A Fine Parent

A Life Skills Blog Exclusively For Parents

About Sara Robinson

Sara Robinson has a Master’s Degree in Sport Psychology and has worked with athletes on mental skill building for the last 10 years. As a mom to two boys, she uses mental skills on a daily basis because let’s face it- you need to be mentally tough as a parent! She now blogs at Get Mom Balanced, where she helps busy moms find balance and become more mentally skilled. As if that weren’t enough to keep her busy, she also teaches Sport Psychology courses and is a freelance writer.

How to Positively Nurture Your Child’s Competitive Spirit

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(This article is part of the Positive Parenting FAQ series. Get free article updates here.)

How to Positively Nurture Your Child's Competitive SpiritWe live in a world where sports and competitiveness are all around us and it often starts at a young age.

Think about your family: How much time is spent going to and from practices and games with your kid(s)? How much time do you spend watching or following sports and cheering on your favorite teams?

Though early sport involvement is usually about having fun and developing sport skills, it doesn’t take long for participation to become competitive (and time consuming).

If you head to your local park or sporting field on the weekend, you can likely find little kids (as young as 3 and 4) involved in team sports, with parents on the sideline cheering for their child and his or her team. Parents, coaches and kids cheer when goals are made and points are earned; high fives, hugs and congratulations are given to the winners and with good sportsmanship, hopefully there is respect for the “losers.”

Is all this competition at such an early age good for our kids? The jury is still out on this. And we’re not going to get to the bottom of that argument anytime soon.

In the meantime, though, competition continues to be a prevalent part of the fabric of our everyday lives.

What can we parents do?

For one, we can ensure that our response to it all does not unintentionally encourage a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset.

What Do We Mean by “Fixed” and “Growth” Mindset?

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How to Raise Mentally Strong Kids in a Stressful World

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(This article is part of the Emotional Intelligence series. Get free article updates here.)

Mentally Strong - Main ImageDon’t you sometimes wish you were a carefree child?

To just leave behind work, family, financial responsibilities, all the doom and gloom we hear in the news, and just be completely worry-free?

As it turns out though, childhood isn’t as worry-free as we’d like to think it is.

A study of 20,000 Australian children indicated that on average 1 in 5 children worried most or all of the time. The most worried about topics were future, family, and health. Other categories of worry included friends, body image, bullying, world problems, school and being different.

While these stats are sobering, here’s the part that really got to me – of those surveyed, 1 in 5 children said that they wouldn’t talk about it to anyone.

In the study mentioned above, developmental psychologist Dr. Richard O’Kearney says embarrassment and fear of what others would think about them keeps kids from reaching out for help. So, not only are kids experiencing stress, but they’re not reaching out for support.

As a Mental Skills Coach for the last decade, I’ve worked with youth athletes to help them become more mentally strong. I’ve helped kids learn to manage stress both sport-related and life-related — school concerns, social issues with friends, feeling pressure from parents on and off the field, and more.

Now that I have my own kids, I see even more how easy it is for them to experience stress.

While some stress is normal, our kids shouldn’t have to deal with these burdens without a support system (that’s us!). Additionally, they need to have their own arsenal of skills to help them better manage the stress they are experiencing when we’re not around or they are hesitant to bring the situation to our attention.

I want to share with you today some of the strategies that I teach. Please keep in mind that while the ideas below can bring stress relief to many, if you suspect your child has higher levels of anxiety than what seems normal, you may want to check in with your healthcare provider.

First Things First: Understand the Sources, Signs and Symptoms of Stress

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