What can a mom do to help their female athletes cope with confidence issues?

Wanting to know what moms can do to help their female athletes is probably the first step and right thing to ask. It is what sports moms are expected to do. However, there are a lot of things that get overlooked in the process of trying to find the answers and solutions to the issue at hand.

What most parents get wrong is treating the symptoms, but not the actual cause.

"Remove the branches of a thorn bush today and you'll avoid a scrape this year. But next year, you'll face the same problem again. Remove the root of the bush today, and the entire plant will die. Are you solving problems at the branch level or the root level?" -James Clear

Do you think treating "confidence problems" at the branch level? Or at the root level?

Find out more and get ready because we’re gonna dive deep into what a branch-level treatment is. And we’re gonna discuss how to treat confidence issues at the root level. 

Branch level: 

Many parents treat their athlete's confidence problems at a branch level. 

• Convincing her that she's good enough
• Reminding her of all the things she did right
• More reps or physical training

As moms, we often do these things to make our athletes feel better about themselves. We want to stop them from having all these negative thoughts and feelings because we want to help. 

These things may help for a moment but it doesn’t solve the problem in long term. 

By subtly putting it out that what she felt is not right, you are slowly affecting her self-confidence in the long run. Confidence at its root is about trusting ourselves. If we keep telling our daughters to not be upset at the moment, we are indirectly telling them to not trust themselves and what they feel. 

Root Level:

The root-level solutions include allowing your daughter to discover how to change herself. It is allowing them to explore and learn the underlying beliefs they have about themselves.

To treat confidence problems at the root level you can help provide opportunities for them to learn the following.

• Ability to acknowledge and change their thoughts
• Dismantling perfectionism and shifting towards healthy striving
• Tools to regulate their nerves under pressures
• Pre-performance routines to get in the zone
• Recovery methods to pull themselves back together on their own.

Our daughters have the skills within them. She has everything within her that she needs to be the athlete she aspires to be, she hasn't just been taught skills that lead to confidence, yet. 

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