The Secret to Parenting Successful Young Athletes
I would never lie to you and say I know the secret to parenting successful young athletes. First, it’s definitely not one single thing that makes the secret a secret. It’s more like a secret sauce with multiple ingredients that inevitably change with every family and every child.
Furthermore, even though I could never tell you all the ingredients in the secret sauce you need for your young athlete, I’m confident I know at least two of the ingredients that go into every secret sauce.
1) Focus on Strengths Not Weaknesses
The first thing to remember is that young athletes are at their best when their doing what their best at. While this sounds like circular logic, it’s not. Instead, it’s logic that the classic Animal School fable warns us all about.
Teaching rabbits to fly and eagles to swim is not a productive use of time. Rabbits can do their best to fly but will never be at their best flying. Eagles can do their best to swim but will never be at their best swimming. The only way rabbits and eagles can be at their best is doing what they’re best at doing. For rabbits that’s running and for eagles that’s flying.
So, if you want to raise a successful young athlete you first must find out if your child is a metaphorical rabbit or eagle or something else. Then empower your child with all the tools to capitalize on what they are already good at and help them pursue mastery.
2) Focus on Self-Motivation Not Rewards and Punishments for Motivation
Secondly, avoid using rewards and punishments as tools of motivation. Rewards and punishments in the short-term reduces self-motivation in the long-term. The reason for this is that rewards and punishments promote short-term tactical thinking over long-term strategic thinking.
What’s more, success in athletics and in life requires long-term thinking as short-term thinking often sacrifices long-term success for short term reward. In addition, the short-term thinking that comes from the reward and punishment school of motivation teaches children to seek pleasure and avoid pain. However, success often requires the opposite; one must sacrifice pleasure and embrace pain in the short-term to avoid pain and earn the pleasure of success in the long-term.
As parents, we know the failures we have in our youth don’t matter nearly as much as we think at the time. It’s far better for a child to learn the lessons of self-motivation than to avoid a short-term pain. This is the lesson of taking personal responsibility. Without learning this lesson there will be no level of success in the long term.