Why You Should Keep Score in Youth Sports Teams can keep score, even when kids are young, and the players will still have fun and learn physical and mental game skills. That was the message from former Walt Disney Studios executive Sasha Graham, a sports mom, former youth sports coach and author of “Whitney Wins Everything” during a recent interview with our Ultimate Sports Parent podcast. Graham believes it’s important to keep score, even when players are young. The kids are going to keep score, anyway, she says. And avoiding keeping score tells kids they’re too fragile to lose, argues the s ..read more

Former Mets Catcher on Making Mistakes For baseball players, making mistakes is the biggest challenge, says Josh Thole, former catcher for the New York Mets and Toronto Blue Jays. Working with the makers of a new app, Players Way, he’s on a mission to help keep youth baseball players in sports and help them cope with the fact that baseball can be hard on a player’s self esteem. Quoting one of his own mental coaches, Thole told us during an interview with our Ultimate Sports Parent podcast, “Baseball is the biggest self-esteem destroying sport.” The problem: in baseball, failure is part of the ..read more

How Kids Can Improve Mental Toughness by Playing Pickleball Pickleball’s popularity is growing quickly, with many schools offering it for the first time. That’s the word from Mike Nielsen, the AAU’s new pickleball chief, and In Pickleball president Richard Porter. In fact, the two pickleball enthusiasts are working to ensure the sport is available to as many youth as possible. Already, high school coaches are lobbying to institutionalize pickleball as a high school sport and schools across the country are converting tennis courts to pickleball courts. In fact, tennis’s popularity is waning, w ..read more

Letting Kids Decide What Sports They Want to Play What are the Habits of Supportive Sports Parents? To be a supportive sports parent, you first have to ensure your kids are having fun. Second, you should help ensure they are prepared for practices and games, says Sharkie Zartman, a college professor, UCLA and USA national team volleyball athlete, author, coach and radio host. She recently spoke to us for an Ultimate Sports Parent podcast interview. “Make sure the kids are fed properly before competitions and practices, listen to the kids and have open communication. Also parents can teach kid ..read more

Listing Goals You Want to Achieve A study by the Aspen Institute and Utah State University–commissioned by TeamSnap–revealed what parents want most from youth sports and kids’ ability to meet those goals. Team Snap’s survey showed that parents, most of all, want kids to have fun, said Peter Frintzilas,  CEO of TeamSnap, a youth sports management app., in an interview with our Ultimate Sports Parent podcast. Ninety-five percent of parents said they want their kids to have fun in sports, said the TeamSnap survey. Eighty-nine percent said mental health support is important and 88 percent sa ..read more

Providing Your Young Athletes Control With the start of a new season, it provides a much-needed opportunity to enhance youth sports in a way that provides kids with more fun and human connection, and ultimately, more confidence. That’s the word from Meredith Whitley, PhD, associate professor in Adelphi’s School of Health Sciences and co-editor of the Journal of Sport forDevelopment. She  recently served on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, & Nutrition Science Board and led the writing of Reenvisioning Postpandemic Youth Sport to Meet Young People’s Mental, Em ..read more

Helping Kids Look at Pressure as an Opportunity What causes choking? Why do some young athletes choke while other athletes rise to the occasion? Most young athletes don’t like to hear the word “choking,” let alone admit that they choke. Yet, some athletes believe they “always choke” when the pressure is on. Choking generally results from kids dealing with three issues. The first is negative self-talk.  If kids tell themselves they will choke over and over or refer to themselves as chokers, they will likely choke when the pressure is on. Self-talk is powerful. Think of self-talk as a dire ..read more

Boost Confidence Through Good Communication For parents, connecting with young athletes is an important bonus of youth sports… Harley Rotbart, pediatrician, sports parent and author of  the bestselling “No Regrets Parenting” says it’s important for parents to take advantage of the opportunities to boost communication with kids while helping them participate in youth sports. The car ride is one great opportunity, Rotbart told us during an interview with our Ultimate Sports Parent podcast. When Rotbart’s sports kids were young, he always warmed them up for 20 minutes before getting in the ..read more

Think of Mistakes as Learning Opportunities There are numerous advantages to kids’ embracing a growth mindset in youth sports. Kids who have a growth mindset tend to see mistakes as opportunities for growth. They rarely say, “I can’t do this.” They generally don’t feel “stuck” but instead feel as if they’re learning and growing. Kids with a fixed mindset, on the other hand, tend to get stuck. They tell themselves, “I’ll never ever be able to do this.” They have negative attitudes about making mistakes, rather than seeing mistakes as learning opportunities. In a recent interview with our Ultim ..read more

Inspiring Young Athletes to Play Baseball James Lowe, aka Coach Ballgame, combines his creative skills with sandlots across the country to build in sports kids a love of baseball. Lowe began creating sandlots–on empty fields where kids could play informally–as an alternative to Little League after players approached him and said that Little League was overwhelming, Lowe told us during an interview during our Ultimate Sports Parent podcast. “We drop down bases, chop down weeds. Every time we show up and do this neighborhood baseball game, kids are laughing, walking home smiling afterwards and ..read more