If your athlete daughter has ever said the words, I suck after a game or a bad practice, and you have absolutely no idea how to respond besides to say, no, you don't, and stop talking like that. Then this one's for you because here's the truth, your mom instinct to fix it. I mean, we all have it, is probably making her feel more misunderstood. And so in this video, in this episode, we're going to talk about some things that you can say instead, a different approach that you can take, and more importantly. I am going to show you why your response is actually only half the solution to this if she is speaking negatively about herself. If I haven't met you, I'm Coach Bree. I am a mental performance coach for girl athletes and I also am a head volleyball coach for the VIN one for the past 14 years, and my mom. So I have heard these words. I suck before. Okay. And when your daughter is. Says this, she is not actually asking you to agree or disagree with her. She's actually asking for something completely different, and it's really important that we know this. Most moms miss it because we're so focused on making her feel better that we actually accidentally make her feel worse. So let's talk about what's actually happening when she says those words and why. The one thing that you can say that will actually help. What you can say that will actually help and why she also needs her own mental tools to be able to handle this situation when you're not around trying to convince her that she doesn't sex. So here's kind of the situation that happens most often. She is walking off the court or the field or gets in the car after to practice and she says something maybe sometimes quietly or sometimes while she's angry. And maybe she te she starts to tear up and she's like, I suck. And in that moment, your heart drops because you know that she doesn't, you've watched her play, uh, you've seen her work hard, you've seen her improve. You've seen what she's capable of. And so your brain automatically goes into fix it. And you say one of these things and listen. I've said all of these too, so no judgment here. You say things like, no, you don't. You played great, or you're just being too hard on yourself. Or it's just one game. Just shake it off. Stop talking like you're, or stop talking down to yourself like that, and here's what happens next. She either shuts down or she disengages, or she doubles down and says, well, you don't get it, mom. Or You have to tell me that you're my mom, and now the car ride home is silent, or it's tense, or she's crying harder, and you're just sitting there thinking. I'm just trying to help, like what did I do wrong? So here's what's actually happening In that moment when your daughter says, I suck. She's not making a factual statement that needs to be corrected. Okay? She's expressing a feeling, frustration, disappointment, maybe embarrassment, and when you immediately jump in with, no, you don't, or you played great, even though your intention is to make her feel better, here's what she hears. You're wrong about what you feel. Or worse, I wasn't even watching the same game you were playing. Right? Because in her mind, mind, in her mind, she did mess up. She knows she made mistakes and she felt them. And she saw her coach's face and she heard her teammates. And when you try to deny that reality because you're trying to protect her, it actually creates this disconnect where she feels like you don't actually understand what she is going through. And by the way, this is one of the biggest reasons athletes tell me they stop talking to their parents about sports, not because their parents don't care, but because every conversation feels like their feelings are being dismissed or corrected. So what she actually needs in that moment is not to be convinced that she doesn't suck. What she needs to feel is seen. And then once she feels seen and understood, that's when she will open up to hearing a different perspective from you. And that's exactly what this system does. And I'm gonna teach you kind of just three steps that you can keep in your back pocket for when you're in that situation. So, alright, what do we say instead? Okay, here's three steps that you can do that actually matches how her brain actually processes emotions in this situation. So number one, validate the feeling. Don't fix it right away. All right. First thing you need to do is acknowledge that what she's feeling is true and real for her without trying to change it. So here's what that sounds like. Okay. I hear you. That was a tough game. I can see you're really frustrated right now. Sounds like you're being really hard on yourself. What happened? Notice what you're not doing here. You're not agreeing with her that she sex, okay? Validation is not agreeing with her. You're also not disagreeing, but you're just naming the feeling under what she is saying and that does something really powerful. It tells her brain, mom sees me. She gets that I'm upset and once she feels seen, her nervous system can start to calm down and that's when she'll be open to hearing something different. It's kind of the same situation that happens, like if you have a really rough day and you know it was a tough day at work, you're in traffic on the way home, maybe you forgot the thing that you needed for dinner, you walk in the door. And you're trying to, you're telling your partner all of this and you're like, ah, and then this happened and this person said this, and gosh, I forgot that ingredient that we need for dinner tonight. And then your partner were just to say something like, well just get over it. Or You should have planned better. That's not really what happened. That's probably not what they meant. You're gonna be like, are you serious? You were not in my day. You know what you really wanna hear from them is. Wow. Like that would be hard. That sucks. What can I do for you? You know, like they want, you just want some understanding, and that's what your daughter needs too. And by validating her, you're not agreeing with her. You're not reinforcing this belief that she sucks. You're actually helping her process and open up the space a little bit so that you can get to a place of problem solving. Okay? So that's step one. Step two, ask, don't tell. Now, instead of jumping in with your perspective, ask her a question that helps her process. So a few options are, okay, well what happened out there that's making you feel this way? Was there a specific moment that felt hard? What would you do differently if you could go back and do that? Practice over. And here's kinda where the magic happens, because when you ask instead of tell a few things occur. One, she gets to talk through what's bothering her. And sometimes just saying it out loud helps her realize it's not as catastrophic as it feels in the moment. And two, you get to actually understand what's going on in her head instead of guessing three. You actually are teaching her how to process her emotions instead of just venting and then staying stuck. So, quick note though, if she doesn't want to talk, don't force it. Just say, okay, I'm here when you're ready. Sometimes she just needs space first, and that's totally fine. Another thing I like to say is. Do you want me to listen for you to vent and talk or do you want me to help you come up with solutions here? And just allowing her to talk and process. Sometimes it's even enough for her to be like, okay, no, I feel better. And ooh, I was being, you know, a, a little bit much there and, and, but it felt that way in the moment. But I feel better about, you know, moving on with the night and maybe even going back to practice tomorrow, things like that. Okay. All right. So that is step two. Um, step one again, is validate the emotion. All right? Kind of recognize what the emotion is underneath what she's saying. Number two, let's ask instead of tell, and then three, offer perspective. Only after she's calm. Now, only after she's calm, can you offer some sort of reframe. But here's the key. It has to be specific, not generic. So instead of you're just being too hard on yourself with, which seems pretty dismissive, try. I noticed that you did have three really solid serves in the second set, and that footwork that you've been practicing with your coaches paying off or that one play was tough, but I also saw that you recovered quickly after that, and that's growth, right? Mistakes happen, even the best mess up, but what matters is how you respond and see the difference. You're not denying that she struggl. You're helping her see the whole picture, not just the part that she's fixated on. And you can help by, you know, you could tell her those things, but you could also help her realize that like, yeah, there were a lot of things in that match or that practice that were out of your control. It didn't go how you wanted them to go, but what was in your control or what was something that went well, or what's something that you're gonna bring into tomorrow to help with that? Okay, now everything I just gave you, that's gonna help your post came conversation, conversation so much. But here's what you need to understand. You can't be out there on the court or the field. With her. You already know this. You can't be in her head during the game when she makes a mistake and immediately thinks I suck. You can't be with her in the middle of practice when she's comparing herself to a teammate. You're not there to tell her Stop comparing. You can't be there when her coach gives her harsh feedback and she spirals for the rest of practice, and that's exactly why your response is only half of the solution. She needs also her own mental skills. Her tools to process mistakes in real time. Her own way to reset and refocus before the negativity takes over. And so that's all called mental trainer mental skills training. What does that actually teach her? It teaches her how to catch that negative thought before it spirals. So instead of, I suck taking over the entire, her entire brain and the rest of practice, she learns how to notice it, to name it, to replace it with something more helpful. It's like the sushi analogy I always gave. If you've been on the trainings right. Um, I go to the sushi place down the road, it's conveyor belt style, and right now we're in January. My husband's doing whole 30, so we're on a hiatus from this place. But anyways, when you're at that sushi place and you see kind of the sushi conveyor belt going by your table, you don't pick every single piece of sushi that comes by and put it on your table. You only pick the stuff that looks good and sounds good, and you let the stuff that doesn't look good, like the octopus legs just kind of like pass you by, right? Um, and that's the thing. The same thing I teach athletes in our mental training program, the elite months of the game, I say there's gonna be thoughts that come into your brain. And you could actually just let them pass you by. Like you're watching the sushi go by in the conveyor belt. You know, the thought of, I suck, or I'm not good enough, or My coach doesn't like me, or this or that. Like, you actually don't have to take that thought captive and consume it. You can let it go by. You could be like, oh, that was interesting, but it's not serving me. So I'm gonna let it go, and I'm going to choose a new thought. Like, this is hard, but I can do hard things. This isn't my best practice right now, but I'm still going to finish strong with good energy, things like that. Okay. The other thing that's really helpful is giving her a reset routine. So something that we teach athletes in our program is the snapback routine, a reset word, a physical cue, something that she can do in 10 seconds to get her head back in the game instead of spiraling after mistakes that teaches her how to objectively. Assess her performance instead of just catastrophizing. So instead of, I'm terrible, um, she can say something like, that play didn't go well, but here's what I did right? And here's what I can adjust for next time. And here's what that means for you. Those car rides home get a lot easier because she has already processed most of it by the time she gets to you. So you're not her only lifeline anymore, you're her support system. And that's a much healthier dynamic for both of you. And I was just talking to a mom. Yesterday. Her name is Leah. Her daughter is Campbell. She is in our program. She's a cross country and a track runner. And is that how you say that, a track runner? She does cross country and she competes in track. Okay. Um, and she told me something that was really interesting. She goes, I used to like, when I would pick my daughter up from track practice, I would get, like, I would feel my body get physically tense as I would pull up. And I knew why it was the dread because I was going to. It. You know, my daughter's gonna get in the car and it was gonna be 20 minutes of negativity. Everything she did wrong, how bad she was, how everyone else was better than her, and how, like I never knew what to say that would help that. And honestly, can you relate to that, that pit in your stomach? Because you know what's coming and here's actually what changed for Leah and for Campbell. Campbell went through the elite mental game, learned mental skills to process emotions differently, how to recognize like this thought isn't serving me. She learned something called 3 2, 1, brave, which is her daily mindset routine. To help her kind of focus on what her goals were. She learned her snapback routine. And now she said, um, Leah said when she picks her daughter up and gets in the car, it's a completely different vibe. Like her daughter's no longer beating herself up. She'll say things like, you know, I was doing really well in the 400, but I fell behind, like in this activity in the 800. But then I focus on my breathing. I was able to finish strong. She has a much healthier perspective on like her performance, same athlete. Same sport, but completely different mental game because now she has the tools to handle those things herself. So she's not dependent on her mom to fix everything for her every single time. So that's when you combine your calm response. With her mental skills, and here's what's, here's what changes. She starts coming to you more after a tough game, not less, because now you're her safe space where she can process without being fixed or corrected. She learns how to kind of self-coach a little bit more through hard moments instead of spiraling. And these skills serve her for the rest of her life out of her sport, because that's one of the biggest things I worry about as a mom myself. Yes, my kids are in sports, so they can learn some of these skills, but although if they're not taught mental training skills from their coach, then they're not really learning it. They're just making things worse, right? Because not their coach, but the lack of mental skills is just reinforcing these thoughts of, I suck, or I'm terrible, but. I'm more worried like we're preparing for kids outside of their sports. My, my daughter, I want her to be able, you know, to face something hard in her life and not automatically think I am terrible or something is wrong with me and I'm not gonna be able to get through this. I'm not gonna be with her in every single situation. And neither are you for your daughter. And the best thing that we can do is give them the skills that they need to mentally be able to process whatever comes their way. Right? And so that, that is, is the ultimate goal there, right? Is that we're preparing them for life. And this sport is, is the gateway for that, right? It's, it's where we can teach those skills. But if they don't actually have the mental training skills, because. Most coaches don't actually teach this, not because they don't care about it, they just aren't typically taught how to do this. I, I definitely wasn't, when I became a coach, I had to use my own time, money, and resources to become a mental performance coach so I could teach these to my girls, and also now with thousands of athletes inside EMG. So if they don't have those skills, then they're going to be stuck in these spirals and you're gonna be stuck always being the lifeline, trying to like, get her to, you know, feeling better or processing differently. The thing is like these are her own mental experiences you can support, but you can't be in her head for her. So if you wanna learn more about these skills that, um, I teach, I have a free training where I break this down. It's called, um, how to Strengthen Your Athlete Daughter's Mental Game so she doesn't hold herself back in her sport or Life. And you can register for a date and time. Uh, it's at train her game.com. I will link that below. But that free training, it's kind of like a workshop for you. Um. As a parent really breaks down like, here are the skills that your daughter needs to be mentally strong in her sport and life, and here's how you can give them to her. We also talk about our program, the Elite Mental Game that is our signature self-based program that we've had over 5,000 athletes come through. The same one that Campbell went through and Leah went through because there's a parent side to it as well. Um, and you get a discount on the program when you go to that training. So train her game.com. That's where you can learn our method, our approach. Some really simple skills you could be teaching your daughter and then also learn about EMG and, uh, what this program can do for her and how it all works. Okay? It's very simple. Athletes log in, they do it on an app. Um, short videos, skills they can use right away. Um, so, so very, very useful and applicable to middle school and high school athletes. All right, moms, I hope this is helpful, uh, for you when you are in the car with your daughter and, you know, she's like, I suck. Remember the three things that we talked about? Number one, validate. Okay, validate the emotion. You're not trying to agree or disagree with what she's telling you in this moment. You're trying to identify the emotion under what she's saying. Um, number two. Ask, don't tell. Okay. So ask really curious questions. And then three, we can shift to your perspective or help her have a different perspective once she's kind of processed and calmed down. Um, and that's where, you know, we can help, uh, help her with some solutions. But really this only works. I mean, yes, you could be that support, but it works best when we've got the other half happening, meaning she has some mental skills to be able to process what's going on in her sport as well. All right, moms, hopefully this was helpful. I will see you in the next episode of the Raising Elite Competitors podcast.