Helping our children to understand that to realise their goals and attain success in their sport is the by-product of persistence and perspiration can be a difficult sell for sports parents in today’s world.
Why does this appear to have become more of a problem in recent times?
Quite simply because so many other things in their life can be provided instantly and provide immediate gratification.
Technology has undoubtedly played a part in this allowing our children to shop at the hit of a button, order take-away food that can arrive at their doorstep and also at times of quiet and solitude send instant messages to a large number of virtual friends almost certainly guaranteeing an instant reply.
All of these hits of dopamine can help our young people feel good at an instant, yet we know that in sport there is no real short cut to high performance.
Success and sporting development is a long journey, at times arduous, is full of highs and lows and very rarely can it be achieved without huge amounts of persistence.
Patience is on the wane in young people, highlighted recently to me by a parent of a child who was waiting in a doctor’s waiting room. Her child had to wait 30 minutes for an appointment but also had access to an iPad during the wait. However, 15 minutes in, she announced she was bored and didn’t want to wait any longer.
This parent went on to explain that they needed to wait and show some patience. However, her child continued to nag. She removed the iPad and took her daughter on a trip down memory lane and showed her the magazines that she could find to read and had great fun showing her the joys of the abacus in the corner that used to occupy children for hours.
Her daughter was shell-shocked and could not understand that this is all that there was to do when her mum grew up along with thinking time, talking quietly, or playing noughts and crosses.
As you can imagine none of the above suggestions went down particularly well with her daughter and they were ultimately saved by the bell of the appointment.
How can we then help our young people develop patience and persistence whilst understanding the huge value the skill undoubtedly has?
- Role Modelling
Children often learn by example, so it’s essential to demonstrate persistence in our own actions. Let them observe you facing challenges, overcoming obstacles, and persisting in your own pursuits.
- Provide Positive Reinforcement
Acknowledge and reward children’s efforts, progress, and achievements. This can motivate them to persist, knowing their hard work is recognised and appreciated.
We can also talk about these traits more explicitly and ensure that when our children have displayed this trait that we celebrate it and we spend time talking to them about how it helped them in achieving a specific goal or outcome.
- Co-create goals and objectives
Working together to set clear goals and objectives provides a roadmap for children to follow, allowing them to navigate through life’s challenges with purpose and determination.
This can encourage them to strive towards specific targets, help them understand what is expected from them and thereby help them in developing patience and persistence.
- Mindfulness exercises
Mindfulness exercises allow our children to become aware of their thoughts and emotions without judgment or immediate reaction.
These exercises cultivate a heightened sense of self-awareness and enable our children to make conscious choices rather than succumbing to fleeting desires. We know young people can be impulsive at the best of times, can be fickle with certain things and change their mind with alarming regularity.
- Help make the journey enjoyable
For our children to continue to participate and be motivated, we need to try and make things as enjoyable as possible.
That does not mean that there will not be some elements of struggle, you can also enjoy these bits as well. We have started to use ‘Enjoyment’ rather than ‘Fun’ in a lot of our work for this very reason.
- Highlight opportunities
Help them see the opportunities that come their way through persistence, the people they meet and highlight the small improvements along the way.
- Use Role Models
Use role models or leading figures who all had to show incredible amounts of persistence to then achieve their ultimate goals.
We know that sometimes particularly in the teenage years that it can be difficult to land certain messages with our children. Bringing things to their attention via film, documentaries, books and social media involving figures who they perhaps respect can be a powerful way to initiate some incredible conversations.
- Play down shortcuts
Help them see that shortcuts are not going to be a long-term recipe for success. If something is taking time for them, is hard work then they are probably going about it in the right way.
Many people can give up on something when they were so close to making a huge breakthrough, it is true that we never know how close we may be to success and can often be closer than we think.
- Encourage bravery and risk-taking
Encourage your child to be brave and take risks. If we can create our own narrative around disappointment in sport, normalise it in our conversations and behaviours and help our children understand that this is part of the process we can help them foster a much more balanced and longer-term perspective about their sporting development.
- Get them talking
No one can ever do everything alone and around our young people’s sport we want them to have a really good support network. We need to encourage them to talk, to share how they feel, ask for help when they may be struggling. If they feel they have this support, they are more likely to persist knowing they are not alone in their challenges.
In an ever changing world there are a number of key building blocks that are going to remain an integral part of sporting development and persistence is certainly one of those. We will leave you with a couple of wonderful quotes to perhaps share with your children.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. (Calvin Coolidge, US President)
Permanence, perseverance, and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. (Thomas Carlyle)