Helping Young Athletes with Fragile Confidence

You're listening to the Tennis Psychology Podcast with Mental Game of tennis expert Dr. Patrick Cohn. Do you want to improve your mindset for tennis? Then join us on the Tennis Psychology Podcast.

Do you have a young junior tennis player that has some talent but is mentally fragile on the tennis court? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn. In this episode of the Tennis Psychology Podcast, I I'm going to help a parent who has a young athlete that struggles to perform well in the heat of competition. You're listening to the Tennis Psychology Podcast.

Want to quickly improve your mental game for tennis? Visit www.SportsPsychologyTennis.com today and download a free ebook titled Six Unforced Mental Errors Tennis Players Make Between Points.

Here's the question I received from Elvis I'm a parent of an eight year old daughter who makes a lot of unforced errors in matches. I train her myself even though I don't have formal tennis education. In the last match, a junior semifinal, she made 10 unforced errors within the span of 10 points and she lost 7 10. I wonder if there is a chance for these mentally fragile kids to succeed and become champions eventually based upon your experience, Elvis, thanks for the question. Yes, your athletes can improve their mental approach to tennis. She's very young, eight years old. You want to be careful about focusing so much on success and becoming a champion. I'm going to address that in a moment. But young athletes by and large don't have the maturity to stay composed, to stay focused throughout the match. It's just a challenge for them. I think what I'd like you to do is be be patient for her mental game to come around. If by the time she gets to 12 and she's still struggling with some of the challenges with her mental game and her focus and her composure, then you would contact us and then we can help her at that point. Now we do have resources for very young athletes too that you can check out@peaksports.com all right, back to my point about I believe your expectations are probably too high for her at age 8. Right now it's about learning. It's about growing. It's about managing her herself in matches. Is about learning how to deal with the pressure of matches. It's about improving her mental game as she experiences more out there and learns how to focus and stay calm after unforced error. It's really not about becoming a champion at this point. It's really not about her success at this point. You want to focus on her having fun at 8 years old. That's it. Having fun, learning, growing, improving. And not so much on the outcome of winning, becoming a champion, getting to the top of the ranking points. All of that really is irrelevant for kids. You have to understand her motivation to play tennis. Why does she do what she does? Why is she out there? Is she out there for you? Or is she simply out there because she enjoys meeting new kids? She enjoys the physical activity, she enjoys mastering skills. That may be part of it for her. So I would start by tapping into why do you do what you do? Why do you like the game? Why do you enjoy it? We what keeps you coming back day after day or match after match to play the game. And then you need to tap into that. Whatever she enjoys about the game, make it fun for her from now until until she goes to college with it, actually. But at a very young age, we say younger than 10, it has to be about her just enjoying the game and you not placing these expectations on her, you not focusing on the outcome and becoming a champion. That's going to free her up to be able to play her best. Have you ever considered she's scared to death of disappointing you in that tiebreaker? And that's what's creating a lot of tension because you're focusing so much on maybe the ranking or becoming a champ. Just a thought to consider. We approach it differently with our young athletes. However, once she gets to about 11 or 12, if she's a mature 11, that's when you want to start the mental training. And yes, she can improve in her mental skills, her confidence, composure, her trust in her skills and match it. That's what we do here at Peak Performance Sports. If you want more information about that, jump over to peaksports.com and check out our one on one mental coaching programs for young athletes or for tennis players as well. And if you're interested in more free resources, you can jump over to sportspsychologytennis.com and you can read articles, watch more videos and listen to more podcasts there as well. All right, thanks for listening.

Thank you for listening to the Tennis Psychology Podcast with Dr. Patrick Cohn. Discover the secrets to superior tennis confidence by visiting www.SportsPsychologyTennis. com for practical mental game strategies to improve your tennis game.