37. Help kids develop Sports Character(ship) with Brian and Jen Harbin of Grit.org

What is the most important thing the parents can do to help older teen athletes? How can we harness sports another activities to help kids develop true confidence? For answers to these questions join us as we continue our convo with grit.org’s  Brian and Jen Harbin.

Guests: Brian and Jen Harbin are the leaders of grit.org whose mission is to improve, physical, mental, and emotional resilience in kids.

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Transcript

Dr. Elise Fallucco: 0:21

Welcome back to psyched for paeds, the child mental health podcast for pediatric clinicians. And for all of us taking care of kids, we're helping you help kids. So thank you for joining us as we continue this conversation with grit.org leaders, Brian and Jen Harbin. This week, we're going to be talking about how to help kids develop character and confidence through sports. We're going to talk about how to help our kids self-reflect after important games or meets or events. Brian's going to share advice about the most important thing that parents can do, especially for older athletes in middle school and high school. And finally we'll talk about the best way to develop confidence through sports. And it's not what you think. So jumping back into the conversation with Brian and Jen Harbin.

Jen Harbin: 1:11

Your recent podcast talked about saying when they're done playing you say, I love watching you play full-stop. that is something that is so hard for me to not be whether it's oh my gosh, you did so great. And they look at me and go, I did not, I did not do. You're just telling me something. Actually I didn't do great out there. Or, where you running fast enough, whatever it is. I severely struggled with just sticking to that period. End of sentence. And no more. when they've just finished a game, whether they had an amazing game or a terrible game or a swimming race or running race or a crew race, that they just finished, they're on an emotional higher, low at that point. And for most kids, it's really hard to regulate their emotions at the end of one of those experiences wherever they're at. And so that may not be the best time. Later on, I think is a good time too give them some sort of self-reflective questions. If we love the the poem demand in the mirror. If you can look at yourself in the mirror. And, can tell like I gave a hundred percent out there. I was encouraging my team out there. I was showing good sportsmanship to the other team. I didn't just rip out their flag off and slam it on the ground and do a victory dance, but I handed it back to that other player. You know that in your heart, whether you did that or not. And if you can look in the mirror and know that, then you really should be proud of yourself.

Dr. Elise Fallucco: 2:26

So just having the kid, not in the moment, definitely in the moment, we're just high fives. That was great. That was exhausting. Let's get some Gatorade and move on. Let's go to dailies. Get that IC. But then afterwards, Just having the kids think about, did you put your best effort? It's not about winning or losing, like it's, focus on, did you put your best effort? And were you showing good sportsmanship? I also want to change that to good sports person. I've worked person, sports person. Everyone's actively unfollowing me right now. I'll keep following you. I love it. Great character. Yeah, it's character. character ship. We're gonna make some real new words. So it's not about winning it's about sports characters ship. Yes. Sports characters. This is going on a sign at the flight. By the way, right. And it is Ryan's diet. Over here. You're You're asking them questions that are making them selves ask. Am I controlling the controllables? Like we do have a big expectation of that. Because you can control your behavior, your words. To a certain extent, your attitude. And so when you're in a moment, Where you're not controlling your attitude. Okay. How do I check myself, do something physical to make myself act healthier and. And think healthier things. So those questions are really guided back to that, those things that you can control and that you should be able to say yes to those things. And if not, What do I need to work on?

Brian Harbin: 3:47

if we can help our kids make that part of their daily check-in whether it's, school, the test studying, whether it's a relationship, whether it's, a sport, whether it's a career. And I think. That's a nugget that they can take with them. Oh, my gosh. That's so beautiful and so important. Did I do my best? It's about effort and trying your hardest and doing your best. And that's what matters because you can't control all the other stuff. And I wish you guys could coach all of the sports and all of the teams, because that this is such an important, like new frame shift for thinking about youth sports. I love watching you play and then maybe later having the kids self-reflect and think did you do your best? Do you feel like you put your best effort out? And, did you have a good attitude? Did you have good sports character ship? Yes. C, it just flows off the tongue of sports character ship, just don't be swayed by the amount of syllables on it either. I know that might. That might make you don't. It's good. Stick with it. one final perspective that I really wanted to share as parents your kids get to a point with a sport that maybe their skillset. Is beyond kind of the scope of what you can help with on the day-to-day. Once you get to that level, I think the most. Overlooked and undervalued piece of growth for young people in that situation specifically right now, my sophomore in high school. Is rest and recovery. I think as a parent, You have to be their advocate for rest and recovery. Coaches are going to want to steal every hour, every second of your kids to get better at that sport. And physically, yes, they're going to be better and stronger. But we have to be that mental and emotional. Coach for them and really help them focus on rest and recovery. So for example, Yeah. I mentioned, we worked a lot of high school and college athletes during the summer. And. It's long, hard physical days. And so with our interns, we'll do things to help them enjoy rest and recovery. Hey, we'll go put on some NormaTec boots at the chiropractor's office for 20 minutes. We'll go do a cryo session. We'll book them a massage. Go get an hour massage, learn to treat yourself. I think we really need to, especially in today's day and age with as much. Specialization and practice and really over use of the kids physically is we have to be an advocate for their rest and recovery because nobody else is going to do that. And you need to remind them, Hey, look, you need to get your eight hours of sleep tonight. And and really helped become an advocate for that. Because the message that they're getting from most coaches is the more practice, the better, and you need to show up early and we're going to do strength training for a couple of hours before school, and then we're going to have school. And then we're going to have skills training after school. And. As a coach, they're coming from the perspective very often of they want their kids to be the very best that they can. And it's like more is better or and it's about quantity. And yet we know from the American academy of pediatrics and from our medical colleagues that. Kids, N teens need at least one to two days off of per week, and then two to three months off, spread out over the year. And how are they going to get that if they're training and practicing and competing seven days a week. And I like making rest and recovery fun you're making it cool. Like you're going to go do cryotherapy or you're going to float, or you're just going to do something that's really positive. And, what's neat about that too, you're creating an environment that really, there's going to be a teachable moment in there where we're nice and relaxed, and I'm going to say, Hey, what's lacrosse teaching you. And it really gives you those opportunities to talk to them about the deeper meaning and their purpose and what they want to do. So when we were talking about parenting coaching para coaching. We have swung this pendulum of telling kids. Yeah, we want to build up their self esteem as opposed to what we should be building is their self confidence. And you only gain confidence by doing something outside your comfort zone that you didn't know if you could do and getting through it. And then you have genuine confidence is completely different than, self-esteem where you think of yourself rather than knowing that you can accomplish typical things. And then go on to the next thing is that's another big thing I think is so important is. Encouraging them to get outside of their comfort zone for all of us to do. You do better than you think you're going to do. And you don't know until you push yourself, but there's so much fear. And especially if you're somebody who tends towards Lower self-confidence or higher anxiety. It's harder to get out of your comfort zone and try something new, but you can't experience that mastery until you do. Any last thoughts you want to share for parents to either help foster grit and resilience, or just about helping to support and support their loving kids? Yes, for sure. For me. One of the goals is to get them to not only learn and adopt all these life skills, mindset, principles and make it part of their daily, habits and routine. But once they've done that or they're getting to that point, you really need to help them learn to pass it on. That to me that really is what, grit.org is all about. Work on all these things and make yourself better. But also figure out, Hey, who are you going to help? Who are you going to pull along behind you? And if you're I'm thinking about families with multiple sibs, like that's part of, that's also part of the culture, the family culture, it can be like, you're the big one. Your job is to help your little brother or your help, your little sister with this. And, And even, and it doesn't even have to be age based, like we're trying to reframe, dragging our kids to various sporting activities every weekend as we get to do this. We have to go to my brother's game. You get to go to your brother's game. But then it's we can't pretend that it's going to be fun because it's very hot and there may be things we'd rather do in the air conditioning, but Regardless of what your age is like part of our family culture is you go there to support one another. Like our job is to cheer your brother on or your sister on and vice versa. They're going to do the same for you. And it's this idea. We're all group. We're all doing this together. Any last words from you? Oh, you just said it. Just having an attitude of gratitude that we get to do these things where we're, there's air in our lungs and. We can, we're able to. Participate in whatever the activity is that is helping us to grow. We didn't invent any of these. Principles and concepts. We're just very blessed that throughout various experiences of our lives, we've been exposed to all these principles and they have just helped shape us and continue to shape us and guide a lot of the ways that we. The way we live. And so we're just grateful to be able to. Pass it along, whether it's through, the kids sports. You don't have to be on the sideline, videotaping everything, whatever you can do to bring that good energy to the team, to your child, Cut yourself free of the things that you're unable to do, and just be focusing on the one, the thing that you can do. That positive thing that you can add to it. This is about taking something we're passionate about and passing it on to the next generation. And. And I'm hopefully inspiring others along the way. Hopefully inspiring him to have good. Sports character ship. All right. Thank you guys so much. This is amazing.

Dr. Elise Fallucco: 10:58

And just to recap some of the highlights of our conversations for our friends and colleagues.. We talked about encouraging kids after events to do some self-reflection and just where they ask themselves, did I do my best? And did I show good sports person, character ship. Finally, we talked about rest and recovery and the importance of making sure our kids are protected from a lot of the external demands on them related to sports school, et cetera Finally, I think one of the big take home messages that I still can personally. Need to work on is shifting the focus from winning and really focusing on. Helping everybody do the best that they absolutely can. And controlling the controllables and letting go of the things that you can't control. All right. Thank you so much for joining us for our sports series. We look forward. To talking to you next week on psyched for paeds. And if you're interested in learning more about grit camp, just go to grit. Dot org, where there's information about the great creed grit camp and everything else. And big, thank you to Brian and Jen Harbin. Thanks to all of you for listening. And if you'll take a moment, please make sure that you're subscribing or following on your podcast player. And if you liked this or any other episode, share it with a friend. See you next week.