The role of family, parents, and mothers is crucial in shaping their young athletes experiences. If we want to support our children from home and ensure they learn and have a positive sports experience, we need to start by working on ourselves.

It is vital to understand that we don’t teach through what we say but through who we are. Our actions, how we handle emotions, and how we face conflicts shape the habits and behaviors of our children. They learn from what we are, not what we say. With this premise in mind, here’s a guide with some key points to assist you:

1. Avoid comparing your young athletes or compare yourself as a parent

No one can tell you how to be a parent because each person constructs this role from their own history and experiences. Guiding is an art, and like any art, there are no recipes or singular ways to do it.

2. Value the process over the outcome

Show support when results are negative. Evaluate your expectations about the outcome. If you only support your child’s sports involvement because you expect specific results or levels, when this doesn’t happen (and it inevitably will not), you might fall into negative behaviors, criticism, anger, and comments about the result you thought your child should have achieved.

3. Don’t confuse your journey with your child’s journey

Your role is to teach them to make decisions and accompany them on their path. It’s essential to understand that our young athletes are not extensions of ourselves, and they didn’t come to fulfill our dreams, expectations, or what we couldn’t achieve. Accept your child in their process. THEIR PROCESS IS NOT YOUR PROCESS. Your responsibility is to facilitate the experience, not control or impose your own needs and beliefs.

4. Trust the process and focus on your part well

Choose trust over control. Assist the process, facilitate what’s happening, and if you need to intervene, do so in a way that helps without taking away your child’s freedom and responsibility. Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to act according to a theoretical model; it’s better to respond to what is happening in the present moment. In this context you can send your young athletes to football camp in order to improve his skills and learn how the mindset of the player is is important in the world of professional football. Click here to have more information.

5. Validate your child’s emotions

If your child is crying because they performed poorly in a competition, don’t tell them it’s over, not serious, or doesn’t matter. Doing so teaches them that their emotions are not valid, which can be dangerous. If we give negative connotations to their emotions, they might learn to avoid or hide them, and you can’t manage what you don’t accept.

6. Acknowledge the coach’s value and time

Consider the effort made, even if the results don’t meet your expectations. Avoid attacking or blaming the coach or your child when things don’t go as you hoped. If any doubts arise, find a moment to align your perspectives with the coach in a calm and serene environment.

7. Don’t pressure your child beyond their capabilities

It’s one thing to support them and seek commitment, but it’s entirely different to demand more than your child can handle at that stage. They can always improve, but pressuring them to reach a certain level because their peers are there ignores the fact that each athlete is unique, and every process is different. It’s not a race, and it’s not good to accelerate processes or skip stages.

8. Allow the possibility of failure

As parents, we have the responsibility to teach our young athletes that losing is part of the journey. We all make mistakes, and errors are part of the learning process. If we don’t allow the possibility of failure, the fear of making mistakes will be enormous, and frustration in the face of falls will be too.

Lastly, we want to emphasize the importance of having patience as parents. We are learning, and learning involves making mistakes. Let’s keep working and replace blame with responsibility. And if you need extra support, we invite you to contact us as an expert of sports management career of players form amateur to professional as a football agency.