Have you ever tried to help your athlete daughter with overthinking and anxious thoughts? In today’s episode, we’re talking about how you can help her stop overthinking and start playing with confidence.

Today we’re joined by Sammy from the Teen Life Coach School podcast. Sammy works specifically with teens that experience anxiety.  She helps them manage anxiety, stop overthinking, become more self-confident, and start loving who they are. 

• Anxiety is good, until it’s not. 
  • Anxiety can be debilitating and hold a teen back from doing normal things.
  • When teens start to live their lives around their anxiety instead of confronting their anxiety, that's when it's a problem.

The threshold for anxiety and stress is different for every teen, and it can also be different at different times in our lives. 

• Anxiety is uncertainty about the future.
  • Anxiety comes with physical symptoms, and everyone experiences the physical symptoms of anxiety differently.

How do we help athletes navigate anxiety, both physically and mentally? 

• First, help them label the emotion as anxiety. 
  • If they label the emotion as anxiety, then they can start to understand what’s going on. They no longer have to be anxious about not knowing.
• Second, realize that overthinking can increase anxiety and think through those thoughts fully.
  • Walk through the worst case scenario that your mind has come up with - what’s the worst thing that can happen? 
• Finally, teach your teen that they can handle the emotions.
  • Help them realize what that worst case scenario emotion is, and then teach them that they can face the emotion and overcome it. 
  • This will lead to them building self-confidence.

Self-confidence comes from the ability to handle any emotion. Therefore, it’s important that your teen starts to face these emotions head on.

• When we know our teen is overthinking, what can we do? 
  • Help your teen determine their core beliefs.
    • These can be ideas such as, “My worth is not dependent on this game."
  • If your teen can focus on their core beliefs, they can start to overcome anxious thoughts.
• What role can parents play in this? 
  • Remember the way your teen plays is not about you. 
  • Don't be tempted to just “fix it”.
    • We don't need to “rescue” our kids from their discomfort. Instead, we have an opportunity to teach them how to work through their discomfort.

As a parent, your role is so important! You have an opportunity to help your teen understand that feelings of anxiety are normal, and it's possible to work through the emotions and overcome them.

Most importantly, we get to remind our teen that we’re there for them, we’ll walk through this with them, and we love them. 

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Helpful Links:

• Come hang out with Sami on social @theteenlifecoach and learn more about working with her!
• Visit our podcast website for more on this episode.
• Join our FREE Training for Sports Moms - How to Strengthen Your Athlete Daughter’s Mental Game so She Believes in Herself as Much as You Do

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