In this episode sports psychologist, author, podcaster and former professional golfer Dan Abrahams and Gordon MacLelland discuss match-day and competition, what that means for our children and how we can best support the process as parents.
During the conversation they discuss amongst other things:
- Learning to sit back, watch and enjoy the experience of seeing our children compete
- Learning simple techniques and strategies to help manage the competition environment
- Having a parent face – borrow from memory, imagination and perception
- Having a stretch and support dial for our children both in and out of sport
- Allowing children to take sport seriously if they wish to in a healthy and safe way
- Use a scaling technique with our children to talk about their sport, strip away the emotion and then be able to follow up with great questions
- Asking our children how we can best support them?
- Working together to co-collaborate and work in partnership with our children
- Stripping away performance indicators that are out of our control
- Game outcomes, performance outcomes and performance processes and focussing as parents on the latter
- Creating a ‘match script’ with our children around tasks that are specific, controllable and positive
- Following up the ‘match script’ with healthy conversations and stretching and supporting our children
- The difference between ‘mastery oriented’ and ‘ego oriented’ environments and the huge benefits of the former
- Becoming comfortable with disappointment and allowing our children the space to work through it
- Not rushing to have dialogue immediately after training and competition
- Co-collaborating with our children around the environment they want for the ‘Car Journey Home’
Dan Abrahams is a sport and performance psychologist. A former professional golfer, Dan has 25 years experience in high performance sport, and has spent the last 15 years as a qualified sport psychologist working with some of the best sports competitors in the world. He has held several senior positions in British sport including Lead Psychologist for England Golf and for England Rugby (working alongside Eddie Jones in the lead up to the 2019 Rugby World Cup). He has held contracts with a number of Premier League football teams, and is regarded as one of the go-to sport psychologists for elite athletes globally. He is the author of four best-selling books, one of which, ‘Soccer Tough’, was named by Gareth Bale as a book that changed his life. Dan also has a podcast (The Sport Psych Show) which has one million downloads, making it one of the leading sport psychology podcasts globally.
Additional Reading
Why does watching sport make adults behave like this?
Meet the Parents – A sports parenting journey with Duncan Hodge
