The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
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POSITIVE VERSUS NEGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY
“Guidance from a coach or parent with a negative mindset is extremely toxic to a child.”
Exposing and destroying pessimistic beliefs and attitudes is an integral part of my daily mission, both personally and professionally. It’s your job as the tennis parent to eliminate these poisons from your athlete’s world.
Sadly, it’s often a parent, sibling, friend or coach that’s feeding the negative beliefs and pessimistic attitudes. It is in your best interest to remedy this issue or remove the negative source(s) from the child’s tennis entourage.
Parents, just as it is your duty to remove negative psychology, it is your responsibility to teach positive psychology. Teach belief and confidence, find their motivational buttons, develop their desire and hunger for mastering the game and teach them to embrace the challenge. These positive life lessons are part of raising athletic royalty. If you teach the love of the game and the benefits of commitment, your athlete will progress seamlessly through the losses, technical difficulties, injuries and bad luck that come with athletics.
Allow the tennis teachers to teach, the coaches to coach and the trainers to train because as you know now, the tennis parent’s job description is far too comprehensive to micro manage each entourage’s role.
Mind Sets: Fixed versus Growth
Similar to the two sides of psychology, there are also two mind sets. Coaches often see student’s with either a fixed mind set or a growth mind set. While the athlete’s genetic predisposition is undoubtedly present, it’s most often the nurtured opinions of their parents, siblings and coaches that set their outlook.
- A person with a debilitating fixed mind set truly believes that they cannot change. They are extremely rigid, view the world as black or white and are uninterested in change. Their unwillingness to accept new challenges often results in remaining average at best.
- A person with a growth mind set believes that their opinions, outlooks, attitudes and abilities can and will change throughout their lives. Growth mind set individuals are more willing and open to accept change in the name of progress/improvement.
“Raising athletic royalty is a direction, not a destination. What you choose to teach your children now will live on for generations to come.”
I find that parents who encourage both positive psychology and a growth mind set are developing much more than a future athlete, they are developing future leaders.
