Supporting the development of mental skills for our young athletes to thrive - 'A conversation with Elliott Newell'

In this episode sports psychologist Elliott Newell joins Gordon MacLelland to discuss how as sporting parents we can help support the development of mental skills for our young athletes to thrive.

During the conversation they discuss amongst other things:

• Personality flaws or just skill deficits?
• The importance of modelling emotional regulation during those tougher moments
• Imagery, breath work, mindfulness and journalling
• Helping our children meet the demands of their sport
• The importance of vulnerability and honesty in building trust and openness in parent-child relationships
• Using daily life and sport experiences as teachable moments for emotional and mental development
• Our goal in raising self-aware, emotionally skilled, and self-regulating individuals, not just successful athletes

Elliott is a sport psychologist and director of The Thrive Academy. He has worked in a wide range of Olympic and Paralympic sports as well as in Rugby and Football. Elliott specialises in environments and the way people interact. If you get the environment right, then you can have profound impact on the performance, development and well-being of people within it and this is the primary focus of Elliott's work.

Additional Reading

Helping our children manage stress through a pre-performance routine

How to identify and prevent burnout in your child?

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:13

Welcome to season six of the Parents in Sport Podcast. I'm your host, Gordon Maclelland. I'm delighted to be joined today by sports psychologist Elliot Newell. Elliot, thank you for joining us on the show. Oh, pleasure.

Speaker 0:26

It's great to be here. Thanks for the invite.

Speaker 2 0:29

It's uh it's great to see you once again. We were just talking uh off air that it's it's been a while, and Elliot's here today to talk about how we can support the development of mental skills um for our young athletes to thrive. And this is geared up for you, sports parents out there. What are the little tips and tricks that we can maybe use at home in the car to try and just help our children um with their sporting journey? But before we dig into that, Elliot, can you just tell uh our listeners a little bit about yourselves and your background?

Speaker 1:05

Yeah, sure. Uh I find that this always takes me a little bit longer, the the more that I do because I get older and I get more things to talk about. So uh yeah, I'm a I'm a sports psychologist. Uh I have been for the last 18 years or so. Um, in that time, I've done a range of different roles. Uh I I still look fondly on my early career. I had a great time at um in canoeing of all sports, never been in a boat in my life, uh, but stumbled upon an opportunity in Nottingham to get on the white water and uh and the lake there and support some of the sprint and slalom athletes. So that was super cool, really enjoyed that. Learned a lot about people and sport, uh particularly young people, because I was working with like the development groups there, um, and then ended up moving into a more kind of like systems role, which was pretty cool. I didn't, to be honest, I didn't really know what it was when I signed up to it. It just had loads of kind of cool words in it and sounded really awesome. Uh, but I spent six years at the English Institute of Sport working um in their Pathways team. Pathways was like super cool because it was basically um taking like a bit of a strategic support role across like all of our Olympic and Paralympic sports um to support the development of athletes. So typically in that gap between like home nation level, top-end home nations going into like funded programs, so mostly with athletes who were like between 14 and 22 years old. So um big range, big range. I got to do some really interesting things in sports that I'd never ever even thought about. So, like built a really good um relationship with the guys at Taekwondo, did some brilliant projects there, loved time in that sport, uh, did some stuff in gymnastics and swimming as well, which was really interesting. Uh, but the bit I loved about that role really was I was the only psychologist in the team, and there were so many cool conversations about um psychology. All these sports had great questions on, either questions that they had from their coaches or questions that they had from their parents or their athletes around like what does great psych support look like for young athletes. So I was really privileged to find myself in that position because I got to go across loads of different sports, helped with loads of different projects in and around that stuff. And that's probably where I got most interested in like environment stuff, like um, how do we create environments that help people to thrive? Was pretty much the most common phrase that I'd said in those six years, uh, which was cool. Uh, ended up spending a year at UK Sport, leading the athlete support team, uh, which was fun, but not really what I'm about. Like it was a great role, uh, but probably a little bit too strategic for me. Um, I'm used to wearing tracksuits or shorts to work, not chinos. Uh, so I ended up uh moving on and setting up my own consultancy. I've had some brilliant experiences with um different teams in that time. Uh, and now, as we were just discussing, I found myself uh working uh for my consultancy, which is the Frive Academy in football. Uh so football's new to me, which is which is fun doing some pathway stuff, some academy stuff, first team stuff. And then also I'm really interested in like people development. So I train sports likes now. I run courses for different coaches and practitioners about um psychology that they need to know about to do their jobs well. So I said it would take a while because I'm pretty old now. Uh but yeah, that's the uh that that's a bit about me, Gordon.

Speaker 2 4:34

Yeah, that's excellent. So now we need to pick your brains on uh all of those experiences and uh talk about environment, we're gonna talk a bit about helping young people thrive, we're gonna talk a little bit about sports parenting. Um, mental skills, Elliot. I mean, it it it gets banded around quite a lot. Not sure it always means the same things to to every person who uses it. You know, what what does it in your mind, what you know, what does it what does it look like for you?

Speaker 5:08

Yeah, I do know what you you've hit a really important point early on, which is like we've got to be really clear on what we're talking about with this. So, like I've always explained it to parents and coaches in like um almost like a free tier model, right? Psychologically, there's three things that you need to pay attention to. One is like the personal characteristics of the player. So this is just like who they are as a person, their personality, it might include like how introverted or extroverted they are, it might be like um how conscientious they are, or how kind of free-flowing in the moment they are. Like this just like who they are as a person is one thing, but then we get mental skills, which is something different. So skills is like a competency thing, right? It's like what can you do? So skills for me are things like being able to use imagery, being able to refocus after being distracted, being able to communicate well, being able to manage your emotions, like these are skill things, people can get better at that stuff, and then like the final layer, I guess, of this is like I use the word method a lot. Feels a little bit like science class, in it, but like I use the word method a lot, which is like what is that young person doing to cope with the demands that they're facing? And I think all of that stuff just gets mixed up into this bowl, and I don't know if it's that helpful really for parents, coaches, young athletes having a conversation about the mental side of the game. If we're able to separate a person from their mental skill, from the strategy that they're putting in place, then we can have better conversations. So the thing that I end up hearing a lot is right, um, you you watch a young player and they might just lack some skill, they might not have the skill yet to be able to refocus their attention after a mistake. And the way that it shows up, let's take a hockey game, for example, they misplace a pass, and rather than refocusing and getting back on their next job, their arms are up in the air, they're beating themselves up, they're rolling their eyes, head goes back, their head goes down. And everyone wants to talk about how that person or that young player isn't dot dot dot, yeah, or is too much of a dot dot dot, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like we'd stick all these labels on, and a lot of those things are personal, right? Like we're we're getting at that personal characteristics, like, oh, they don't care enough or they're too selfish, they think it's all about them. Whereas probably the most sensible thing to do is work out is this a personal characteristic thing, or is it a skill thing? Because if we could support that young person to develop the skills they need and have strategies to cope with that better in the moment, would we see something different? And I would say, in my experience, nine times out of ten, you get better outcomes if you focus on how do I help you develop that skill? How do I help you develop a method to deal with that rather than get into oh you're not resilient enough, or you need to be more open to feedback, or you need to cope with your emotions better, you know, on all these other labels you you hear quite a lot. So you're nodding, Gordon. So I imagine like you you come across this quite like it's so easy to label people, right? Yeah, um, it's just yeah, and I think it gets in the way of good psych work.

Speaker 2 8:34

I I I mean, I I'm sort of nodding away because A, I think it's the best explanation. I've I've heard about it for a while. My my head's spinning around thinking about all that probably a lot of the personal characteristics we talk about in our work with parents that they're things they can help them develop, you know, resilience. But what does that actually mean? How do we develop that at home? What do the dialogues actually look like? And he is sort of talking about communicating well, and you know, we know that the reality is young people aren't going to reach the top without needing help from other people. Well, that means they're probably gonna have to go and seek support. And how many times do parents step in and feel like they do that rather than maybe help the kids frame some of those conversations, particularly as they get that little bit older and they get to those sort of mid to late teenage years? So I I love that that there's a skill-based element to it, but yeah, the the bit I'm nodding at is that everybody's absolutely different, and that's the one thing I've learned. So every family, every child, and I'm sort of stood now and I'm thinking of work so I'm saying, well, yeah, let's be clear, this might not work for you. I'm painting pictures here. There could be five different ways of doing this, but you need to know your own child. And I think as you say, you've talked about introverts, extroverts, and you know, we talk about in you know, intrinsic, extrinsic motivation. Well, again, people try to say, Well, no, intrinsic's the one that's that's healthy and whatever, but it doesn't mean that extrinsic doesn't work as a as a motivation because for some people just being the best is means they do an awful lot of stuff, so yeah, I love that. I I just think separating those three things is key, and I suppose what we're probably gonna dig more into today is that one about how we help them develop these skills, and I think a bit like some of the personal characteristics can be developed, can't they? I think that's really important to say, and I think some people when you put these words and say, Oh, my kid's not that, my kid's not that, and it's like, Whoa, hang on, we don't have to panic, we're not we're not gonna be 10 out of 10 on all of these today, but we can get better at them, can't we?

Speaker 10:55

Yeah, yeah. Could you imagine how boring life would be if everyone was good at the same stuff? Uh I mentioned like um this taekwondo project I did when it's we're helping them develop a curriculum, which is basically how do we develop our young taekwondo players? And we come up with all the psychological characteristics that we thought were relevant. So we had this lovely list, we we spent ages making it, it was all nice words, all nice example, we're really proud of it. We showed it to the performance director, and he was like, Yeah, it's good. And it just wasn't the response that I wanted. And I was like, Yeah, okay, like I was hoping for a little bit more, and he just looked at it and he went, We've got a double Olympic champion who's probably only half of those things. And I thought, Joe, that's such a great point because like we can't expect people, you know, not just in the psychological space, but in all in all of it. Like we can't expect them to be amazing at all things, which is why, like, probably since that moment, when I help sports with this stuff, when I help parents with this stuff, I focus more on what are the demands of the game, rather than how do you need to be. Because if the game, for example, so again, I'll come back to hockey or football or any invasion game, it's dynamic, it's fast-paced, it's transitional, end-to-end, mistakes happen. No one's ever, ever had the perfect game of hockey, no one's ever had the perfect game of football because they don't exist. So you could have a look at that and say, the game demands of me that I'm able to respond after a mistake. So let's focus about that. Let's let's go, all right, if that's a reality, how do you deal with that? What's all the awesome stuff you can do that will help you cope in those moments brilliantly? And how can we support you to do that even better? Rather than get into a conversation around our athletes need to have great emotional management skills, they need to be resilient, they need to be able to focus. Yeah, that might be true, but I in my experience it's such a more meaningful conversation. If you start with what are the demands and how do we help you find your way rather than come up with this menu of things that you have to be?

Speaker 2 13:00

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean that makes a lot of sense because I I think suppose you like you say the demands of every sport are going to look different. I think you've touched on a couple of things there. I think for parents listening who've listened to lots of these episodes, we talk a lot about there is no such thing as a perfect game. And what and one of the beauties, Elliot, in one of our sessions around competition and match day, we've pulled some fascinating stats out from games of football, cricket, rugby, different sports about what it actually looks like. And I'm just thinking of a couple off the top of my head. I think we pulled from Harry Kane's season when he was at Tottenham before he went to Bayern Munich that he was scoring one in three and a half shots. And I think we had Brodie Ritalic, the all-black lot, carried the ball in one game ten times for 10 metres. Now, could you imagine the heart attacks parents would be having on the side of a youth sports game on those success rates? And yeah, and all it was to all it was to highlight was we watch it at the very top of the game and we miss it. And yet we can go and watch our kids sometime, and we're expecting this game that has no errors, and that that's the worst thing, and then we react, and then the hands go up in the air, and then we show this emotion and disappointment. And I suppose it links into a little bit when we look at joining up the dots around young people, is that if we've got parents throwing their arms up in the air or being disappointed, it may be no surprise that our children follow suit, particularly if it's learned behaviour, and that's the stuff you're trying to unravel. That is there maybe a better way of of of handling that moment.

Speaker 14:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%, man. And it's tough. Like, I've got two kids myself, like both play football. Like the eldest is 12 now, going on 16. Uh, so he's uh he's already gone into those difficult teenager years a lot earlier than we thought. But um, yeah, like he's he loves the game, he just wants to get better, like he's obsessed with it, and I like it drags me along with him, you know. Like he's uh um, and and I need to make sure, like, so the thing I've always got in my head is because I know that um the way that my lad's made up is that um he isn't yet very skillful at managing his frustrations. So I know that I need to be the version of him that he's trying to become, and what I mean by that is if I want Noah to better manage his emotions, then I need to role model that for him, even more so, um, until the point at which he's able to do that for himself.

Speaker 2 15:50

So what does that look like? So I think this is brilliant. I think this is the gold bit, Elliot, uh, for parents this because I think the role modelling bit is important about what our kids pick up from us. In terms of that, him being, you know, slightly emotional around, let's say, game day, maybe in the car afterwards, maybe moody at home about his sport. What sort of stuff are you doing? Giving him space? Does it depend on the situation? Does it do you read the room? Do you you just make sure you talk about things in a certain way?

Speaker 16:28

All of it, um, I think is is the answer. Like um, I probably made mistakes early on where I thought because he was more negatively biased, so he'd come off the pitch and talk about the mistakes he made rather than the things he did really well. And the one game we scored a hat trick and he came off and he was like, I can't believe I didn't get four today. And he's like, I can't believe I missed that chance. So I was like, mate, you were amazing. And I was probably like relentlessly optimistic, telling him all the great stuff, which I thought at the time was a good counterbalance, and maybe it had a an effect, but it just felt like that probably wasn't very helpful because he would then get really frustrated with me because he wants to express his frustration, and I was probably putting a cap on it, basically saying, shut up about the negative stuff, focus on the good stuff, which isn't really what you he needs at that time. Um, so I had to learn at that point, because those conversations never really ended with anything other than him just nodding, going, Yeah, dad, folks dad, and walking off. You know, when you feel like you've not really had an impact. Um, so I was like, okay, well, what might what might be a different strategy? So I just started to let him vent a little bit more. And what I noticed was like after 90 seconds of venting, and I just had to hold tight because I hated it, right? I didn't like I I knew he played well, and I didn't want him to talk about himself in this way, but I just let him massacre himself for 90 seconds, and then he kind of like huffs, yeah. But did you see that past, Dad? You know, and then he started to be a little bit more like okay, right. And so what I'm learning about Noah is at the moment is that um he's at a stage in his development where as as all kids tend to go through, he's just got there a bit earlier than maybe I thought he would, he's very, very self-conscious, super self-conscious, and he's constantly thinking that everyone is judging him on everything that he does. So that has a bit of an emotional build-up for him over the course of the game because I don't know this for sure, but I think probably what's happening for him is that when he makes a mistake, his immediate thought is what do other people think of me? So imagine that building up over a game, and then you want to talk to someone who you love and trust about it, and they just shut you down and talk about how good you were. That's probably not I probably wasn't doing what I needed to do there. So, what I'm trying to teach you now, without saying it, is it's okay to be frustrated. It's actually quite healthy to express a bit. The important bit is that you don't beat yourself up for too long afterwards, and that you're able to connect with a positive. And I've been quite lucky that he's ended up quite naturally doing that. His pattern at the moment is he'll come off, he'll be negative, he'll talk about all the stuff he did rubbish, and then he quite quickly gets to the stuff that he does good. That's just my kid. Everyone else's kid will be different. So I think my advice would be like can you just notice the pattern? Like what what tends to happen, and what role do you play in that pattern?

unknown 19:41

Yeah.

Speaker 19:42

So the pattern I was in was that he would be negative, I would be positive, and we wouldn't get a productive conversation. So the thing where I'm now at with Noah is that we've done that for a while, and now we're at the stage where I can say, Do you know what, mate? I notice when you come off, like you're just super negative, even when you paid well. And because he's felt listened to, he then is in a position to go, yeah, I am a pit. And I was like, I'll tell you what, mate, because because he knows what I do for a job, right? So then he starts asking questions. I know how do you help other people with that or or other athletes like this? I'm like, yeah, they all are. Um so I say, Do you know what the one thing you could do that would make the biggest difference would be if you make a mistake, say to yourself, What's my next job? And just do that. And then if you make a few mistakes and you notice yourself getting really wound up, just take a big deep breath and let it go. So now, over the last couple of months, um, we've been in a position where my role on the side is like I'm now doing that next job. So our little hand signal for next job is is me doing something, and then also I I kind of mimic the breath. So when I talked before around maybe our best role as parents in supporting mental skill is to like role model for them the version of themselves that they aren't yet, then that's that's just an example of it. Like they need you to show them what that's like. Um, so it's a really specific example.

Speaker 2 21:19

So like I think people will put principles out of that, but brilliant example, Elliot, because you may I just I mean, just listening to some of the things you've said, Dan, I'm sort of I don't know whether I'm chuckling or nodding or agreeing or thinking that this is such the reality that we all face as parents. The one that I love straight away is that you've admitted that it's a journey for you and it evolves. Because, you know, when you say, you know, we're not perfect, we never get it right. What maybe worked for you three years ago may not work for you now. You know, you think about you have to evolve as time goes on because that's that's absolutely critical to it. I mean, I think we also Know teenagers can be challenging. It's good that at the moment you've got that relationship with Noah, but we'll probably have lots of listeners coming on who'll be thinking, Oh my god, my kids don't listen to anything I've got to say. I look at my daughter at the moment, my son's alright. Look at my daughter, anything I come out with, worst idea in the world. If I say to it, if I say to it via a coach and he tells us, she comes home and says, Oh, you won't believe what he's just said, and I'm like, done this two months ago, you know, and uh that that's the reality of where we are. I love the fact you've kept it real about this optimism thing, because my God, don't kids hate it when you're just overly positive all the time and you get all these people splashing over social media. Oh, yeah, you've got to be, you've got to be positive with them, you've got to be whatever else. And actually, no, you don't, not all the time, because sometimes we need to give them that space to then be frustrated, let them talk about it, let them reflect, express that um frustration and and and all of those things. And you got me thinking about we had all of Adams on on here, a sort of motivational interviewing expert, and we were thinking about stuff we talked to parents about if they asked kids about their sport, and I would have fallen into the trap where you know I probably wouldn't have been that helpful for Noah if I'd sort of said to him, you know, Noah, you know, how would you have scored yourself today out of ten? And he's probably given himself a sort of seven. And my initial reaction as a parent will would have been, okay, well, what would have made it an eight, nine, or ten? And all have said to me, said, Well, you missed a key question there. Because she said your first question should have been, why was it a seven and not a five? And just take the sting out of the sting out of the whole thing. And I think this, these are the conversations we need to have because again, that wouldn't work with every child, it it may not work for Noah. We're just trying to create pictures for people to use to think about their own situations, their own contexts, their own realities, and try and make the best choices for them. And I suppose that let goes on to then a lot of people listening to this will have young performers either in football academies, performance programmes, people who are all aspiring and love it when kids have hopes and dreams and everything that goes with it. What are the key ingredients for you? You mentioned environments. What do you think we're trying to create around young people? Because there isn't a perfect environment, but there are some things we would probably like to see.

Speaker 24:39

Yeah, yeah. Um I'm reminded of like uh so I did like this cross sport project on environments, and part of that was being able to communicate what are the components of uh an environment, and I came up with like three things. One was um if I think about what makes an environment, so you've got like the physical spaces, right? So that's like an obvious one. Sometimes you can leverage those physical spaces to make it work for you really well. So I'll give you a really good example, like the the um so I coached Noah's team um before uh before he joined this new team, and one of the things I noticed was that um the way in which we we gathered wasn't probably that helpful in getting the kids to to listen. What I really wanted them to do was to understand what every training session was for and how it related to them. So what I would do is um either try and pick up individual conversations at the start of training as people were dropping in, and I was on my own, so I'm also trying to set the session up as well. So I would often miss kids, um, or I would probably spend too much time with one and the other, and it was just all a little bit messy. Plus, when you try and get them in, um, we don't have days like we have today all the time, right? Most of the time you're coaching in the wind or rain or dark or something like that. Um, so we changed the physical environment just that like we we we got this little seat stand, which was really, really simple. So the whole psychology of the environment changed because for five minutes before the session, we could give people a comfortable seat, sit down. It was warm, it was broken from the wind, it was relatively comfortable, and I can say, right, today, guys, we're working on this, A, B, and C, um Noah, this is your thing for today, you know, Gordon, like you know, we've been talking about this, this is a chance for you to focus on that today, right? Let's go. And so the physical environment can have an impact. Like, so no parents won't have a huge amount of control on the physical environment in which people train, but it does have implications for things like if I'm going to have a conversation with someone, where do I have it? Because most would probably have it in the car on the way home or on the journey on the way home. Sometimes it's really good to ask yourself: is this the right environment for this conversation? Might this be one where little Sally, little Johnny might give me a little bit more if I give give him or her 20 minutes to relax and we can talk about it at home, we're a bit more comfortable. Um, so those kind of things. Um the physical environment's really important. So that's maybe one thing for the parents to have a think about. Um, I knew in Noah that um I'd always get more out of him after he'd had a McDonald's off-the-no we game. So I tended not to talk about the game directly until we'd done that on the way home.

Speaker 2 27:31

Yeah, I mean, do you know what? I've been asking teenagers recently, because I get to talk to like you you've worked across a lot of sports, and I get to ask loads of questions. It's fascinating. And I joke with some parents this week in a gymnastics club. I said, just so you know, when I spoke to the kids about what they want after competition, they've told me that they want a bath or a shower, food and a sleep. None of them have told me they want a full-scale analysis of what's just happened with their mum and dad. Now I joke because when things have gone when things have gone well. It's a bit like when Noah's feeling, you everyone just talks about it anyway. That's not really an issue. The car journey home is almost irrelevant when it's gone well, because actually you're not dealing with any emotional baggage. It's when it hasn't gone well, I think that's when we we've got a question, is that the right time when everyone's feeling that emotional and whatever else? You've got me thinking about that optimistic bit, and it one of the other things that this is a WSL club I was in recently, and the under 15 girls said to me, said, Please can you stop telling my parents if after I've had a bad game that I've done really well, they they actually said to me, Please can you have a chat? It doesn't make me feel any better. I'm 15, I'm not stupid, I've played this for five years. That was awful. I don't need somebody trying to be all happy clappy, and you know, it was driving them up the wall. And of course, the poor pants are well. Well, we're only trying to make them feel better. And it's like, well, you might not have to, just let them sit there and do like you said, you might have to just let them sit, let them vent. It it's hard, isn't it? Really hard.

Speaker 29:15

100%. And that and that's like if we're talking about skill development, being able to recognize, sit with, and regulate your emotions is a really key skill, right? So not only might it be unhelpful for how that person feels straight away with this idea of trying to make them feel better, you're actually robbing them of an opportunity to develop the skills they need to learn for themselves. Right? So, like I've done it with um other players in the past where like, I mean, we've had it before, like um I had it this summer when I was away at a tournament, we we we exited the tournament and really well-established player, and and she's disappointed after the game. And I don't need to make her feel better, but I know that she lacks some skills in this emotional regulation area. So my question is just tell me name the emotion for me, tell me what it is. Because that's her skill level, like she really struggles to even name what she's feeling. Whereas if I go in and be like, you need to feel this way. My job as a psychist to make you feel better, then I've taken that opportunity away from her to do what she needs to do for herself. So when we think about all of these mental skills that you can develop through sport, and right back to the start of our conversation where you've got to name these things, if you know what you're working on, then you can better pick the opportunities there are to develop them. So feeling crappy after a bad performance is a real great opportunity to learn how to manage yourself. Let's let's allow people to do that, and then the way in which they do that will tell us how skillful they are and what their method is. And if we think that's working for them, then great. But what we might notice is that might not be the best way to deal with that. Let me help you.

Speaker 2 31:08

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 31:09

Um whereas if we dive in and try and fix it and make it better, like um, yeah, I just think it it might help in the short term, but as we know, as kids get older, they they they see what's really there and they don't like it, and then also we're stopping their kind of longer term development because you want, I think, uh, might be making an assumption here, but I think what we want are self-sufficient, independent, skillful, psychologically minded players, right? And people who can manage themselves, look after themselves. So that doesn't just happen because you get older. No, and I think that's the bit people miss. People don't just get good at football or swimming just by getting older, they train it here, right? Yeah, so we have to train the mental skills that we want people to learn, and these opportunities will come organically, like with the inevitable setbacks that happen during the journey. Or you might delay where I think good looks like is that we are deliberately creating these opportunities. So, one thing we're doing at the football club I'm at now is like we we want players to be really good at solving problems, we want them to be skillful communicators under pressure. Well, that's great, as long as training provides those opportunities. In reality, training wasn't providing those opportunities. There was loads of drill-based work, there was loads of high-intensity physical work, there was loads of low-level tactical work, but at no point were we throwing people in the mixer and go, you're on your own, figure that one out.

Speaker 3 32:42

Yeah.

Speaker 32:43

So knowing what you want to work on then gives you the opportunity to say, all right, how do we best do this? Let's create the opportunities for that. And generally speaking, all the places I go into do not have a plan for how they're going to develop the mental skills needed to perform. They're a little bit more hopeful that good characters find their way through the system, or people pick it up in their own ways, or as they get a little bit older, they might be switched on enough to just go and get a sports ic independently and help them with that. But I think there's so much we can do in the home environment, in the training environment, that can help people.

Speaker 2 33:22

Yeah, now I want to just dig a little bit deeper into that because I spend my, I suppose I spend my whole time trying to decipher about which skills can the parents really develop at home through what they do, and what is probably more the coach sport environment role. When I when I think, for example, for me, I think it's far easier for me as a as a just a normal parent, maybe who just takes their kids to sport to help my kids become more self-organized and communicate well. Now, both of those will be helpful in sport, but I think I can develop them on a on a personal level that aids their sport. Things like imagery and some of the other bits that then I I'm just gonna say become a little bit more I'm gonna say technical, more sport psychological. Where do you think that balance where do you think that balance is? I know you're gonna tell me that we can help them develop all of it, but but do you think there is some that we can better focus on as a parent in the development of our kids, and then the others should be coming more from the other side?

Speaker 34:35

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think um I guess it depends what the appetite is for training at home, because there'll be some kids that just want to do their sport when they're doing their sport, and home life just kind of is is home. But I'm guessing we're probably talking to an audience with highly motivated kids that are trying to be as good as they can be. Yeah, I've had it a few times where like parents have booked sessions with me and they've said, right, we're not here for any kind of deep work, but we want an hour of your time, give us a training program. Help us create a training program. And in the same way, like you might go to an SNC coach and be like, We're doing our gym session with you, but we we recognize that we can do a little bit more core stability work. Can you just write us a program and we'll do the extra core work at home? Um, so if we start looking at uh it like mental fitness, then there might be some things that you can do at home. Well, there are things that you can do at home that are relatively quick and simple, but they're like they're like getting your reps in. Um, so like a real simple training program for imagery might be um you generate like a real simple scenario from your sport, no more than 10 seconds, and you then have uh same as you set up a gym program, right? Six reps of three sets. I'm gonna imagine that scenario, and then every time I imagine that scenario, I'm gonna add an additional level of detail. So that might be a visual detail, it might be a physical kinesthetic feeling, it might be something else that happens in that moment. But I always say to people like if you want to get good at something, you've got to practice it. Yeah, so imagery is one you can practice at home.

Speaker 2 36:17

You can practice I was gonna say, do we think parents can help with that though? Or is the parent or do you think the parent role there is have you done your imagery? I'm trying to be real life because you got it. Do you know what I mean? I uh what yeah, yeah.

Speaker 36:32

I'm just trying to decide the role about this for themselves, right? Yeah, so I don't think kids are immediately going, do you know what? Actually, I need to get a mental fitness program for at home. So maybe parents are thinking, all right, actually, I could see the benefit that that would have for my for my child. I might take responsibility and sourcing someone that can create that for us, and then we'll just create the right environment for us to do that at home. So, like the the things that I tend to recommend to like do consistently at home is one is imagery, one is uh breath work, uh, because breath work is particularly important if you're trying to regulate anxiety or cope under pressure. Um, it's so difficult to teach people how to breathe properly when they're like in their like late teens, mid-twenties. But um, breath work, absolutely, you can do that anytime you want. Mindfulness as a way of being able to set the foundations for good attentional control. So, mind uh a lot of people think mindfulness is about being super zen and super chilled, and it's a mental health intervention. Like it's absolutely helpful for that stuff. But if we're thinking about a mental fitness for sport lens on it, if I want you, we use this example before, you're a hockey player, you've made a mistake. What I need players to be able to do is to notice that they've been distracted and be skillful to get back into the present moment. That's basically what mindfulness is. So you can practice mindfulness at home with some real simple strategies to do that. Um, reflection and self-assessment is one. So this is one I'm just starting to trial with Noah now, where um because his work on is a more realistic assessment of himself, um, we've just started this preseason as like a bit of a journaling task. So, my role is to set that up for him and then just nudge him to do it. But basically, he's now in the process where, like, um, after every training session, he'll keep a log in his journal around like um two things that he thought he did really well today and one thing that he wants to get better at. The only goal there, really, I'm trying to get him to better manage his self-talk, and that starts with him being able to sit in his own headspace and recognize positives and work on. It's not really about the journal. What I'm hoping for is down the line, because he's been working on his skill to do this, he can then do that in a moment where he can make a mistake in the game and not beat himself up and just get on with his next job.

Speaker 2 39:12

So the so the parent role there is in the the understanding that this could be a really good thing and the nudge towards potentially that could be a that could be potentially be my role. I'm also rolling it back a little bit, Elliot, when we think about younger kids or kids who aren't at that stage yet. Actually, purely from a reflective point of view, it's the type of questions we ask, isn't it? You know, if we ask them yes, no, or grunt uh yes or no questions, we're either going to get that or we're gonna get a grunt. If we ask them those more open questions that start getting them to reflect on their performance, even if we don't think it's entirely accurate. I mean, I joke with parents, you can't ask your kids, you know, how do you think you did today? And they say, Oh, yeah, no, I was a a nine out of ten or I was brilliant today, and we go, No, you weren't, you were three. No, you know, and I I joke about it, you know, because actually the skill is getting the kids talking, isn't it?

Speaker 40:08

Yeah, and I don't think we should ever underestimate the that's a two-way process, right? So we want the kids to talk, but we also need to talk, and the dynamic typically looks like a powerful parent asking direct questions to child, child answers parent questions, whereas what would it look like, what would it feel like, what impact might it have if we were able to level that out a little bit more? So if we want our young athletes to be able to recognize their emotions, the impact that their emotions have on their behavior, then how brilliant would it be if we role modeled that? When's the last time as a parent you you said to your kid, I feel this? And it not be a mental like a thinking thing, or like so, you know, I feel like you could do better at your sport is no, I'm talking about like I feel frustration. I feel pride, I feel sadness. What does that feel like for you? Where do you feel your sadness? I feel it in my stomach. Um, that's interesting. I feel it in my chest. Yeah, that kind of like real-level conversation where again back to this idea that we might need to role model for them the things that they can't do yet. So the the conversation dynamic of like I'm the parent, I'm gonna get you to talk, might not be the most helpful way of looking at it. Maybe actually the best way to get them to talk is for parents to talk first. Um, I feel frustrated. This is how I dealt with it. This is how I behaved on reflection. I would probably do something different. Really vulnerable space for parents to get in, right? Because we're supposed to be awesome, we're supposed to be bulletproof, right? So admitting your faults to your kids uh probably doesn't work. But I've I know I've started to do that a little bit more, and I'm getting some decent responses because the bit that and maybe there's some parents here who can relate to this, like what I've noticed with Noah in particular over the last six to twelve months is like he's becoming super defensive. Super, like anything that I try and kind of talk to him about, like if there's any sense that he thinks it's a criticism, he'll just shut down. Um, so I know that I need to like level the playing field a little bit more. I'm not perfect, neither of you. Let's talk about this imperfection, rather than a perception that I've got it all sorted out and you're not good enough yet, so you need to listen to me. Um, so again, like for parents, just like what how would you describe the dynamic between you and your kid when it comes to talking about sport? Maybe that's a really good place to start. Like, what what's the pattern of conversation? Who has the power? Who has the answers? And like maybe just start from there and and see where you can get to. Because um, like I know my wife really struggles with it, really struggles because like there's this um unfair dynamic that's showing up at the moment where it's like if if no one needs to uh have like a conversation about what he needs to get better at, he wants to have that with me, he doesn't want to have that with his mum because he feels like his mum's always on it, which isn't fair on her because she's doing a great job, it's just how it's perceived. Yeah, and I'm come back to this phrase that I'd heard really early on in my career, which was like this American psych who said, People need to know you care before they care what you know. So if you can invest in the relationship, even if it's over time, and get to a point where people where your kids understand that this is coming from a caring place, and it's really difficult for a caring place to be like a really Broken power dynamic, like you need to level it out a little bit more. Um, then they're gonna be more open to listening. So just to go back to this Noah example, like I think the way that I ended up showing Noah that I cared was that I just listened to him when he vented, even though it took all of my skill to not jump in and try and fix it, and I'm sitting there, like literally biting my tongue, going, You're miles off, you're miles off. But I'm just gonna let you be miles off for a moment.

Speaker 2 44:30

That's the key. I think that's the key in helping them develop it there, because you've hit the nail on the head. That's proper parenting. That is in that's what we're looking for. Is sometimes you are literally gonna have to sit there and think, Well, you're just in cloud cuckoo land here with this. This goes against all my beliefs, all my that no, that's not how I see the world, and somehow find a way of not blurting it all out and taking over the conversation.

Speaker 44:58

Yeah, yeah, is they those kids at some point are gonna have to find a functional way of dealing with failure, they're gonna have to, and some of the attitudes towards failure are developed really early on, and they're developed with and through parents, right? So um, if a kid picks up that the main reason why they get attention and praise is because they play well at sport, then it makes sense that they put pressure on themselves to play well. Um so it's really important to pay attention to that because how can you start to feed in some um narrative around win, lose, or draw, I'm gonna be the same. Win, lose, or draw, I'm not gonna kind of change dynamically. I noticed it like when I started looking at going, actually, you're alright at football. I started to get proud. I started to be a bit, yeah, he's better than that kid, he's better than that kid, you know, and he would play well, come off, and I would be all exuberant. Um, and I was like, actually, probably what am I accidentally teaching him here? Um, I just need him to know that his mates will buzz for him, his coach will buzz for him, but I'm just gonna be dad. Win, loser, draw, I'm just gonna be dad. Um, because I don't want him to put too much onus on his sense of value on playing well. So now we have things that are a little bit more like I'm trying to instill in him an attitude that failure is good. So I tell loads of stories about athletes that have messed up and come back, and like um he had a really bad game the other week. He went on a trial somewhere and stank the place out and never got a call back. And then um my comment was, oh great, we failed. What did we learn? What are you gonna do next time? Um, and he was like, Why are you why are you cool with this? You're not frustrated with me. And I was like, Oh man, do you know what? If I got frustrated every time I messed up at something, I never I would never do anything. No, like the skill is set back, but let's not be too proud to try again differently next time.

Speaker 2 47:03

I think I mean I think you bang on is the normalizing of the whole thing and the conversations and that bit you've talked about about you shared stories. I encourage parents to set up the Netflix docs, share little reels with their kids, listen to podcasts. Because actually, sometimes with teenagers that can be a tricky conversation, but actually, when we can just bring to life that actually we're gonna fail and mess up, this is gonna be normal. It's happened to absolutely everybody that's ever attempted to be any good at any sport, it becomes a far better place to sort of work from. And I uh yeah, I think that's right. I've just having a uh again another small chuckle to myself about how my how bad my role modelling on the golf course is currently uh with my son, where we, when it goes slightly wrong, our lack of emotional regulation and our petulance towards each other is a poor, and we know what pushes each other's buttons, and even last night I'd agreed that I'd decided that if I wanted to vent, I was gonna keep it all to myself. If I needed to just have a walk into the the trees and even do whatever I needed to do, I wasn't gonna disrupt his round, and this was all going really, really well, playing relatively well. You know, he's a single-figure golfer, I'm just into double figures, so it it gets quite competitive, and then I played he played a bad shot, and he basically did what he'd had a go at me at for the other week, where he um basically said, Oh, well, that's my round over, that's it ruined no wide perspective at all on the situation, and of course, then I played a really bad shot following his rant. Uh, and instead of learning, what did I do? No, I just then had a massive go at him for his poor behaviour when he'd had a go at me for it last week. So we were we were picking up the pieces from this last night, but yeah, it's it's a constantly evolving journey, this mental thing, and and and and working with each other and understanding each other and talking to each other, and like you say, even early on, some of the narratives we set up, what messaging we're giving our kids, one of the ones that I see a lot in football, probably more than anything else. And I don't think it's a direct correlation, but I think it's more to do with the environment we set up and the message it gives. Entitlement gets banged around with me all the time. Everybody just wants to throw it everywhere that these kids are entitled and whatever else. And I maybe sometimes I'm not so sure. I think, like you say, you've got to understand the performer and what what it is to make more sense of it. But what I do think that gives them a places that value all on their sport, and I think gives them a status that that they don't deserve is those young players after a game where the adult gets kicked into the back of the car and they get to sit in the front in the kit. And I say this in the academy environment. So what's going on? They're 10 years old, get them in the back. Why is the adult being told that actually, if just because I wear a kit and just because I've played football, you go and disappear as a second-class citizen into the back of the car. Now, I know everybody doesn't think like that, but it does give off a message.

Speaker 50:27

I think uh my hot take is that entitlement is learned, right? Um people, I don't I'm not sure people are born to be entitled. Um, they learn it, right? Even if you're born into royalty, like you don't have that natural instinct, you're just taught that the world serves you. Well, you wouldn't know, would you?

Speaker 2 50:47

You're not gonna wake up and say I'm in the royal family.

Speaker 50:50

Yeah, you wouldn't know that. Right, well, kids, then then there's probably a little bit more power they have. Um, which would be a hot take on Quantum as we can't pick into that in a huge amount of time.

Speaker 2 51:05

Oh, yeah, no, well, we can't, no, we can't, and we we need to wrap this up. I've got a feeling me and you could have spoken for hours on our own sort of parenting.

Speaker 51:13

There's one more thing I just want to chuck in, Gordon, because I think this might be practical because I know I talk quite generically a lot of the time, but one practical thinking tool that might help parents in these conversations that we've been talking about is um uh I nick this off our friend Sarah Murray. Um, if if if as a parent, before you get into a conversation, you ask yourself, where am I now and where do I need to be for this conversation? So it might be I'm feeling really frustrated now, but actually I need to come into this conversation really relaxed. Um, and then ask them, where are they now and where do they need to be? Because that then might help you make a decision on one, whether you have that conversation then, two, how you manage yourself and or and three, how you deliver that conversation. Like so many conversations just happen instinctively, right? But if we know we're trying to so maybe parents can just target like post-game, post-training conversations, and their challenge is before they have a conversation with their kid about training or the game, they say, Where am I now? Where do I need to be? Where are they now? Where do they need to be? And part of where do they need to be might be, what do they need to hear from me right now? Is it something super optimistic and positive? Is it something a little bit more realistic? Is it nothing to do with sport and what we're going to do on the weekend when Auntie Sally comes to visit? Like it just gives a little bit of distance and probably, if done well, leads to a better conversation.

Speaker 2 52:41

Brilliant. Love that. I think that's a really good way to finish. Our friend Sarah Murray will be pleased that she's got a mention uh on this podcast if she actually listens to it. Um, but yeah, very wise words from her. Elliot, plenty of wise words from you. Uh, absolute pleasure uh to have you on the show. Thanks for uh bringing this to life uh for our listeners, and uh I certainly look forward to speaking again in due course.

Speaker 53:06

Thanks, Gordon.

Speaker 2 53:07

Great chat.

Speaker 1 53:09

Thank you for listening. Check us now to do that.