Does Your Young Tennis Player Shut Down When Losing?

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Do you have a young tennis player that will start crying or shuts down in the middle of the match because she's losing the set? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn with the Tennis Psychology Podcast and today I answer a question from Jamie, who follows our blog and our emails at theultimate sports parent@www.youthsportspsychology.com. if you're interested for tips for parents and youth coaches on instilling confidence and composure in young athletes, here's what Jamie had to my daughter is 9 and has been playing tennis for years. She is very good in practices but has a hard time keeping it together when she is losing in a match. If she is down in a game, she seems to shut down and will start crying on the court. She will cry for the remainder of the match. My question is, how do I get her to stop this behavior and when it happens during a match, how should I handle this situation?

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Jamie, this is a great question because we get this from parents of all sports, not just in tennis, about the lack of composure of their young athletes. And there's many factors that go into this. But I've heard, you know, people say, well, you know, walk out onto the court and stop the match and pretty soon, you know, she's going to learn not to do it. Or, you know, take her out of tennis and, you know, don't allow her to compete or don't put her in tournaments until she she can become more mature and handle it. But I'm here to tell you those solutions don't work because it just punishes the athlete and tells them it's wrong. They know that already. They know it's wrong. They just don't know how to cope. So really the answer is you have to help her cope with it. Give her the coping skills so that she can deal with the frustration on the tennis court. She's shutting down because she's frustrated and she's angry that she's losing. The good news is she really cares about her tennis and really wants to do well and maybe really wants to win. So that's not awful. But the hard part about it is it really, really hurts their performance when they get frustrated and they shut down and they start crying because they're losing and they don't have those coping abilities. Let's first talk about why they get so upset and why they shut down. In my estimation, when I'm dealing with perfectionists or I'm dealing with tennis players that have super high expectations, or when I'm dealing with tennis players that are worried about what their parents think, in other words, they feel like that they're disappointing a parent if they're going to lose. And that often can lead to this shutting down and crying syndrome. So you have to dig in and find out where she is on that spectrum, what's so awful about losing for her? And you may not get a solid answer. Sometimes, you know, young athletes don't want to tell their parents what they're thinking out there because it could be about, she doesn't want to disappoint you or she wants to make you proud. So, you know, that could be it. But I would start by giving her the coping skills of dealing with the expectations about winning and losing, dealing with the fact that sometimes you're going to be down in a match, but you can mount a comeback, and just her understanding that she's not going to win every match and that you're still going to treat her the same. She's still your daughter, win or lose, and that it's not awful, but you want to learn from it. She can't learn from it. If she's shutting down and getting angry and then tanking the second set, there's really no learning going on. So it's a matter of. And I'm simplifying it here, obviously, but it's a matter of helping her with the belief systems that she has that are built up. Maybe she's learned that she has to be perfect and that she can't miss, or that she has to run down every ball. And then when she doesn't and she's not being perfect and not matching your expectations or her expectations, she gets upset and starts crying. That's a good place to start with this type of athlete, is helping them manage those expectations. Once you understand what the expectations are, then you have to change those expectations or drop the expectations altogether and get her to focus on more manageable things. Things like just seeing the ball early and having a plan and maybe, you know, depending on how advanced she is, early setup, early preparation, good movement, just simple things that aren't mechanical but, you know, lead to good playing. And that's what you really want her to focus on is little things that she can do 9 out of 10 times or 10 out of 10 times by focusing on those things, rather than get so wrapped up and so worried that she's losing a match and maybe not playing to your expectations, or worried about what we call the aftermath, the aftermath of losing and what that's going to mean for her. Jamie, thanks for the question, and good luck with her game. If you need personal mental game coaching for your athlete, typically, you know, we'll start 10 or 11 or older would be a good age to start. Please contact us@peaksports.com and we can shoot you all the options.

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