
eight-year-old looks differentthan a 12 and a 16, and
developmentally appropriate too.
But practicing for the rare.

(21:54):
I like that phrase, thatunknown for what could happen,
because again, that's where theconfidence comes from.
It's not that you're confidentyou'll be perfect, it's that
you're confident I know what todo when any little thing happens
and I will still have a peakperformance on stage.
I can still be focused and incontrol of that moment.

What tips do you have for parents for those types
of scenarios?
Because it's one thing for acoach to do it right, but
parental support is reallyimportant on the back end.
So what do you say to parentsto help build these resilience
skills?

Sport parenting is a whole field and a
whole area of research and awhole area of work.
I will plug a company calledMindful Sport Parenting If
you're listening.
They are wonderful.
It's my doctoral mentor hascreated this great work because
we've learned a lot about whatparents can do that is actually
helpful for their children andwhat's not.
And usually it's verywell-meaning parents and they

(22:51):
want the best for their childbut they end up harming either
their relationship or theirchild's relationship with their
sport.
So, building resilient kids Ithink you separate building a
resilient child at home in theirschoolwork, in your life at
home.
You can work on it there intheir sport.
That's not your lane and yourlane in sport is to be

(23:15):
supportive, to be happy tolisten, to encourage and just be
that support person they shouldbe getting.
Like you said, it's coming fromcoach.
They should be getting thatresilience and that training and
that challenge.
And so it's using the languageof things like challenges are
good.
I'm excited.
What challenged you today inschool?

(23:35):
Right, just building thisunderstanding that we like, and
I'm proud of you when you put inthe effort, not just when you
get the A, but when you workedreally hard for that math test
and it wasn't perfect, but Iknow you worked on it and I'm
proud of your effort.
So it's the resilience withinhome.
But then in sport world you arejust support and just that

(23:57):
positive person, that place tolisten.
So many parents want to go fixthings.
That's not your place to go fixthings, and I'm speaking as a
sport mom too, so I get thedesire to want to go fix things.
But it's your role as a parentto be more of the manager in a

(24:17):
sense, especially if your childis younger.
Do they have the rightequipment?
Are we on time?
What do we need?
Help them learn the autonomy.
Do you have your water bottle?
That side of it.
But the actual resilience onthe field is for coaches and for
the child to learn.
You're just the support system,amen.

What is your advice to parents on who should
be communicating concerns to thecoach?
Is it you or is it your child,and is it age dependent?

It's developmental, Sure, it's age
dependent.
As much as possible it's fromthe child, and I think
everything has a caveat right.
There are certain concerns thatare of an adult nature.
If there's something seriousgoing on that you feel is not
really about your child, you'reobserving something else.
I don't want to be vague aboutthis.
Let's see.
I think it's very rare that Iwould say a child should not be

(25:10):
involved in the conversation.
That would have to be.
We're at like a criminal levelof something happening right.
Other than that, I think achild should be in the
conversation.
So, even if it's a really smallchild and parent and coach are
talking together and you'reencouraging the child to talk to
the coach and maybe you'vepracticed that conversation or
you've practiced what you wantto say or how you're going to

(25:31):
say it, and then so that's likeelementary school and then into
middle school again.
They may want to practice, butthey're having that conversation
, they're going up to coach,they're asking whatever it is,
If they want more playing time,what do I have to do to get to
start?
I feel like I'm notcontributing to the team that
much.
It seems like you'redisappointed, Like whatever the
child is feeling, you listen andthen help them with a script or

(25:55):
help them with what they needto say, and then they go say it
by high school.
It's entirely athlete.
I think that's where theoverbearing meaning but
overbearing parents when they'retrying to fix it with the coach
are going to damage therelationship between the coach
and the child.
It with the coach are going todamage the relationship between
the coach and the child.
And it's also just the largerlife lessons about what is that

(26:21):
child learning?
And we know that going in andfixing all the problems is not
setting them up for success andis actually probably going to
harm them in the longterm.
And now, as a college professor,I have parents who want to try
to get involved.
I'm like I legally can't talkto you, so go sorry, tell your
child to talk to me.
But I see athlete, I see sport.
Parents do that all the waythrough high school and be way

(26:42):
over involved and then suddenlytheir child has no skills in
when they're 18 or they'retrying to go on to be an adult.
So there's that scaffolding,but child is always present.
And then by middle school childis running that conversation
and stepping up and asking thequestion.
And I also I coached for 14years too.

(27:03):
I coached a high school program, so I also understand that
coaches are so much more willingto make changes and to listen
to the child and to understand.
When it's coming from the child, it's very easy to be like, oh,
the parent.
And I'll also add that I thinka lot of times parents feel like
it's this huge deal and they'reso upset when really the child

(27:26):
just wanted to vent for a littlewhile and they're actually okay
.
And once they were heard,they're okay.
But the parent then makes itworse or makes it a bigger deal
than it was, because we don'twant our childs to sit in any
kind of negative emotion.
We want to fix it, but you gotto let them sit in it, be next
to them, know that they're safe,but let them have negative

(27:47):
emotions are normal and not justtrying to make it go away.

I love that you pointed that out, cause I think
what we unintentionally do isput our kids in this weird
middle spot where we're in asituation like a competition and
I'm having I have my mom in myear and I have my coach in my
ear and who do I listen to inthis moment where I need to
perform?
And then, of course, what'sgoing to happen?
My performance is going to beaffected because I'm going to

(28:14):
upset one of them.
Yeah, so, who am I going toupset?

Yeah, I'm putting them in the middle is
it's unfair to them, of course,and if the ultimate goal is for
that child to have their bestperformance and I think that's
the best approach to sportparenting is considering
yourself an ally with thecoaches.
Like you, both want what's bestfor your child.
You both want this child to betheir best on the field.
So how can you work together todo that and staying in your
lane to contribute to that, andthat's how your child is going

(28:46):
to be their best.

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already, we'd like to help getyour child on the path to a

(29:33):
brighter and more confidentfuture too.
Give LearningRx a call at866-BRAIN-01 or visit
LearningRxcom.
That's LearningRxcom.

All right.
So I want to talk a little bitabout the child who is dabbling
in different sports andactivities and hasn't really
decided what it is that they doenjoy and where they do want to
invest a long time in.
What do you say to parents whenyou have a child who starts a
sports season and is miserableand doesn't want to finish?

Age dependent a little bit, but for
the most part I would hope andsuggest you set the expectation
at the beginning that we finish,and that conversation has
happened.
But it also depends on whatthat is.
So if they're dabbling in a recsport and you're talking about
soccer one day a week for eightweeks, like, we can handle it
and we can make this happen.

(30:34):
If the commitment is muchbigger than that, like, then it
starts to become challenging.
But I think in general, ifyou've set it out at the
forefront, this is theexpectation, this is what we're
going to do, and you may notlike it.
But what are we learning, evenif we don't like it?
And it goes back to that lessonof like I can do hard things
and maybe it turns out.

(30:54):
I don't like soccer and I havefour weeks left and that's not
fun, but we can talk about it.
What makes it not fun?
Do you find any fun in it?
What are we learning from thisthat will help us in the future?
And that's just.
Sometimes we have to do hardthings and it's actually
minimally hard, but it's hard tothat eight-year-old to stick it
out and not want to do itanymore.
So I think there's two sides,because there's that child who

(31:18):
wants to quit early andencouraging them as much as
possible to stay committed,because also putting my coach
head on you end up causingproblems for everybody else when
you quit in the middle.
And that's also an importantlesson of what are you doing to
the teammates if you don don'twant to finish this project, and
it's going to happen in schooland it's going to happen in work
, and you can't bail halfwaythrough because they were
counting on everybody beingthere.

(31:39):
So I think that's an importantlife lesson to work through.
And then there's the oppositeside of the parents who want
their kids to specialize and bevery intense in a sport at a
very young age.
And there's an in-between here.
We don't have to be.

(31:59):
Specializing young is actually,we know, really bad for your
body and for your motivation.
But then parents feel thispressure that you have to be at
this.
You know this elite club sixdays a week when you're eight,
kind of thing.
So there's both.
And then there's the parent.
That's oh, you don't like it.
Okay, we'll stop and justremove any uncomfortable, any

(32:23):
uncomfortable emotion at all.
We'll just leave it, cause thenthe lesson in that is, if I
can't about it, then I don'thave to do it and I always tell
parents.
I know your instinct in thatmoment is to help them not be
uncomfortable, but think aboutthe life skill you want them to
have.
So yes, they're uncomfortableright now, they don't want to
finish soccer and they're eight.
Do you want them to be assignedan elective their freshman year

(32:47):
of high school?
Hate it and then just expecttheir schedule to be changed.
What if they can't?
They now have to stick out thiselective for the whole semester
.
And how do they handle that?
And then that challenge justkeeps going right.
There's always going to besomething that you have to
handle, that you can't justmagically make it go away.
So if you want your child tohave that skill in the future,

(33:09):
this is the backbone of that andit has to start when they're
young.

I have this conversation with parents
frequently, and I think wherethere's an exception and where
there's this fuzzy gray area andI'd love to hear your opinion
on that is when you have a childwith an anxiety disorder, when
you have a child who isstruggling with
rejection-sensitive dysphoria,when there's something that
competing, or even the socialdynamics that are happening in a
team sport is reallyexacerbating this pathology that

(33:43):
this child is already wrestlingwith.
And so, on one hand, we know aspsychologists that the only way
to conquer anxiety is to gothrough anxiety right and to be
able to build that evidence that, yes, you can do this despite
those uncomfortable feelings inyour body.
But, at the same time,incremental progress in being

(34:06):
exposed to that which is causinganxiety is probably the thing
that's going to be the mostsuccessful, and not throwing you
in the deep end of somethingthat is keeping you in fight or
flight right so that you can'teven work through it.
And so is it an option then tosay to a coach at the beginning
of a season this is thesituation right we want to see

(34:31):
if this will work, but we alsowant an exit strategy.
if it's too much, give us yourthoughts.

I think so .
I completely agree and I hearyou.
I think there are situationswhere that sport participation
is making it worse.
And then there's a good chancethat child's anxiety or like
clinical level is making it hardon their teammates and coaches
too, like it's probably hurtingeverybody's, the culture of the
whole program and it might bebest for that child to leave for
the child and for everybodyelse.

(34:59):
As far as having a conversation, I'm all for that.
I think communication at thebeginning is always good, being
able to let coaches know whatthey could expect or what might
be happening, and I think it'sacceptable.
If you are signing up for andknow what you're participating
in.
Like is the goal to let's testthis out, like you said, this

(35:19):
incremental progress.
So let's test it out on asummer camp that does this for a
week.
We're not going to harm anybody.
Okay, then let's test it out ina once a week rec thing.
Like not testing it on somethingwhere you are committing to an
entire nine month season.
You're buying all thisequipment because that's where

(35:40):
this pressure comes in of.
You can't leave this.
So it's choosing what you'reenrolling in a way where leaving
doesn't harm the team so muchand you have that exit strategy
and you can talk through it, butyou're not excluding your child
from participating, cause Ithink working through it could
be the best thing and knowingthat they can, but doing it in a
place where, if they are evenin the middle of a game, they're

(36:03):
halfway through the game andthey're like I can't, and coach
knows and can hold them and theteam is okay without them.
That it's what are you signingup for, and just being aware of
how that impacts everybody elseas well, so that there's less
blowback on your child when youleave and that helps protect
them as well.
But you have that exit strategy.
If it's when we're talkingabout clinical levels of anxiety

(36:23):
and I think that's very it's animportant point that I only
work within non-clinical levels.
So if I have an athlete who isat a clinical level of anxiety
or depression or substance use,they are referred to a
counseling or clinicalpsychologist and so strategies
look different and they'realways going to be
individualized and knowing likethat, this kind of broad advice

(36:44):
is not necessarily meant forthat clinical population, and
then you have to think aboutwhat your child needs in that
moment.
That might be very differentadvocacy.

So it's like you need to set a foundation.
Right.
Here's how we're going tofunction when we encounter a
stressful situation.
Right here are some techniquesthat you can use to regulate

(37:12):
your emotions or your nervoussystem, so that once that's all
that foundation is all laid incounseling, then maybe you can
come in and then apply that to acompetitive setting.

Absolutely come in and then apply that to
a competitive setting.
Absolutely.
And I share with a lot of myhigh school athletes especially
that there's this differencebetween mental health and mental
toughness and I think oursociety has conflated the two
and information misinformation'sout there and our children
think, oh, if I have an anxietydisorder, I can't possibly be in
a competitive sport becauseI'll panic and I'll freak out

(37:45):
and I'll ruin it for my team orI'll be embarrassed, and so they
.
If I have this thing that I'mstruggling with, that is very
real then I can't possiblyhandle a tough situation like a
competitive sport.
And there there are twodifferent things right, that
mental health, your overallsense of wellbeing, and that can
be handled and treated andcared for in counseling.

(38:07):
And then I like your point youtake those skills and you go
apply them.
And mental toughness is aboutyour awareness of your emotions,
being able to notice how you'refeeling and regulating them in
the moment.
And you can do that if you havea disorder or not, like you can
have a diagnosis of any kindand still learn mental toughness

(38:27):
.
And there's some wonderfulelite athletes who have been so
open about that Simone Bilescomes to mind.
There's these athletes who arethe most mentally tough athletes
you could ever hope to modelafter, who have a mental health
conversation at least, whetherthey've talked about a diagnosis
or not.
They're admitting counselingand that.
So for any athlete like, it'sboth, and you can have this

(38:51):
mental health struggle and learnmental toughness through sport
and take the counselingtechniques and apply them to
your sport and not shy away fromsport and feel like you're not
able to rise up to that elitelevel that you want.
You can absolutely do both.

One of the things that you talk about and I know
we're talking like some clinicalanxiety.
So if we bring it back to justan average level of anxiety and
dealing with stress, stressfulsituations, you talk about
controlling the controllables.
How do you help your athletesdo that?

Yeah, that's my favorite.
It is my own personal lifemantra.
If you ask my children, whatdoes mom say?
All the time it's that.
So, the idea being, when you areup against something scary,
something that feelsoverwhelming, something that's
really upsetting, bad news thatorienting your thoughts to what

(39:45):
is in my control right now, whatis not in my control that I
need to let go of, and then,whatever's in my control, can I
do something about it right now.
Sometimes you really can't doanything about it and sometimes
you can, and so that takingaction can help.
So control the controllables.
I teach my athletes to justpause and have that awareness

(40:05):
first, and knowing that usuallythings that we are really upset
about or feeling reallyoverwhelmed about is in the past
or the future and not right now.
And so you're worried about apast mistake, or you're worried
about what could happen on stagein the next 30 minutes, or
you're worried about if I messthis up, my team is going to be

(40:25):
so mad at me, coach will benchme.
It's all past or future.
And so, being more aware of,yep, that's not in my control
right now.
I can't control what coach isgoing to say at the end of this
game.
What is in my control right nowis essentially three things.
It's your attention.
So, being in the moment, lockedin, what am I doing right now?

(40:46):
That kind of concentrationpiece, your actions, what are
you actually doing with yourbody, with your voice?
I say, like you can control howyou talk to your teammates.
You can control how you talk toyour coach.
You can't control how yourteammate talks to you, and
sometimes those dynamics arehard.
You can't control what a ref isdoing.
You can't control if the sun isin your eyes.

(41:08):
There's so much of that youcan't control.
So what is in your control,then, are your actions how you
are warming up before the game,making sure that you ate well or
you have good snacks, that youhave.
And then the third thing that'sin your control is your effort,
and knowing that all I can doin this moment is be locked in,
focus on what I can do and givethat my full effort.

(41:29):
And so controlling thecontrollables is your actions or
concentration and your effort,and then letting go of the
things that are not in yourcontrol so that you can be
locked in when you need toperform.

I love that.
So I always tell people thereare three ways that you can
handle a problem Change what youcan change, reframe how you
think about what you can'tchange, or stay miserable.
And most people choose to notstay miserable, right, so
they're going to work onchanging what they can change
and rethinking about what theycan't.
What would be some suggestionsin the sports setting for

(42:04):
reframing how you think aboutthose things you can't control?

Absolutely so.
That cognitive reframe that youmight learn in any kind of
therapeutic sense works just aswell in this kind of sport
context.
And so it's noticing firsteither the negative thought so a
lot of the things we can'tcontrol might be worries about
again what a coach or what thecrowd's going to think, or this

(42:28):
judge isn't going to like me, orwhat if I make this mistake.
And so it's practicing asometimes it's a script instead
of a what if it's I will?
What if I make a mistake?
I will have a wonderfulperformance?
What if I fall?
What if I have my bestperformance?
Just trying to think of it theother way, intentionally

(42:50):
inserting something else.
That's the CBT version of that.
Being able to intentionallythink of something different, I
think, is that is just thereminder of it.
If that ref made a terrible call, and now I'm mad and now I'm
frustrated and being able to say, okay, I can't control what the

(43:10):
ref did, I can control what Ido in this moment.
And I, what do I want?
I still want to execute theskill, I still want to be my
best in this moment.
So I have to let that go andthink about the skill, or think
about my teammate, or thinkabout my body and coming back to
yourself and your body.
So I think the reframe from thecontrol, the controllables, is

(43:32):
just knowing and noticing what'snot in your control and
reframing it to something thatis and I can and I will
statements that can be verypowerful.
Sometimes they're just deemedpositive affirmations, but I
think they're.
It's intentionally changingthat negative self-talk to I can
or I will in the moment.

So what about those people who have this
really strong sense of justice,right?
So they're in a sport wherethere are subjective evaluations
and you talked about the oneswhere it's dance judges,
gymnastic judges, diving judges,but referee calls are also
subjective sometimes.
And so what do you say to theteen who has just this strong

(44:14):
sense of justice?
That call was wrong, we wererobbed, we should have won this
right.
What do you say?
How do you reconcile that senseof justice with just something
we can't control?

It is something we can't control.
I think that comes down to yourgoals and how you have oriented
success.
So for any athlete, butespecially those in purely
subjective sports, if your onlysense of success is winning, so
I'm not happy unless I won.
But ultimately, whether or notyou won was somebody else's

(44:47):
opinion, that you can't control.
So having a sense of success,that is in your control.
So I had a successful game.
If I stay focused and I give myfull effort, the whole game
right, I have a successfulperformance on stage.
If I'm mindful and I did mypreparations and I was ready and
I had my personal best on stage.
If that judge doesn't choose me, then that's okay.

(45:08):
So it's that sense of successand defining it before the game,
before the season, before theperformance of success has to be
in your control, becauseotherwise you're handing it to
somebody else and then you getstuck in that thought spiral of
we were robbed.
This is unfair and because insome cases maybe it is true Refs

(45:28):
make mistakes too.
They're also human.
So maybe there really was a badcall that had a huge
consequence.
And so I guess what I say to itin that moment is you are
allowed to feel what you feeland be upset, and sometimes
there may be a true likemourning period to our season
ended on a bad call.
And just brushing that off isnot always healthy either Like

(45:51):
it's okay to sin in it and beupset and be mad.
And again with the negativeemotion like it's okay be
disappointed.
But then that's the mentaltoughness is taking the
disappointment and saying I'mallowed to be disappointed and
I'm frustrated and I can't doanything about it.
So what am I going to do torecover?
And the mental toughness comesin that recovery side of now

(46:13):
letting go of what I couldn'tcontrol, what is in my control
now, and then maybe tangiblyreflecting back on what did go
well.
What performance am I reallyproud of?
We're in a generation now wherethere's video of everything.
So go watch old video ofsomething that you're really
proud of and happy to haveexperienced.
And it's that reframe aroundlike that one bad call hurt and

(46:34):
it was not fair, but it doesn'tdefine who I am as an athlete
and I'm still strong and I'mstill proud of what we did and
I'm still ready to move on tothe next game or the next season
.

I love that and I think if we can get parents on
board with helping their kidsdefine what success is and for
parents to really work on theirview of what success is exactly,
man, you could change the worldof youth sports.

Yeah, and I always.
It's not that you can't have.
We call them outcome goals.
So winning the statechampionship, being chosen for
that ballet company, like youcan have the outcome goal and
say I am not happy until I am aprofessional or until I make
this college team like havethose goals.
They can be very motivational,they can be very powerful, but

(47:21):
what happens is parents thenlatch onto that.
Okay, my kid wants to play forthat college.
I'm going to do everything Ican to make sure they get that
dream again meaning.
But then that outcome becomesthe only measure of success.
Instead of have the outcome,make the vision board dream it,
feel it.
That's awesome.
But then the actual goals andmeasure of success they're

(47:43):
called progress or performancegoals.
But they're in your control,your effort, your training goals
.
How many days a week are yougoing to do the strength
training?
How are you going to meal prepso you have better snacks before
you have to go to practice?
Are you like control what youcan and meet those goals along
the way?
And if you do that, the bigoutcome is more likely.
But then, if it gets to thepoint where it is subjective and

(48:06):
the coach chooses you or not,you've done everything you could
leading up to that moment andthen you can be proud of who you
are.
Back to your own values.
There's again a mourning periodis normal and fine, but then
knowing I did everything I couldand I'm still proud of what
I've done, even if this personmade a choice that I wish was
different, yeah, we're reading abook right now a bunch of

(48:28):
colleagues.

It's called the Gap and the Gain and the
principle is this stop measuringyourself against the gap and
always measure against the gain.
So you're always measuringbackwards how far have I come?
What would I accomplish in this?
And that's what keeps thatmotivation going forward, cause
then you can see your progress.

Absolutely , and your strongest athletes
are going to make smaller, aregoing to make progress in
smaller chunks.
You don't like master a newskill in a week.
It might take you three yearsto get that down.
So if you're only measuring thegain, then sometimes it's a
bigger gap and now I don't wantto flip those words but a bigger
.
It takes longer to get to thatgain and so you don't see it as

(49:09):
much.
And I see the athletes who arelike I'm not making any progress
, I still can't do that skill.
I've been trying for six monthsand I suck and I'm never going
to get it.
Instead of looking backwardsand okay, even if you can't do
the skill yet, even if it's notmastered yet, are you better
than you were six months ago andhave you made growth?
Are you stronger?
Are you, are you more resilient?
What has, what, have you gainedin the last six months, even if

(49:33):
you're not there yet?
And that reframe is is huge.
I like that gap and gain makesa lot of sense and it's a huge
for motivation in anything, notjust sport.

And you talk about the 1% rule, right.
You could make 1% improvementincrements.

Yeah.

And that's success too.

It is because we know the math behind
that of that compounds.
So you're going to get so muchbetter than you think you are
with just 1%.
But it's the reframe forathletes when they're again
stuck in like a skill.
They're like they set thisperformance goal or progress
goal of I'm gonna get thisspecific skill by the end of the
season or I'm gonna have go toany sport, I'm gonna have this

(50:13):
shooting average, I'm gonna havethey have that outcome goal for
their season.
But then that doesn't translateto showing up at practice after
school today.
That is I don't wanna be hereor I'm tired today or it's hard
to find the motivation in thatday.
And that's where more of that1% of what's one thing that I'm
going to focus on in practicetoday, I'm going to focus on my

(50:33):
attention.
I'm going to focus on the itcan be physical.
I'm going to focus on how myexplosion in my jumps.
I'm going to focus on one thingand try to make that thing
better today and then if you dothat every day, it compounds to
such incredible growth.
But we can get stuck in themonotony, especially I keep
going to high school athletes.
But high school and college,where you have specialized.

(50:56):
You are working very hard atone thing every day, over and
over again.
Being able to find thatmotivation again can be hard,
and that's where burnout happenswith these kids that they are
so intense in their sport theirwhole life and they hit 16, 17.
And they're like I can't dothis anymore, I'm out, yeah.

I have loved this conversation.
It's been fantastic.

Me too.
Always fun to talk to.

Always fun to talk to other people you didn't
think you would, because you'renot a sports person.
There you go.

And I have a really bad memory because
clearly I need some of mycognitive training.
But I'm like, yeah, I've neverplayed sports and I'm like I
competitively bowled my entirelife.

But I can say that a leisure hobby, not
necessarily a sport.

But when you said clutch, I'm like, oh yeah, that
was me.

And you can be clutch in anything, and I
think that's what I've foundabout all my work in sports
psychology and when I get toteach it to my college students,
I'm like this is trueeverywhere.
When you go to your first jobinterview, use your deep
breathing, use your cognitivereframing, take all of these
skills to the rest of your life.
Like this, sport again justhappens to be the vehicle with
which I teach it and which a lotof people learn it but you can

(52:11):
learn it in anything.

It's the pursuit of something, whatever that is.
You take these peak performanceskills with you.
Yeah, and my experience hasbeen just the opposite.
I've taken what I learned insports psychology in college and
have applied that in atherapeutic setting.

Right, it was one of my favorite
psychology courses and like whenyou think about that optimal

(52:42):
level of arousal regulation thatmorning, like it didn't matter
how experienced I am, howconfident I am, I still had to
deep breath, focus on what I cancontrol in this moment.
Like students are going to getup and walk around, somebody's
going to talk, somebody's goingto say something that throws me,
but I have that all the samearousal regulation, thought,
control, deep breath, and then Ican execute in that moment,

(53:03):
which happened to just beteaching a lecture.
So it's that same skilleverywhere, yeah absolutely, Dr
Chelsea.

How can our listeners find more of you?

Yeah, especially if you are in dance
or the arts.
I have a podcast called Passionfor Dance that talks through
all of these mental skills, andso Passion for Dance, wherever
you get your podcasts.
And otherwise, my I'm on mywebsite is just my name Chelsea
paradicom.
Paradi is P I E R O T?
I.

Awesome.
Thanks so much for being withus today.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
It was really fun.

Yeah, this was a great conversation.
All right, moms, thanks so muchfor being with us today.
Hey, if you like our show, wewould love it if you would leave
us a five-star rating andreview on Apple Podcasts so that
we can reach more parents likeyou.
We'd love it if you wouldfollow us on social media.
We are at the Brainy Moms andif you would rather see our
faces, we're on YouTube at theBrainy Moms.

(53:59):
And if you want to see Sandytalk more about cognitive
training and how the brainlearns, you can see some demos
and really cool stuff on herTikTok channel at
thebraintrainerlady.
So, look, that is all the smartstuff that we have for you
today.
We hope that you feel a littlesmarter and we're going to catch
you next time.

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Beyond the Win: Tips for Parenting Young Athletes & Dancers | Dr. Chelsea Pierotti

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Beyond the Win: Tips for Parenting Young Athletes & Dancers | Dr. Chelsea Pierotti