Welcome back to the raising elite competitors podcast. I'm coach Bree, a mental performance coach for girl athletes. And I am so excited that you're here. This podcast is for you. If you are a sports Muhammad, whether you are just getting going on your journey of sports with your daughter, or maybe you are a seasoned sports mom without a lot of seasons and tournaments and competitions under your belt, either way, this podcast is for you to help you know, how to raise a confident, mentally strong athlete, and also so that you can. Can enjoy this sports journey along the way. And today's episode, we're going to dive into a topic that I get questions about all the time. How do you deal with challenging coaches? So if your athlete has a coach that is challenging for one reason or another, and you are looking to help her. Navigate that. This episode is for you now, before we get into the juicy details of that. We are going to give a little shout out to somebody in our community. So I want to shout out Katie is, she is a mom of an athlete going through our signature mental training program, the elite mental game. And she texted us this the other day. She said, it's going really well. I'm personally learning so much. And my daughter just had the tournament of her career. They took second place out of 97 teams. She said that she can see E M G is working for her. So congratulations, Katie graduations to your daughter. And it's so awesome that you're seeing these physical changes. And honestly, we're not surprised. We know that athletes that come through our program, the elite mental game start to really see changes in their physical game. Within a week of being in the program. We go through a really cool seven-day challenge with athletes, where they learn exactly how to come back from mistakes, which is typically they're. Our biggest hurdle when it comes to their mental game. And then just like Katie said, the moms and the parents are learning so much on how to be the best support for their athletes, which in turn helps them play their best. So congratulations to you both. Can't wait to see how the rest of the program goes for you. All right. Let's dive into our episode today. One last thing before we do, if you're enjoying this podcast, if you enjoy these episodes, Please do us a favor by sharing with other sports parents, other sports moms. And your friends, it really helps get this content into the ears of more parents who can help support more athletes. So that would be amazing. If you could share a way and rate and review the podcast while you're at it, if you haven't already. Okay. Today's episode my number one tip when helping your athlete deal with a challenging coach. Now I could not actually decide what my number one tip was. There's two. Okay. There's two. So I'm sorry, a little bit of a, a bait and switch. I have two number one tips. Okay. We're going to get into what they are. Number one, I'll just tell you right away. This is good for your athlete. And so the tip here is you shifting your mindset. To seeing this as something that is good for your athlete. Now, obviously the qualifier here is if your athlete has a challenging coach who actually is not just challenging their abusive verbally, physically. This doesn't apply. Okay. You jump in, you listen to your mom, intuition, get in there, get the athletic director involved. Like yes, if there is abuse and things like that going on, then no, your job is to protect your athlete and make sure she's in a safe environment. I'm talking about coaches who are challenging because your athlete doesn't jive with their sound. Maybe they yell more than their previous coach and your daughter isn't responding well to that. Maybe they don't give clear feedback, right? Maybe their personality is not jiving with your daughter, maybe in your eyes or their eyes. This coach has favorites or, is making decisions that you don't agree with as far as like lineup and playing time and all of these things that like, okay, this is not verbally abusive. This is not physically abusive, but it's just challenging for your athlete for whatever reason. The number one tip that I have for you is to change your mindset that this coach needs to change. And that it's the coach's fault. Instead, I want you to look at it as this is something that is actually going to be good for my athlete. This is actually something that is going to be necessary for my athlete. And it's actually going to make my athlete a better player because a lot of times what we see is we see this happen where coach athlete relationship is not going well because the athlete thinks that the coach is playing favorites or doesn't like her or. Is yelling at her too much, all of these things. And then it's like, oh, well she just needs a new coach. Not necessarily. And when we think about the broader implications of athletics and why we have our kids in sports it's to help her navigate these situations that she is going to be in. When she is older, she will have a coworker. She will have situations where she's in with people that she doesn't jive with. And she has to learn how to navigate these things. She won't always be able to, just to change her situation. Sometimes she will, but other times she will. Okay. So that's number one tip is to see this as a good thing for your athlete. Number two, I'm just going to get into this right away. I'm going to give it to you straight here. The number two, number one tip is that. You need to make sure that you are not bad mouthing the coach in front of your daughter when situations like this happen. You 100% make things more difficult for your daughter and more challenging for your daughter. And you also damage the athlete coach relationship. If you bad mouth, this coach in front of your athlete. So if your athletes coming to you saying things about the coach that are. She's finding challenging. All right. We'll talk about what your job is and all of that. I'll tell you right now that your job is not to go to your athlete and say, well, your coach doesn't know what they're doing, or why would they play this player over you? That you're way better than that player. Coach doesn't even know. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. And then just badmouth the coach in front of your daughter. This absolutely a hundred percent is going to make the situation worse. So don't do it. I'm not saying you can't have opinions about your daughter's coach and all of that. Like if you have a partner or somebody else that you can talk to about that, Do that. Okay. But your daughter is not the person who you were going to vent and talk negatively about the coach in front of okay. So that is my number two tip. Okay. Number one, see this as a good thing for your athlete. Number two, make sure that you are not speaking negatively about your daughter's coach in front of her. Because if you're helping her and guiding her to have a positive relationship with her coach, then you're just putting roadblock after roadblock in front of her. How is she supposed to go talk to this coach that you just spent? However many minutes bound mapping in front of her. Okay. So what can you do in this situation? If your daughter has a challenging coach? Now, what we do is we teach an inside out approach who teaches inside our program, the elite mental game. And we also teach it inside the bonus that comes with the elite mental game program. So when athletes and moms join our program, they also get a bonus called how to thrive under a challenging coach and how to rise above teammate drama. So we actually lay it out for athletes. This is exactly what you do. If you have a challenging coach and we also give them a five step framework on how to talk to. Their coach. So that is a bonus that is included in our mental game program. Now. For you, you also need to know how to support your athlete in this situation. So your daughter has her responsibility and then you have yours. Okay. So when we talk about this inside out approach, what we mean by that is that we start inside your athlete. We start with what she can control in all of this. And this is where we talk about her mental game. The most. Right. We talk about where athletes, they can only control their own thoughts, their own attitudes, their own effort, and their response to their coach. And we teach athletes to not give their energy to a negative coach, to not let a coach take their confidence. That confidence is an inside job. Yes. We know that coaches do influence athlete's confidence, but we can easily get into a victim mindset here where athletes are saying, my coach took away my confidence and now they're just like, well, there's nothing they can do about it. They are disempowered because they're believing in their mind that their coach now holds their confidence and they can't get it back. And so we want to teach athletes. This is exactly what we do inside our mental training program. That her confidence belongs to her and she is responsible for not giving her energy to that negativity and not giving away her confidence. And to see this as an opportunity for her to grow as an athlete and to focus on her own goals and to see that she can choose where she puts her focus and puts her attention. And so we start there. All right. So we really start with strengthening your athlete daughter's mental game so that she can navigate this. And then she has. Has skills to navigate this as well. Now, like I said, we teach us inside our mental training program, but we also teach it on our free training for sports moms. And so if you're listening to this at the time of recording we actually are doing some live trainings for sports moms the last week of September 1st week of October. And so you can go to a train her game.com to register for one of those live trainings, where we teach you exactly how you can strengthen your athlete daughter's mental game so that she can navigate challenges like this athletes. Typically aren't taught how to do this. Right. They are not taught how to be mentally strong. They're not taught how to focus on what's in their control. They're not. And so we teach you how to do that on this free training. So go to train her game.com to register for one of those dates and times. Now the second level. So like we said, inside out, so we start with your athlete and what she can control and equipping her with the skills that she needs to navigate a challenging coach. And the next level of this is that we also want to make sure that she is surrounded with support. So make sure that you are checking in with her and that she also has solid teammates and friends. That she can process interactions with. Right? This is also reinsure that she has proper mental training. So she is being taught the skills right now. Don't rely on your athlete's coach to teach her these mental skills. That is not what your daughter's coach is there for. And it's very rare to have a coach who teaches the physical skills and then also can teach the mental side of the game. It just, it doesn't happen very often. So if you are like expecting your daughter's coach to teach her how to advocate for herself, and you're expecting your daughter's coach to teach her how to be confident, how to handle any yelling or negativity, it likely won't happen. And so that's why we want to make sure that your athlete is support. right. She has people in her corner, including you who know how to support her. She has the training that she needs to be able to advocate for herself if needed and navigate these situations. Okay. Now, the last bit of this is advocacy. So I kind of touched on this now inside out, meaning inside we're starting with her, we're making sure she's supported. And then the last outer ring of this is. Advocating for herself. So if your athlete is confused, maybe she has a coach who is unclear about the communication she'd been receiving from the coach or she needs her coach to give her more direct feedback or she really is being impacted by something that coach said, and she's just unclear or confused on why the coach would say something whatever it was, right. Instead of just ruminating on it and creating stories, we teach athletes to advocate for themselves. Right. Empower her with the tools to ask questions, ask what she needs from the coach. And to ask the question of, can you help me understand? Right. There's going to be confusion. There's going to be misunderstanding, right? Anytime that there's any relationship involved. Anytime, especially when there's an athlete coach. It just happens even in programs where coaches are being the most intentional, right. There's still opportunity for miscommunication. And so instead of creating stories around it, we want to advocate for our daughters and also equip them to be able to advocate for themselves. And so what this looks like is listening to your daughter, supporting her, validating her, listening to what she is saying about all of this experience. Right. But also asking her. Hey. I'm hearing that you're having a really challenging time. It sounds tough. Right. Do you want me to continue listening or do you want me to help you have a conversation with your coach on how this can improve? Right. And then that's where you teach her what these steps are. And again, we lay out the five step framework that we have on how to help your daughter talk to her coach because it can be intimidating, right? Most athletes don't know how to do that. And so we teach athletes inside that bonus that they get inside our program. This is it. Step one, get clear on what you want, what you're feeling except to schedule the meeting. Step three, write out your three points. Step four, listen to understands that five. You know it follow-ups we go into all of those so that your athlete is equipped. Even with sentence starters on how to have this conversation and ask what she needs. If there is advocacy that's needed. Okay. So that is really the foundation of it. Right? Tip number one, realize that this is a good thing for your daughter to be experiencing. Right. She does not get better and less. She is challenged. Number two, do not. Add any more drama, do not make it harder for your daughter by talking negatively about the coach in front of her, you can ask questions, you know, obviously she's coming to you, she's saying stuff like, oh, okay. You know, that's interesting. I wonder what they meant by that, right. Or tell me more. Okay. So this was happening in that drill and then this happened and then coach said this, what do you think they meant by that? Asking with curiosity and without judgment is important and it's vital here because then you're also teaching your daughter to not just be a person that complains about everything, but is solution oriented. All right. And then we have that foundation of an inside out approach, start with your dart and make sure that she. Is seeing this as an opportunity to, make sure that she knows that she doesn't have to give her energy or her confidence to anybody else, including her coach. All right. And then that next layer makes sure she's surrounded with support. Make sure you are equipping her with support right? In the form of mental training, in the form of knowing what you can say to make sure that she is supported in this. And then number three, equip her with the advocacy skills that she needs in order to ask those clarifying questions of her coach And to ask what she needs. All right, moms, I hope that this is helpful. Remember, we are teaching all of this and more at our free training for sports moms. We have live sessions happening at the end of September and the first week of October, if you're listening to this episode, as it's released, you can go to train her game.com. Now, if you're not listening to this at the time that this episode is being released that's okay. So go to train her game.com. We have free trainings all the time for sports moms, where you can learn exactly how to strengthen your ethic. Daughter's mental game. So that she can navigate these situations and more. All right. moms i'm coach brief mental performance coach for girl athletes i'm so glad you're here i will see you in the next episode of the raising elite competitors podcast