How to Ease Sports Parenting Stress

If you really want to help your athlete do their best, succeed, grow and develop, then I have three simple suggestions: Relax, release, and rejoice.

Relax

When I say relax, I do not suggest that you should be apathetic about your child’s youth sports experience. I’m not even saying that it’s not okay to be nervous or even get upset about things that happen. Throughout the course of your child’s sports journey, there will undoubtedly be things that frustrate you or cause you angst.

What I am saying is that you should not be so obsessed about your child’s performance that you keep a very narrow view of the whole experience and refuse to see the bigger picture of the true value of youth sports.

Release

One of the hardest jobs of parenting is learning to let go. For a while, when your kids are little, you are pretty much in control, but your job is to prepare your kids to someday be independent. And that’s why you must start surrendering them a little bit at a time.

Releasing means that you let them make mistakes and help them learn from them.

It means encouraging them to fight their own battles, whether it’s confronting a coach or a teammate.