{"id":12886,"date":"2017-12-12T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T18:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/?p=12886"},"modified":"2017-12-12T10:00:40","modified_gmt":"2017-12-12T18:00:40","slug":"say-young-racers-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/say-young-racers-races\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Say to Your Young Racers Before and After Races"},"content":{"rendered":"

The race season is now upon us and race day is a stressful time for racers and parents alike. Young racers are putting their efforts on the line and must accept that those efforts don\u2019t always pay off in our sport. Parents want the best for their children and it pains us beyond pale to see our kids not find the success that they want so much.<\/p>\n

Because of this impact on them and us, we as parents want to do everything we can to help them both before and after races. This is where parents have a tremendous capacity to engage in magical thinking. Let me explain.<\/p>\n

As the parents of our children, we think we have a lot of power over them. And, to a great extent we do, having been the most influential forces in who they are as evolving people. And this belief in that power to impact our children extends down to how they do on race day. Parents so want to believe that if they just say the right thing, their kids will magically ski incredibly fast.<\/p>\n

Wanting to leverage that power, a common question I\u2019m asked by parents is: \u201cWhat can I say to my kid on race day that will help them have a successful race?\u201d You do have some seemingly magical power, but, sadly, that power can only hurt your kids\u2019 efforts.<\/p>\n

\"Atomic\"Here\u2019s what I believe. Nothing you can say to your young racers will make them faster. Not \u201cYou can do it!,\u201d \u201cWe believe in you!,\u201d \u201cHave fun!,\u201d \u201cTry your hardest,\u201d or \u201cGo fast!\u201d You can\u2019t psych them up, remind them of what they should work on, or somehow increase their motivation, confidence, intensity, or focus. They will ski as fast as they are capable on that day regardless of the \u201cmotivational\u201d lines or \u201cinspirational\u201d speeches you give them.<\/p>\n

But, unfortunately, you do have the ability to ensure that your young racers don\u2019t ski fast with what you say to them. Your words can create pressure, make them nervous, shift their focus to results, cause them to think about you, cause them to think about their competitors, reduce their motivation and confidence, and make them afraid to play. \u201cYou can win!, \u201cKeep your hands up!,\u201d \u201cWe\u2019ll be cheering for you!,\u201d \u201cCharge over the knoll!,\u201d \u201cGo out there and beat Johnny [or Suzie]!,\u201d and \u201cWatch out for that flush as you come onto the flats!\u201d are all pretty much a kiss of death for your kids on race day.<\/p>\n

I have two suggestions before a race. Before they head up to inspect, give them a big hug and say, \u201cI love you!\u201d Then, stay away from them until after their run. If you see them on the hill as their run approaches, resist the urge to say something and simply smile and give them a big thumbs up or blow them a kiss. And, BTW, as the father of two young ski racers, I do my best to practice what I preach. And, yes, it\u2019s really difficult.<\/p>\n

Another question I\u2019m also frequently asked is: \u201cWhat do I say to my kid after a race run?\u201d My first piece of advice is, whether they had a good run or bad run, don\u2019t rush right up to them. An important part of your kids learning to deal with both success and failure in ski racing (and life) is to allow them to sit with their performance, fully experience whatever emotions they might feel (whether frustration, disappointment, elation, or joy) and figure out for themselves what they think of their efforts. If they had a great run, you want them to be able to revel in their success and allow those good feelings to sink in deep. If they had a disappointing run, your first urge is to rush up to them and protect them from the pain of failure by comforting, assuaging, and placating them. That is the worst thing you can do. One of the great emotional lessons they can learn is how to deal with the inevitable ups and downs that will occur in their ski racing lives. And those lessons require that they be allowed to feel bad. So, success or failure, give your young racers the space to fully experience their performance before you swoop in and give them congratulations or condolences.<\/p>\n

Once you give them that space, ideally, you want them to come to you rather than you go to them. When you do connect, what do you say? If they had a great run, the most common refrains I\u2019ve heard include \u201cLook at your time on Live Timing!,\u201d \u201cYou were so fast!,\u201d and \u201cI think you\u2019re in the top ten!,\u201d Suffice it to say, none of these comments are very helpful to your children.<\/p>\n

If they had a run that you know is going to be disappointing to them, don\u2019t try to make them feel better; it won\u2019t work. Comments such as \u201cYou\u2019ll get \u2018em next run!,\u201d \u201cI thought you skied really well!,\u201d or \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d won\u2019t be helpful at all. You can\u2019t just make their disappointment go away and you don\u2019t want it to just go away.<\/p>\n

If they had a run that you know was good, don\u2019t feel compelled to tell them how good a run it was; they know when they \u201cdone good.\u201d So, there\u2019s really no reason for compliments such as \u201cYou were so fast!,\u201d \u201cGood job!,\u201d or \u201cWay to go!\u201d Their actual success is all they need to validate their efforts, build their confidence and get or keep them excited about ski racing.<\/p>\n

I have two suggestions for what to say and do after a race run, whether a success or failure. First, just like before their run, give a hug and tell them, \u201cI love you.\u201d If they are really sad after a disappointing run, don\u2019t say anything more. Going back to that power we think we have to make our kids feel magically better, but don\u2019t really have, just hold them close and be fully there with them in their sadness.<\/p>\n

Second, I learned this from Wayne Bryan, the father of the multiple Grand Slam tennis doubles champions, Mike and Bob Bryan. His advice, and what he did after every match with his boys, was to simply say, \u201cWhere do you want to eat?\u201d The message you send your young ski racers is that you\u2019re at the race, so you obviously care about their racing. At the same time, you\u2019re also sending them a message that how they did wasn\u2019t that important to you. And, especially after a disappointing loss, Wayne said that he just wanted his boys to get the messages that they\u2019ll be okay and that life goes on. And I can\u2019t think of better messages to send to our ski racing children after they put so much of themselves into this crazy and unpredictable sport that they have chosen to pursue.<\/p>\n

Want to be the best ski-racing parent you can be? Check out my\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Prime Sport Parenting 505: Raise Successful and Happy Athletes<\/strong><\/a> online course.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The race season is now upon us and race day is a stressful time for racers and parents alike. Young racers are putting their efforts on the line and must accept that those efforts don\u2019t always pay off in our sport. Parents want the best for their children and it pains us beyond pale to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1516],"tags":[40,394,45,153,155],"class_list":["post-12886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ski-racing","tag-child-development","tag-mental-training","tag-parenting-2","tag-ski-racing-2","tag-sport-psychology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}