March 4, 2024 • 23 mins
If you play sports or know a child who plays sports, you MUST listen to this podcast!
Our guest is Coach Peter Verhoef, who has decades of experience preparing kids and teens for national and world competitions. We discuss ways that parents can keep kids involved in sports and prevent burnout. Key Points include:
** Sports can be Transformational
** Tips for How WE can Keep kids ENGAGED in Sports
· Help children to experience achievement (apart from wins/losses)
· Recognize and manage emotional/physical exhaustion
** Crying in Waffles: The Hardest time for a Student Athlete
** Benefits and Risks of taking time off from sports
** When/If to Specialize in One sports vs. playing multiple sports
Coach Peter Verhoef is the head coach and aquatics director at the Bolles School Swimming Program. He coaches athletes to regional, national, and world competitions, including the Olympics over his career, which has spanned decades.
Coach Peter himself is a former youth athlete, having been a finalist at the Olympic swimming trials in 2004 and 2008. He has competed at the world level and was USA team captain representing the United States at the world championships of swimming.
Check out our website PsychEd4Peds.com for more resources.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (00:21):
Welcome back to PsychEd4Peds the child mental
health podcast for pediatricclinicians and for everybody who
takes care of kids.
We're helping you help kids.
I'm your host, Dr.
Elise Fallucco, childpsychiatrist and mom Today on
the pod, we're talking aboutwhat we can do to keep kids
engaged in youth sports andprevent burnout.
(00:41):
And we're also going to talkabout what to do about the
American Academy of Pediatricsrecommendations regarding taking
time off in sports and delayingspecialization in one sport
until mid to late adolescence.
And we have this greatopportunity to be able to talk
about all of these issues withinyouth sports with somebody who
is a professional coach himself.
(01:02):
Coach Peter Verhoff is the headcoach and aquatics director at
the Bolles School SwimmingProgram, which is a nationally
recognized program.
He's had the opportunity tocoach youth athletes to
regional, National,international world, and even
Olympic competitions over hiscareer, which has spanned
decades.
(01:22):
Coach Peter himself is a formeryouth athlete, having been a
finalist at the Olympic swimmingtrials in 2004 and 2008.
In addition, he competed at theworld level and was USA team
captain representing the UnitedStates at the world
championships of swimming.
So please join me in giving awarm welcome to coach Peter
(01:44):
Verhoef.
Coach Peter Verhoef (01:46):
Thanks for having me.
You can also add in, I am yourFriday master's coach.
You forgot to add that.
Oh,
Dr. Elise Fallucco (01:52):
I really should have led with that.
Coach Peter Verhoef (01:53):
I know.
I feel like there was a, there'sa hierarchy that you were going
to go.
And I was like, where is this?
How is she going to end withthis?
So no I am also your FridayBolles Masters coach.
When I'm available.
So add that to my resume, if youwill.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (02:04):
That's very sweet.
Okay so thinking about thepositive aspects of youth
sports, from your experience asan athlete, but more relevantly
as a coach, what do you see arethe major benefits to
participating in youth sports?
Coach Peter Verhoef (02:18):
Yeah.
I think of two things there'sthe benefits of that experience,
and it's an experience, I thinkthat's really important to
clarify, it's an experience insports, it's not who we are it's
an experience that somebody has,it's is it's either
transactional or it'stransformation, right?
And so it's really easy to getreally focused on the benefits
we get from sports.
So a college scholarship orwinning something, or even as
(02:42):
parents for us to get focused onhow.
Our child's achievements elevateus.
So there's these transactionalkind of components that we
really can't ignore either Butthe value of youth sports is
transformational.
If we think about what we wantto create in our society, adults
that are high functioning, thatare productive, that are good
members of our communities.
(03:03):
You need people that arehardworking, that have good
emotional intelligence, thathave grit and resilience and
dedication, and they understanddelayed gratification, and they
understand how to serve and workwith each other and teamwork and
all these kind of things, right?
And all of those things are thethings we learn in sports.
Youth sports is so valuablebecause sports combine all of
those intangibles with aphysical element to it, right?
(03:27):
In sports, we get this reallyconcrete physical experience
where if I work hard, I feellike this.
If I do my practice swing, mybaseball swing 10 times, and
then it starts to look likethis.
And so you get this kind ofconcrete experience that you can
teach all of those reallyimportant, valuable life skills
and characteristics andattributes in our youth sport
(03:50):
system.
And I think that's that's to meis the most valuable piece.
We're developing a whole humanand there's no better way to do
that than the physicalexperience of going through a
sports journey, whatever that isfor that individual.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (04:03):
It's so interesting to hear you
conceptualize it as, bothtransactional and
transformational.
So transactional, yes.
Sports may help you achievecertain things or get
scholarships or, be recognizedas a varsity athlete But the
transformational is sports ishelping you, as you put it so
beautifully, become a wholehuman.
Working through hard thingshelps you in generalizes across
(04:24):
other areas of life.
It's this incredible trainingtool in addition to having all
the other physical and mentalhealth benefits.
So with all of the potentialbenefits of participating in
youth sports, it's so sad tolearn that, in the United
States, 70% of kids.
Drop out of organized sports.
By the time they turned 13.
(04:46):
So they miss out on all thesebenefits.
And while there are many reasonsthat kids drop out of sports,
probably the most common onesare that they stop having fun or
becomes too much of a timecommitment and keeps them from
other things that they enjoybetter.
A lot of fantastic athletes.
I end up over-training and thenburning out.
(05:06):
So reflecting on your years,coaching, what do you think
helps prevent burnout and helpskeeps kids engaged with sports?
Coach Peter Verhoef (05:14):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Burnout is emotional andphysical exhaustion with the
lack of achievement.
So you can really break it downto those three things really
clearly and my job as a coach isto push a kid as hard as they
can keeping those pieces incheck.
I think the lack of achievementis the easiest one to start
with.
Cause it's easy to think of itas like wins and losses.
It's Oh, you just, you've lostevery game this season.
Like you must not be feelingachievement.
(05:35):
But really what we're talkingabout is that personal
achievement.
Like I'm getting better And alsounderstanding as a coach, I need
to give them some achievement.
Like I have to create successfrom time to time in certain
parts of the season, I have tofind little things to make it
successful for them
Dr. Elise Fallucco (05:48):
Achievement is not wins or losses.
And it's so easy in all sportsto compare your performance to
everybody around you.
And the hardest part is to tunethat out and say, I can't
control how fast or how slow orhow good everybody else around
me is I can only control myselfand trying to keep the athlete
focused on just getting better,
Coach Peter Verhoef (06:07):
yeah.
And I think that, comparisonwill steal every bit of joy and
fun you have out of somethingwhen you start just doing
everything in a comparison tosomebody else.
The idea of comparison is movingthe motivation to compete from
intrinsic to extrinsic.
I want to be good because ofsomebody else.
I'm going to be better than theminstead of, I just want to be as
good as I can be.
(06:27):
I'm going to see how far I canpush myself.
And again, it can existtogether.
Competition is not bad, right?
We don't want to, we don't wantto paint competition as the
enemy.
Comparison is where you want tobe careful.
So to your point, identifyingwhat the appropriate amount of
achievement is is so importantfor coaches and parents.
you ask any good coach in anysport how do you create success
for your players?
And they're going to starttalking about little things that
(06:48):
they do.
And sometimes you got to makesome stuff up.
If you're honest, like you justgot to be really creative with
you know what?
We're going to play a silly gametoday.
Whoever wins is, we're going toshow everybody that they can get
better.
And it's just, it just, itsounds dumb, but it's little
bits of achievement they canhang on to and carry forward.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (07:04):
I loved hearing what you said too, about
creating opportunities forachievement even outside of
competitions, knowing that's areally important factor that
helps keep people motivated.
And I interrupted you before yougot to talk about physical and
emotionally exhaustion.
Coach Peter Verhoef (07:17):
Yeah.
And that can be tricky,especially with young athlete,
because, they're still learningtheir bodies.
So really, what you need is likea coach and a parent to be able
to work together and for each totrust each other.
If I get a call.
From a parent and said, my kidis exhausted.
Every day I see the kid here,he's fine.
They're laughing with theirfriends or hanging out, and the
parent calls like they'regetting home.
They're in tears.
(07:38):
They're emotional about stuff.
They're barely able to sleep.
they're on edge all the time.
I want my kid to take a break.
I need my kid to have a day off.
I need to trust them that's whatthey need.
And I'd be okay with it.
right?
Even if I can't see it.
And it's a little bit of trialand error, right?
Everybody's trying to push theirlimit and you're going to bump
up against your limits.
The most times I've heard of akid breakdown is about a month
(07:59):
after they get their driver'slicense.
And it's for this sole reasonthat their parent has been
driving them to practice.
For years, and they get in thecar and maybe they don't say a
lot, but they just, there's alittle check in that happens at
that point.
Mom, Hey, you look really tired.
Yeah, practice was really hard.
Maybe they tell them whathappened that day and it was
really stressful or whatever itis, but they're having this
little check in place to processemotions, process, physical
fatigue, things like that.
(08:20):
And all of a sudden kid getstheir license, boom, they're
driving to practice every day.
And about a month later, they'vegot about a month worth of not
processing any of that.
And I've literally, I've had amom call me, at five in the
morning, we had a practice,Jack's not coming, he's crying
about the waffles like he's intears about his waffles and sure
enough, we backed it up and itwas about a month, they had a
really close familyrelationship, she talked to him
(08:41):
every day in the car for 20minutes, then came home from
practice, and all of a suddenthat went away, and that, he
didn't know how to process whatwas going on, on.
And so they had to find a newway to sit down and have those
conversations over dinner orsomewhere else.
I've not been the first one andit won't be the last.
I've had at least a dozen.
Once kids start driving and theydon't have that time with their
mom and dad anymore in the car,it changes how they process
(09:03):
their physical and emotionalexhaustion when it comes to
burnout and fatigue.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (09:08):
That's such an amazing clinical pearl.
I think I underestimated howimportant it is for the kid.
Cause it's not like theirfriends are saying like, let's
process how swim practice wasor, how did that lacrosse game
go?
That's not what you're talkingabout with your peers.
And sometimes it is helpful tobe able to vent.
Coach Peter Verhoef (09:25):
And it doesn't mean that you get in the
car and you have to unpackeverything.
It just means there's a spacewhere they can say, I'm tired.
And okay.
I've said it about it's outthere.
No, it was really hard.
It's a space that, that I thinkexists for a lot of kids and
parents, especially when you'vegot multiple siblings, you're
doing multiple sports, thatperiod of life where, yeah, that
(09:45):
might be the only time where youreally connect for a few minutes
before you run home, you throwdinner on the table, they run to
do homework, they get to bed,right?
It's just a busy part of theirlives.
So I think that's a reallyimportant thought to have is
like, where is that processinghappening?
I think it's it's really at theend of the day, I think it comes
down to us as coaches andparents to lead the way there's
a lot of responsibility here onthe parent and the coach to help
(10:06):
this process and a kid stayengaged.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (10:09):
I love that.
One of the takeaway points beingmake sure that the parents are
creating a space for their kidsto be able to reflect and
process on a regular basis orjust touch base about how are
they doing.
Because sports can be physicallyand emotionally exhausting
because life can be physicallyand emotionally exhausting
Coach Peter Verhoef (10:25):
if you're doing it Yeah, It's a big myth
out there that we're trying tomake it easier.
No, we're trying to get betterat doing it, right?
We're not trying to make iteasier.
It's not going to get anyeasier.
Just taking away stress is notthe goal.
It's being able to navigatestress appropriately.
And that's again, where sportscome into play over and over
again.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (10:42):
So tying in with, this idea of creating
space so that you can help kidsprocess, what do you think
parents can do or say to makesure that were not inadvertently
putting pressure on them ortaking away some of their joy.
For example, in the basketballleague that one of my kids play
in, They had a mandatory parentmeeting at the start of the
season and they said here iswhat you were supposed to say
(11:03):
after each game.
You are not supposed to tellthem what they did wrong and how
they can fix their free throws.
Here is your script, write itdown.
I loved watching you play.
That's it.
Full stop.
Coach Peter Verhoef (11:16):
I think that's spot on My boys are nine
and seven.
So I'm in that phase where I'mwe're getting into sports.
We're navigating that a littlebit.
And my wife and I, we got prettygood at, Hey, we really love
watching that too.
That was a lot of fun.
And five minutes later, I'mlike, so do you think you could
do a little bit better?
You it is, it's really hard todo.
I know.
And I think there's a littlenuance there.
(11:36):
I think, there's because reallywhat we're saying is the main
reason we say that is that thehome and the parent.
needs to be a absolutely be asafe place for the value of that
individual within the family,right?
My job as a parent is to to toprovide a safe space around the
house and that value of thatchild to me, like that has to be
(11:59):
protected And so when we sayHey, I think you could have done
a little bit better.
I want to see you try a littlebit harder or the worst is I am
really disappointed in how youdid that.
I can't believe you've messed upthat shot.
All of a sudden what that'sdoing is eroding that safe place
for them to be in.
When you're talking about thingsthat parents need to say to kids
the, I love to watch you competeis number one.
But also make sure you'recreating a space for them that
(12:21):
if sports stop tomorrow, They'restill loved and valued and all
that kind of stuff.
And then, making sure that wekeep those extrinsic factors
from becoming too big of a deal.
And if you have a coach that'sreally big into winning like we
can win a championship thisyear.
So we're going to try reallyhard over and over again.
And every day we come topractice, we're going to talk
about this championship and he'sdoing his best to motivate them.
(12:41):
But they may start hearing if wedon't win this, then we're not
valuable.
And so being able to protectthem from that is super
important.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (12:48):
I love your point that the role of the
parent is to create a lovingaccepting space where the child
exists separate from theirperformance, where they are
loved unconditionally regardlessof how well they play, how
poorly they play, And That we asparents need to be really
careful about what we tell ourkids after their games or their
(13:10):
meets or competitions.
And we should just focus on, weloved watching you play.
We love you, whether you won,you lost, you scored high,
poorly.
And the hard part is reallygoing to be holding our tongues
and not trying to jump in andcoach them and tell them the
ways that they could haveimproved or how they need to
(13:30):
work on their free throws orwhatever it is.
And to your point aboutintrinsic versus extrinsic
motivation, we should really tryto shift our kids emphasis and
focus on doing the best thatthey can do, improving
themselves individually and notgetting too caught up in
external goals like winning orqualifying.
Coach Peter Verhoef (13:51):
And Bolles is a great example.
I don't know how many statechampionships we have, and I'm
probably going to be in troublefor not knowing that, but I
think
Dr. Elise Fallucco (13:58):
it's at least 30.
Oh, it's over 30,
Coach Peter Verhoef (14:00):
30, some 30 consecutive state championships
in swimming.
And again, I could start everyseason with Hey guys, here's the
deal.
We've got to win another one.
Or I can say again, what happensif.
The week before the statechampionships the flu goes
through the whole team and 25people can't go.
And we lose the meeting.
Is it not worth doing?
Are we just, we're not valuableanymore?
(14:21):
Are we not?
You know what it's like who arewe?
We can't have our identityrooted in that.
We've got to make sure we'resetting things up so that it's
not based on that.
It's based on us striving to bethe best we can.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (14:32):
So we've talked about emotional
exhaustion, we've talked aboutburnout in sports.
The American Academy of Pedsrecent clinical report
recommends that kids take timeoff from organized sports in
order to minimize and preventburnout and overuse injuries.
Specifically, theirrecommendation is to take a day
off a week and up to two tothree months off of organized
(14:53):
sports per year.
Now, as a coach of very eliteathletes, I have to ask you, how
do you feel about this?
Do you think this is areasonable ask?
Coach Peter Verhoef (15:04):
Yeah it's a great topic to wrestle with.
And I, this is probably thething I wrestle with at Bolles
the most in terms of thecoaching aspect of my job
Because the easy answer is like,if I just get everybody in the
water every day, for a year,they're going to get better.
I know that they will.
Now there's a point at which youwon't, but.
For how we train and what we do,the more we do, the better, and
(15:25):
so there's this concept of Hey,what's the appropriate amount of
time off and we've gotten alittle bit better at managing
that.
Is it reasonable to take timeoff?
Yes.
We need to have healthy humansthat learn how to take time off
and reset.
And oh, by the way, when.
Kids take time off, they grow.
Especially in swimming, we'restressing their bodies a lot.
If we want them to grow and getbigger, we have to let them
grow, right?
And they need energy to do that.
(15:45):
So every time we have taken abreak, we've noticed growth
spurts, things like that.
It really it's a big difference.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (15:51):
You're decreasing your stress and
you're allowing for growthspurts.
And so there's actually positivephysical growth that occurs
during rest and recovery.
Coach Peter Verhoef (15:59):
I do believe in the one day a week.
I think that's really important.
I think that's probably rootedfor me a little bit in, in faith
and just having a day where youneed to just rest and recharge.
And of course, as a parent oftwo kids.
Our Sunday is not anythingrestful.
It's planning and sports and allthe other stuff.
But, specifically for swimmingin high school here.
We have Sundays are off andthat's pretty important.
(16:20):
We try to protect that as bestwe can.
And then, the idea of 2 to 3months off a year.
I think that maybe means morespread out, you take two weeks
off, start the next thing.
the other benefit to that, thatwe see that we don't take
advantage of often enough inswimming is it comes down to
teaching and learning.
So our brains, as we're tryingto learn a new skill, like we're
trying to create motor neuralpatterns that they're doing over
(16:41):
and over again, especially in asport like swimming or running
where it's super repetitive.
You do a freestyle stroke.
How many thousands of times in asingle practice, right?
And we're trying to break thatstroke down and improve it.
It's really hard to do whenyou're doing it over and over
and over and over again.
But when we do take that twoweek break, you're letting that
all of those neuro pathways,just settle and calm down I'll
(17:01):
have a kid working on atechnical change for eight
months of the season, just everyday, trying to do it over and
over again and get it right.
They get it wrong.
Can't do it.
it shows up just a little bit.
They take two weeks off and thefirst week back in practice,
they got it like that.
Wow.
There's some real value in that.
And then again, it depends onthe sport.
Swimming is an aerobic basedsport.
Like our, the way that swimmingworks is, technical.
(17:23):
Yes, but also based on theseenergy systems, there are some
people, their body morphology isthat they need to do more to be
better.If they take three weeksoff, they're actually going to
go backwards, right?
And again, the team sports, someskill based sports.
Those are very different, right?
They're not relying on an energysystem per se to be, perform
well, but I think that you needto
Dr. Elise Fallucco (17:43):
maintain aerobic a certain level of
aerobic fitness to be able tokeep going.
And I think, I like what yousaid about two things.
One, that, the two to threemonths off is not on block, that
it's a total of two to threemonths spread out over the year.
And so it could look like acouple weeks off here and there.
Coach Peter Verhoef (18:01):
If you can get two weeks off usually that
first week is decompression,right?
That first week is they'reactually like not actually
recovering.
They're actually just recoveringfrom what they were doing.
The second week is when theystart to normalize and that new
kind of pattern of living oractivity or whatever it is
takes.
And then what happens is at theend of that second week is when
(18:22):
they start craving to come back.
And I think those are the bestbreak.
That's somewhere in that two tothree week range.
And again, we don't get anopportunity to do that at
Bolles.
Last year.
We got no more than a week off.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (18:33):
But again, the type of athletes you're
coaching are very elite andcompeting at nationals and on
the world stage.
And so for them, maybe the ideaof taking two to three months
off per year may not make sensewith their goals to be competing
at that level.
Whereas we know the majority ofyouth athletes that we're
talking about are not trainingto be competing at the world
(18:55):
level.
And so for them their goals maybe different.
Their goal is to preventburnout, prevent overuse
injuries, maintain a healthy,positive relationship with
sports for their life so thatthey continue to be active.
think you and I've talked beforeabout how, like one of your sons
who plays baseball has someteammates who, maybe at age six
(19:15):
are doing year round baseballand weekend competitions.
And they're like, I am buildingthe world's future baseball
player.
So the American Academy ofPediatrics is really trying to
counter the pressure tospecialize in sports early.
And so they specifically havesaid, you really should be a
multi sport athlete if you can,and delay choosing one or
(19:36):
specializing in one sport untilmid to late adolescence.
How do you help the families ofthe student athletes that you
coach navigate this pressure tojust do swimming?
Coach Peter Verhoef (19:49):
Yeah, this is a tough one for some coaches
because our sport is like therelationship with the water,
like we're not fish, right?
We're humans.
We didn't like, we're notevolved to be in the water.
So like you have to work on howyou are in the water.
Getting into swimming.
You've got this kind of aerobiccomponent that, you can't take a
season off of swimming, nottouch the water and only do like
basketball, right?
There's some benefit there, butyou're going to lose ground and
(20:11):
swimming for sure.
So from your perspective, doingmultiple sports in addition to
swimming is not necessarilycross training you or preparing
you to be a better swimmer.
Whereas to your earlier pointfor some of the team based
sports like basketball orlacrosse or football or soccer,
that some of those skills thatyou practice on the field in one
sport may translate to anothersport and help you with overall
(20:34):
and general athleticism.
So it sounds like for swimming,it may be a little bit of a
different story.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (20:41):
So final take home points that you would
have, any tips or advice you'dwant to share to try to promote
healthy involvement in youthsports.
Coach Peter Verhoef (20:50):
Yeah, I think, most of what I see is
people just lose sight of what'sreally important in sports Youth
sports is about developing greatpeople.
It's not about the nextgeneration athlete.
You're going to get some greatathletes out of it, but they're
going to make that decision todo that probably beyond their
high school years, right?
Get clear with what you want.
(21:10):
What does good look like?
We got to think through whatdoes good look like for my kid?
And really what good should looklike is a productive member of
society, a great parent, a greatsister, brother, friend,
whatever it is, like, how are wecreating those people business
leader, entrepreneur, whateverit is, like, how are we setting
them up for that?
Dr. Elise Fallucco (21:30):
What you've said throughout the entire
podcast is it's really importantthat kids have a holistic focus
on sports and that parents workto foster that.
And the coaches work to fosterthat and to be able to see that,
yes, sports is so important andit's a vehicle for a lot of
great things.
Not the least of which is,helping the athlete and the
child develop.
(21:51):
I think you've really brought upso many important points during
this discussion.
I just want to recap andhighlight some of them We talked
about how parents and coachescan foster engagement in youth
sports by trying to find waysfor kids to feel achievement, to
feel success regardless of winor loss records.
We talked about the importanceof managing physical and
(22:12):
emotional exhaustion andspecifically that it is critical
that parents and families createa space for kids where they feel
loved and accepted regardless oftheir performance, regardless of
whether they win or lose.
And I think the hard lessonsthat I'm taking away from this
conversation are that as aparent the best thing I can do
(22:33):
to try to encourage my kids tostay involved in sports is to
cheer them on, tell them howmuch I love watching them
compete and play, and create aspace.
Where they know that they areloved and accepted regardless of
how well they play or even ifthey choose to continue to play
a certain sport.
Well, I want to thank ourincredible special guest, Coach
(22:55):
Peter Verhoff and thank ourlisteners and friends and
colleagues at Psyched for Peds.
I'm really curious to hear yourthoughts about this important
subject and what we can continueto do to try to help support our
kids.
And help them get all of thephysical health and mental
health benefits from involvementin movement, in dance, in
sports.
(23:15):
So please drop a comment on ourwebsite, psyched4peds.
com, find us on Instagram,social media at psyched4peds,
and let us know what you thinkand also what you want to hear
about.
Thanks for listening.
And I hope you'll join us nextTuesday as we continue this
series on youth sports.
Welcome back to PsychEd4Peds the child mental
health podcast for pediatricclinicians and for everybody who
takes care of kids.
We're helping you help kids.
I'm your host, Dr.
Elise Fallucco, childpsychiatrist and mom Today on
the pod, we're talking aboutwhat we can do to keep kids
engaged in youth sports andprevent burnout.
(00:41):
And we're also going to talkabout what to do about the
American Academy of Pediatricsrecommendations regarding taking
time off in sports and delayingspecialization in one sport
until mid to late adolescence.
And we have this greatopportunity to be able to talk
about all of these issues withinyouth sports with somebody who
is a professional coach himself.
(01:02):
Coach Peter Verhoff is the headcoach and aquatics director at
the Bolles School SwimmingProgram, which is a nationally
recognized program.
He's had the opportunity tocoach youth athletes to
regional, National,international world, and even
Olympic competitions over hiscareer, which has spanned
decades.
(01:22):
Coach Peter himself is a formeryouth athlete, having been a
finalist at the Olympic swimmingtrials in 2004 and 2008.
In addition, he competed at theworld level and was USA team
captain representing the UnitedStates at the world
championships of swimming.
So please join me in giving awarm welcome to coach Peter
(01:44):
Verhoef.
Coach Peter Verhoef (01:46):
Thanks for having me.
You can also add in, I am yourFriday master's coach.
You forgot to add that.
Oh,
Dr. Elise Fallucco (01:52):
I really should have led with that.
Coach Peter Verhoef (01:53):
I know.
I feel like there was a, there'sa hierarchy that you were going
to go.
And I was like, where is this?
How is she going to end withthis?
So no I am also your FridayBolles Masters coach.
When I'm available.
So add that to my resume, if youwill.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (02:04):
That's very sweet.
Okay so thinking about thepositive aspects of youth
sports, from your experience asan athlete, but more relevantly
as a coach, what do you see arethe major benefits to
participating in youth sports?
Coach Peter Verhoef (02:18):
Yeah.
I think of two things there'sthe benefits of that experience,
and it's an experience, I thinkthat's really important to
clarify, it's an experience insports, it's not who we are it's
an experience that somebody has,it's is it's either
transactional or it'stransformation, right?
And so it's really easy to getreally focused on the benefits
we get from sports.
So a college scholarship orwinning something, or even as
(02:42):
parents for us to get focused onhow.
Our child's achievements elevateus.
So there's these transactionalkind of components that we
really can't ignore either Butthe value of youth sports is
transformational.
If we think about what we wantto create in our society, adults
that are high functioning, thatare productive, that are good
members of our communities.
(03:03):
You need people that arehardworking, that have good
emotional intelligence, thathave grit and resilience and
dedication, and they understanddelayed gratification, and they
understand how to serve and workwith each other and teamwork and
all these kind of things, right?
And all of those things are thethings we learn in sports.
Youth sports is so valuablebecause sports combine all of
those intangibles with aphysical element to it, right?
(03:27):
In sports, we get this reallyconcrete physical experience
where if I work hard, I feellike this.
If I do my practice swing, mybaseball swing 10 times, and
then it starts to look likethis.
And so you get this kind ofconcrete experience that you can
teach all of those reallyimportant, valuable life skills
and characteristics andattributes in our youth sport
(03:50):
system.
And I think that's that's to meis the most valuable piece.
We're developing a whole humanand there's no better way to do
that than the physicalexperience of going through a
sports journey, whatever that isfor that individual.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (04:03):
It's so interesting to hear you
conceptualize it as, bothtransactional and
transformational.
So transactional, yes.
Sports may help you achievecertain things or get
scholarships or, be recognizedas a varsity athlete But the
transformational is sports ishelping you, as you put it so
beautifully, become a wholehuman.
Working through hard thingshelps you in generalizes across
(04:24):
other areas of life.
It's this incredible trainingtool in addition to having all
the other physical and mentalhealth benefits.
So with all of the potentialbenefits of participating in
youth sports, it's so sad tolearn that, in the United
States, 70% of kids.
Drop out of organized sports.
By the time they turned 13.
(04:46):
So they miss out on all thesebenefits.
And while there are many reasonsthat kids drop out of sports,
probably the most common onesare that they stop having fun or
becomes too much of a timecommitment and keeps them from
other things that they enjoybetter.
A lot of fantastic athletes.
I end up over-training and thenburning out.
(05:06):
So reflecting on your years,coaching, what do you think
helps prevent burnout and helpskeeps kids engaged with sports?
Coach Peter Verhoef (05:14):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Burnout is emotional andphysical exhaustion with the
lack of achievement.
So you can really break it downto those three things really
clearly and my job as a coach isto push a kid as hard as they
can keeping those pieces incheck.
I think the lack of achievementis the easiest one to start
with.
Cause it's easy to think of itas like wins and losses.
It's Oh, you just, you've lostevery game this season.
Like you must not be feelingachievement.
(05:35):
But really what we're talkingabout is that personal
achievement.
Like I'm getting better And alsounderstanding as a coach, I need
to give them some achievement.
Like I have to create successfrom time to time in certain
parts of the season, I have tofind little things to make it
successful for them
Dr. Elise Fallucco (05:48):
Achievement is not wins or losses.
And it's so easy in all sportsto compare your performance to
everybody around you.
And the hardest part is to tunethat out and say, I can't
control how fast or how slow orhow good everybody else around
me is I can only control myselfand trying to keep the athlete
focused on just getting better,
Coach Peter Verhoef (06:07):
yeah.
And I think that, comparisonwill steal every bit of joy and
fun you have out of somethingwhen you start just doing
everything in a comparison tosomebody else.
The idea of comparison is movingthe motivation to compete from
intrinsic to extrinsic.
I want to be good because ofsomebody else.
I'm going to be better than theminstead of, I just want to be as
good as I can be.
(06:27):
I'm going to see how far I canpush myself.
And again, it can existtogether.
Competition is not bad, right?
We don't want to, we don't wantto paint competition as the
enemy.
Comparison is where you want tobe careful.
So to your point, identifyingwhat the appropriate amount of
achievement is is so importantfor coaches and parents.
you ask any good coach in anysport how do you create success
for your players?
And they're going to starttalking about little things that
(06:48):
they do.
And sometimes you got to makesome stuff up.
If you're honest, like you justgot to be really creative with
you know what?
We're going to play a silly gametoday.
Whoever wins is, we're going toshow everybody that they can get
better.
And it's just, it just, itsounds dumb, but it's little
bits of achievement they canhang on to and carry forward.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (07:04):
I loved hearing what you said too, about
creating opportunities forachievement even outside of
competitions, knowing that's areally important factor that
helps keep people motivated.
And I interrupted you before yougot to talk about physical and
emotionally exhaustion.
Coach Peter Verhoef (07:17):
Yeah.
And that can be tricky,especially with young athlete,
because, they're still learningtheir bodies.
So really, what you need is likea coach and a parent to be able
to work together and for each totrust each other.
If I get a call.
From a parent and said, my kidis exhausted.
Every day I see the kid here,he's fine.
They're laughing with theirfriends or hanging out, and the
parent calls like they'regetting home.
They're in tears.
(07:38):
They're emotional about stuff.
They're barely able to sleep.
they're on edge all the time.
I want my kid to take a break.
I need my kid to have a day off.
I need to trust them that's whatthey need.
And I'd be okay with it.
right?
Even if I can't see it.
And it's a little bit of trialand error, right?
Everybody's trying to push theirlimit and you're going to bump
up against your limits.
The most times I've heard of akid breakdown is about a month
(07:59):
after they get their driver'slicense.
And it's for this sole reasonthat their parent has been
driving them to practice.
For years, and they get in thecar and maybe they don't say a
lot, but they just, there's alittle check in that happens at
that point.
Mom, Hey, you look really tired.
Yeah, practice was really hard.
Maybe they tell them whathappened that day and it was
really stressful or whatever itis, but they're having this
little check in place to processemotions, process, physical
fatigue, things like that.
(08:20):
And all of a sudden kid getstheir license, boom, they're
driving to practice every day.
And about a month later, they'vegot about a month worth of not
processing any of that.
And I've literally, I've had amom call me, at five in the
morning, we had a practice,Jack's not coming, he's crying
about the waffles like he's intears about his waffles and sure
enough, we backed it up and itwas about a month, they had a
really close familyrelationship, she talked to him
(08:41):
every day in the car for 20minutes, then came home from
practice, and all of a suddenthat went away, and that, he
didn't know how to process whatwas going on, on.
And so they had to find a newway to sit down and have those
conversations over dinner orsomewhere else.
I've not been the first one andit won't be the last.
I've had at least a dozen.
Once kids start driving and theydon't have that time with their
mom and dad anymore in the car,it changes how they process
(09:03):
their physical and emotionalexhaustion when it comes to
burnout and fatigue.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (09:08):
That's such an amazing clinical pearl.
I think I underestimated howimportant it is for the kid.
Cause it's not like theirfriends are saying like, let's
process how swim practice wasor, how did that lacrosse game
go?
That's not what you're talkingabout with your peers.
And sometimes it is helpful tobe able to vent.
Coach Peter Verhoef (09:25):
And it doesn't mean that you get in the
car and you have to unpackeverything.
It just means there's a spacewhere they can say, I'm tired.
And okay.
I've said it about it's outthere.
No, it was really hard.
It's a space that, that I thinkexists for a lot of kids and
parents, especially when you'vegot multiple siblings, you're
doing multiple sports, thatperiod of life where, yeah, that
(09:45):
might be the only time where youreally connect for a few minutes
before you run home, you throwdinner on the table, they run to
do homework, they get to bed,right?
It's just a busy part of theirlives.
So I think that's a reallyimportant thought to have is
like, where is that processinghappening?
I think it's it's really at theend of the day, I think it comes
down to us as coaches andparents to lead the way there's
a lot of responsibility here onthe parent and the coach to help
(10:06):
this process and a kid stayengaged.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (10:09):
I love that.
One of the takeaway points beingmake sure that the parents are
creating a space for their kidsto be able to reflect and
process on a regular basis orjust touch base about how are
they doing.
Because sports can be physicallyand emotionally exhausting
because life can be physicallyand emotionally exhausting
Coach Peter Verhoef (10:25):
if you're doing it Yeah, It's a big myth
out there that we're trying tomake it easier.
No, we're trying to get betterat doing it, right?
We're not trying to make iteasier.
It's not going to get anyeasier.
Just taking away stress is notthe goal.
It's being able to navigatestress appropriately.
And that's again, where sportscome into play over and over
again.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (10:42):
So tying in with, this idea of creating
space so that you can help kidsprocess, what do you think
parents can do or say to makesure that were not inadvertently
putting pressure on them ortaking away some of their joy.
For example, in the basketballleague that one of my kids play
in, They had a mandatory parentmeeting at the start of the
season and they said here iswhat you were supposed to say
(11:03):
after each game.
You are not supposed to tellthem what they did wrong and how
they can fix their free throws.
Here is your script, write itdown.
I loved watching you play.
That's it.
Full stop.
Coach Peter Verhoef (11:16):
I think that's spot on My boys are nine
and seven.
So I'm in that phase where I'mwe're getting into sports.
We're navigating that a littlebit.
And my wife and I, we got prettygood at, Hey, we really love
watching that too.
That was a lot of fun.
And five minutes later, I'mlike, so do you think you could
do a little bit better?
You it is, it's really hard todo.
I know.
And I think there's a littlenuance there.
(11:36):
I think, there's because reallywhat we're saying is the main
reason we say that is that thehome and the parent.
needs to be a absolutely be asafe place for the value of that
individual within the family,right?
My job as a parent is to to toprovide a safe space around the
house and that value of thatchild to me, like that has to be
(11:59):
protected And so when we sayHey, I think you could have done
a little bit better.
I want to see you try a littlebit harder or the worst is I am
really disappointed in how youdid that.
I can't believe you've messed upthat shot.
All of a sudden what that'sdoing is eroding that safe place
for them to be in.
When you're talking about thingsthat parents need to say to kids
the, I love to watch you competeis number one.
But also make sure you'recreating a space for them that
(12:21):
if sports stop tomorrow, They'restill loved and valued and all
that kind of stuff.
And then, making sure that wekeep those extrinsic factors
from becoming too big of a deal.
And if you have a coach that'sreally big into winning like we
can win a championship thisyear.
So we're going to try reallyhard over and over again.
And every day we come topractice, we're going to talk
about this championship and he'sdoing his best to motivate them.
(12:41):
But they may start hearing if wedon't win this, then we're not
valuable.
And so being able to protectthem from that is super
important.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (12:48):
I love your point that the role of the
parent is to create a lovingaccepting space where the child
exists separate from theirperformance, where they are
loved unconditionally regardlessof how well they play, how
poorly they play, And That we asparents need to be really
careful about what we tell ourkids after their games or their
(13:10):
meets or competitions.
And we should just focus on, weloved watching you play.
We love you, whether you won,you lost, you scored high,
poorly.
And the hard part is reallygoing to be holding our tongues
and not trying to jump in andcoach them and tell them the
ways that they could haveimproved or how they need to
(13:30):
work on their free throws orwhatever it is.
And to your point aboutintrinsic versus extrinsic
motivation, we should really tryto shift our kids emphasis and
focus on doing the best thatthey can do, improving
themselves individually and notgetting too caught up in
external goals like winning orqualifying.
Coach Peter Verhoef (13:51):
And Bolles is a great example.
I don't know how many statechampionships we have, and I'm
probably going to be in troublefor not knowing that, but I
think
Dr. Elise Fallucco (13:58):
it's at least 30.
Oh, it's over 30,
Coach Peter Verhoef (14:00):
30, some 30 consecutive state championships
in swimming.
And again, I could start everyseason with Hey guys, here's the
deal.
We've got to win another one.
Or I can say again, what happensif.
The week before the statechampionships the flu goes
through the whole team and 25people can't go.
And we lose the meeting.
Is it not worth doing?
Are we just, we're not valuableanymore?
(14:21):
Are we not?
You know what it's like who arewe?
We can't have our identityrooted in that.
We've got to make sure we'resetting things up so that it's
not based on that.
It's based on us striving to bethe best we can.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (14:32):
So we've talked about emotional
exhaustion, we've talked aboutburnout in sports.
The American Academy of Pedsrecent clinical report
recommends that kids take timeoff from organized sports in
order to minimize and preventburnout and overuse injuries.
Specifically, theirrecommendation is to take a day
off a week and up to two tothree months off of organized
(14:53):
sports per year.
Now, as a coach of very eliteathletes, I have to ask you, how
do you feel about this?
Do you think this is areasonable ask?
Coach Peter Verhoef (15:04):
Yeah it's a great topic to wrestle with.
And I, this is probably thething I wrestle with at Bolles
the most in terms of thecoaching aspect of my job
Because the easy answer is like,if I just get everybody in the
water every day, for a year,they're going to get better.
I know that they will.
Now there's a point at which youwon't, but.
For how we train and what we do,the more we do, the better, and
(15:25):
so there's this concept of Hey,what's the appropriate amount of
time off and we've gotten alittle bit better at managing
that.
Is it reasonable to take timeoff?
Yes.
We need to have healthy humansthat learn how to take time off
and reset.
And oh, by the way, when.
Kids take time off, they grow.
Especially in swimming, we'restressing their bodies a lot.
If we want them to grow and getbigger, we have to let them
grow, right?
And they need energy to do that.
(15:45):
So every time we have taken abreak, we've noticed growth
spurts, things like that.
It really it's a big difference.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (15:51):
You're decreasing your stress and
you're allowing for growthspurts.
And so there's actually positivephysical growth that occurs
during rest and recovery.
Coach Peter Verhoef (15:59):
I do believe in the one day a week.
I think that's really important.
I think that's probably rootedfor me a little bit in, in faith
and just having a day where youneed to just rest and recharge.
And of course, as a parent oftwo kids.
Our Sunday is not anythingrestful.
It's planning and sports and allthe other stuff.
But, specifically for swimmingin high school here.
We have Sundays are off andthat's pretty important.
(16:20):
We try to protect that as bestwe can.
And then, the idea of 2 to 3months off a year.
I think that maybe means morespread out, you take two weeks
off, start the next thing.
the other benefit to that, thatwe see that we don't take
advantage of often enough inswimming is it comes down to
teaching and learning.
So our brains, as we're tryingto learn a new skill, like we're
trying to create motor neuralpatterns that they're doing over
(16:41):
and over again, especially in asport like swimming or running
where it's super repetitive.
You do a freestyle stroke.
How many thousands of times in asingle practice, right?
And we're trying to break thatstroke down and improve it.
It's really hard to do whenyou're doing it over and over
and over and over again.
But when we do take that twoweek break, you're letting that
all of those neuro pathways,just settle and calm down I'll
(17:01):
have a kid working on atechnical change for eight
months of the season, just everyday, trying to do it over and
over again and get it right.
They get it wrong.
Can't do it.
it shows up just a little bit.
They take two weeks off and thefirst week back in practice,
they got it like that.
Wow.
There's some real value in that.
And then again, it depends onthe sport.
Swimming is an aerobic basedsport.
Like our, the way that swimmingworks is, technical.
(17:23):
Yes, but also based on theseenergy systems, there are some
people, their body morphology isthat they need to do more to be
better.If they take three weeksoff, they're actually going to
go backwards, right?
And again, the team sports, someskill based sports.
Those are very different, right?
They're not relying on an energysystem per se to be, perform
well, but I think that you needto
Dr. Elise Fallucco (17:43):
maintain aerobic a certain level of
aerobic fitness to be able tokeep going.
And I think, I like what yousaid about two things.
One, that, the two to threemonths off is not on block, that
it's a total of two to threemonths spread out over the year.
And so it could look like acouple weeks off here and there.
Coach Peter Verhoef (18:01):
If you can get two weeks off usually that
first week is decompression,right?
That first week is they'reactually like not actually
recovering.
They're actually just recoveringfrom what they were doing.
The second week is when theystart to normalize and that new
kind of pattern of living oractivity or whatever it is
takes.
And then what happens is at theend of that second week is when
(18:22):
they start craving to come back.
And I think those are the bestbreak.
That's somewhere in that two tothree week range.
And again, we don't get anopportunity to do that at
Bolles.
Last year.
We got no more than a week off.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (18:33):
But again, the type of athletes you're
coaching are very elite andcompeting at nationals and on
the world stage.
And so for them, maybe the ideaof taking two to three months
off per year may not make sensewith their goals to be competing
at that level.
Whereas we know the majority ofyouth athletes that we're
talking about are not trainingto be competing at the world
(18:55):
level.
And so for them their goals maybe different.
Their goal is to preventburnout, prevent overuse
injuries, maintain a healthy,positive relationship with
sports for their life so thatthey continue to be active.
think you and I've talked beforeabout how, like one of your sons
who plays baseball has someteammates who, maybe at age six
(19:15):
are doing year round baseballand weekend competitions.
And they're like, I am buildingthe world's future baseball
player.
So the American Academy ofPediatrics is really trying to
counter the pressure tospecialize in sports early.
And so they specifically havesaid, you really should be a
multi sport athlete if you can,and delay choosing one or
(19:36):
specializing in one sport untilmid to late adolescence.
How do you help the families ofthe student athletes that you
coach navigate this pressure tojust do swimming?
Coach Peter Verhoef (19:49):
Yeah, this is a tough one for some coaches
because our sport is like therelationship with the water,
like we're not fish, right?
We're humans.
We didn't like, we're notevolved to be in the water.
So like you have to work on howyou are in the water.
Getting into swimming.
You've got this kind of aerobiccomponent that, you can't take a
season off of swimming, nottouch the water and only do like
basketball, right?
There's some benefit there, butyou're going to lose ground and
(20:11):
swimming for sure.
So from your perspective, doingmultiple sports in addition to
swimming is not necessarilycross training you or preparing
you to be a better swimmer.
Whereas to your earlier pointfor some of the team based
sports like basketball orlacrosse or football or soccer,
that some of those skills thatyou practice on the field in one
sport may translate to anothersport and help you with overall
(20:34):
and general athleticism.
So it sounds like for swimming,it may be a little bit of a
different story.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (20:41):
So final take home points that you would
have, any tips or advice you'dwant to share to try to promote
healthy involvement in youthsports.
Coach Peter Verhoef (20:50):
Yeah, I think, most of what I see is
people just lose sight of what'sreally important in sports Youth
sports is about developing greatpeople.
It's not about the nextgeneration athlete.
You're going to get some greatathletes out of it, but they're
going to make that decision todo that probably beyond their
high school years, right?
Get clear with what you want.
(21:10):
What does good look like?
We got to think through whatdoes good look like for my kid?
And really what good should looklike is a productive member of
society, a great parent, a greatsister, brother, friend,
whatever it is, like, how are wecreating those people business
leader, entrepreneur, whateverit is, like, how are we setting
them up for that?
Dr. Elise Fallucco (21:30):
What you've said throughout the entire
podcast is it's really importantthat kids have a holistic focus
on sports and that parents workto foster that.
And the coaches work to fosterthat and to be able to see that,
yes, sports is so important andit's a vehicle for a lot of
great things.
Not the least of which is,helping the athlete and the
child develop.
(21:51):
I think you've really brought upso many important points during
this discussion.
I just want to recap andhighlight some of them We talked
about how parents and coachescan foster engagement in youth
sports by trying to find waysfor kids to feel achievement, to
feel success regardless of winor loss records.
We talked about the importanceof managing physical and
(22:12):
emotional exhaustion andspecifically that it is critical
that parents and families createa space for kids where they feel
loved and accepted regardless oftheir performance, regardless of
whether they win or lose.
And I think the hard lessonsthat I'm taking away from this
conversation are that as aparent the best thing I can do
(22:33):
to try to encourage my kids tostay involved in sports is to
cheer them on, tell them howmuch I love watching them
compete and play, and create aspace.
Where they know that they areloved and accepted regardless of
how well they play or even ifthey choose to continue to play
a certain sport.
Well, I want to thank ourincredible special guest, Coach
(22:55):
Peter Verhoff and thank ourlisteners and friends and
colleagues at Psyched for Peds.
I'm really curious to hear yourthoughts about this important
subject and what we can continueto do to try to help support our
kids.
And help them get all of thephysical health and mental
health benefits from involvementin movement, in dance, in
sports.
(23:15):
So please drop a comment on ourwebsite, psyched4peds.
com, find us on Instagram,social media at psyched4peds,
and let us know what you thinkand also what you want to hear
about.
Thanks for listening.
And I hope you'll join us nextTuesday as we continue this
series on youth sports.
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