Your child is competing. You're nervous. You want them to do well. You want to help.
But sometimes, the best thing a parent can do for their young athlete is to do less.
Whether it's swimming, football, tennis, athletics, gymnastics, cycling or any other competitive environment, the role of the parent during competition can have a huge influence on a child's experience.
And that influence doesn't have to come from what you say.
Sometimes, it's what you don't say.
Your job isn't to coach from the sidelines
One of the most difficult boundaries for parents to establish is the difference between supporting their child and coaching their child.
If your child has a coach, allow that coach to coach.
It can be incredibly tempting to shout instructions from the side:
- "Keep going!"
- "Get your head up!"
- "You should have passed!"
- "You've got this!"
- "Don't make that mistake again!"
Most of these comments come from a good place. You care. You're invested. You want your child to succeed.
But imagine being the athlete.
You've got instructions coming from your coach, thoughts going through your own head, nerves, pressure, opponents, teammates and everything else that comes with competition.
Then you hear another voice from the sidelines.
Even positive instructions can become more information for the athlete to process at a time when they are already processing a lot.
Your child doesn't necessarily need another coach.
They need their parent.
Before the competition: prepare, don't pressure
The role of the parent starts long before the whistle blows, the starting gun fires or your child walks onto the pitch.
Try to make your conversations about preparation rather than expectation.
Instead of:
"You need to win today."
Try:
"What are you looking forward to today?"
Instead of:
"Make sure you beat your personal best."
Try:
"What are you going to focus on today?"
And sometimes the best question is simply:
"How can I support you today?"
- That question gives your child ownership.
- They may want encouragement.
- They may want quiet.
- They may want you to watch.
- They may even want you to give them space.
- And that's okay.
During the competition: become their biggest supporter
Once competition begins, your role changes.
- You're not the coach.
- You're not the referee.
- You're not the selector.
- You're not the performance analyst.
- You're Mum or Dad.
- And that can be incredibly powerful.
- Celebrate effort.
- Celebrate courage.
- Celebrate resilience.
Celebrate the moments when they keep going after something hasn't gone their way.
You don't have to understand every tactical decision or analyse every performance.
Sometimes a simple:
"I'm proud of you."
carries far more weight than a detailed breakdown of what went wrong.
Let them experience failure
- This can be one of the hardest things for a parent.
- Your child makes a mistake.
- They lose.
- They don't achieve the time they wanted.
- They miss the shot.
- They come away disappointed.
- Your instinct may be to immediately fix it.
- "Don't worry."
- "You'll get it next time."
- "You were unlucky."
- "If you'd just done…"
But disappointment isn't necessarily something that needs fixing.
It's something that needs experiencing.
Sport provides young people with an incredible opportunity to learn how to deal with setbacks, frustration, disappointment and failure.
- Allow them to feel it.
- Allow them to process it.
- And then, when they're ready, talk about it.
Sometimes your greatest contribution isn't finding the solution.
It's simply being there while they find it themselves.
The car journey home matters
For many young athletes, the most important part of competition isn't actually the competition.
It's what happens afterwards.
The journey home can become an unofficial performance review.
- "Why did you do that?"
- "Why didn't you listen?"
- "You should have…"
- "Your coach said…"
- "What happened in that last race?"
Imagine finishing work after a difficult day and having your boss immediately question everything you did the moment you walked through the door.
- Sometimes your child doesn't need analysis.
- They need food.
- They need a drink.
- They need a laugh.
- They need to decompress.
They need to know that your love and support aren't dependent on their performance.
A useful question after competition can simply be:
"Do you want to talk about it, or would you rather just chill for a bit?"
That small change can make a huge difference.
Create clear boundaries
Healthy sporting environments need healthy boundaries.
Your child should know:
- The coach coaches.
- The officials officiate.
- The athlete competes.
- The parent supports.
- That doesn't mean parents shouldn't be interested.
- Quite the opposite.
- Be interested.
- Ask questions.
- Learn about their sport.
- Attend competitions.
- Celebrate their progress.
But make sure your involvement doesn't take away their ownership of the experience.
Because ultimately, it's their sporting journey.
Not yours.
Ask yourself: whose dream is this?
This is perhaps the most important question a sporting parent can ask themselves.
Whose dream is this?
It is completely natural to want your child to achieve great things.
But there is a difference between having ambitions for your child and helping your child develop their own ambitions.
The goal isn't to create a child who performs because they're afraid of disappointing Mum or Dad.
The goal is to help create a young person who learns to perform because they are motivated, confident and invested in their own journey.
That's a very different environment.
The best thing you can give your child
- Sport can teach young people so much more than how to win.
- It can teach discipline.
- Resilience.
- Communication.
- Confidence.
- Leadership.
- How to handle pressure.
- How to deal with disappointment.
- How to celebrate others.
- How to keep going when things don't go according to plan.
But for those lessons to happen, children need ownership.
- And sometimes giving them ownership means stepping back.
- Your child doesn't need you to control every outcome.
- They don't need you to solve every problem.
- They don't need another coach.
They need to know that whatever happens when they compete, you'll still be there when they come off.
That is what being a great sporting parent looks like.
Support the person, not just the performance.
Want to understand the performance mindset even more?
At AB Performance, I work with athletes, teams and individuals to help develop the mindset behind performance.
I've spent more than 13 years working across high-performance environments, including with Olympians, F1 drivers and athletes from a wide range of sporting disciplines.
I've now brought that experience into the AB Performance Academy on Skool — a community designed to share practical knowledge, experience and strategies around performance, mindset and development.
If you're a parent who wants to better understand how to support your young athlete without adding unnecessary pressure, the Academy is a great place to start.
Join the AB Performance Academy and learn more about the mindset behind performance by clicking the link here:
The first 25 'Founding Members' can join this great community for just $10 a month for life, so take advantage of this great deal before they go.
https://www.skool.com/ab-performance-academy/about
Because sometimes the most powerful thing a parent can say is simply:
"Go and enjoy it. I'll be here when you're finished."
Hope you enjoyed this blog and I look forward to welcoming you to the Academy.
Diesel.