The Fearless Warrior Podcast

104: Parents: How to Help Your Athlete Create Routines to Stay Self-Motivated

• Amanda Schaefer

Share episode

We're taking you back to 2023 with a parent workshop on: The Power of Routines and Accountability. I dive into the importance of building consistent habits that emphasize self-reflection and ownership to create resilient competitors who can bounce back from mistakes.

Episode Highlights:

• Mental skills work best when treated consistently, regardless of performance 
• Over-praising after poor performances creates disconnection
• Nagging and bribing create external pressure rather than internal motivation
• What went well? What could be better? How to change for next time?
• Athletes typically gravitate to just 1-2 mental skills that work best for them



More ways to work with Fearless Fastpitch

Follow us on Social Media

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the fearless warrior podcast, a place for athletes, coaches and parents who know the value of a strong mindset. I'm your host, coach AB, a mental performance coach on a mission, former softball coach, wife and mom of three. Each episode we will dive deep into all things mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success. So if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success, so if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode. All right, we are recording. This is the April Parent Workshop. We're going to be talking about the power of routines and accountability for your athlete, without nagging and without pep talks. You guys we have kind of an interesting crew, so typically parent workshops, I get to see you guys and we're all warrior members. We open this to the public. So some of you guys are parents that I've known for a long time, um, and some of you are new parents, parents inside of our program and some of you guys are parents that I've known for a long time. Some of you are new parents, parents inside of our program and some of you guys I've never met before that are coming in and learning tonight about just something that I feel really passionate about and getting kind of an inside look. So come, learn, ask questions. If I leave anything unanswered, I'm an open book. I'm here to serve you guys. Okay, so my goal for you guys. I'm an open book. I'm here to serve you guys. Okay, so my goal for you guys? I don't have a slideshow for tonight. It's been a while since I've done a parent training, but I want you guys to be able to take notes. And then, um, we are going to save time at the end for Q and a, but my goal for you guys is, by the end of this parent training, I want you guys to help guide your athlete with her mindset and her mental game without nagging her in a really, really simple way. And then B, or. The second thing is, I want you to know which mental skills she's using. And then, how can she take ownership without having her confidence hang on other people's opinions coaches, opinions mean comments, um, or just her performance. If her performance is up and down, how can you help her? Um, just know that she's taking ownership of her own mindset. Okay, cool.

Speaker 1:

So my question for you guys is what would it look like if your daughter had confidence? And a lot of the times it's this. It's this purple unicorn of well, what is confidence and how do you teach it? And the way that I describe it is if she's frustrated by a strikeout, frustration is okay. If she wasn't frustrated, we would be worried. So I want you guys to think about well, how do I determine whether or not my daughter's confident? Is she bouncing back after mistakes? She's allowed to be frustrated, but does she bounce back?

Speaker 1:

Um, some of you guys have said that, even if she has a great game, she's hyper-focused on the one time she didn't get a hit or the one time she popped up, um, and she's focusing on the things that she's not doing right and has a really hard time focusing on the things that she did do Right. You'll know when your daughter's confident when, even when she goes one for three, she's focused on the things that she did right, or she has the ability to know what she needs to fix for next time. And that is also on the player PDF that I put together for you guys. And so how do you help her stop playing with a chip on her shoulder. You know, if she's playing to prove a coach that may or may not be giving her playing time is she's trying to prove herself to her teammates. Um, if she's trying to prove herself for you as mom or dad, um, you'll know when she's confident, when she's focused on herself and she's celebrating herself. And that's what I want for all of you guys, even my warrior girls that have graduated. Some of your girls I'm looking at Jen, I mean Taylor graduated in 2020. I mean, she's been through the program multiple times.

Speaker 1:

How do you know when your athlete is, without a doubt, owning her mindset, owning her skills? Um, and I actually have this for later tonight but the analogy that I want you guys to think about, I want to give you guys these analogies. Anytime you hear an analogy from me, I want you to translate those and share those with your athlete. So, one of the calls I had with an athlete, we talked about the analogy of driving a car. Even if your daughter is not driving yet, she'll understand this analogy when you of driving a car. Even if your daughter is not driving yet, she'll understand this analogy when you're driving a car, whether it's smooth sailing and smooth highways, with scenic views and the radio's blaring and she's having a good time, aka she's out there, she's having fun, smooth sailing, she's performing well. Or if it's rocky maybe Midwesterners, you guys understand icy roads we're gripping the steering wheel, we're nervous. Regardless, you have to hang on to the steering wheel.

Speaker 1:

Just because things are going well and she's hitting well and she's pitching well, does not mean that she can let go of the steering wheel. That's the analogy I like to use with mental performance. So, when we're talking about using her mindset, using her self-talk, using visualization, using some of these skills, and talking about it, don't feel like you can't talk about it when she's having success, and don't feel like you can't talk about it when she's in a slump right, can't talk about it when she's in a slump, right. Regardless, I want you guys to keep your approach as parents the same. So talk about it when she's not hitting well, talk about it when she is hitting well, and if you can keep that same conversation throughout, that's the analogy of driving the car. So, again, we're taking the rollercoaster effect out of her confidence. Treat it, treat it all the same, and I'll and I'll talk about that here in a second, but I wanted to give you guys that analogy.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so one of the things that I wanted to talk about in tonight's training and I have to tread lightly, I don't believe that this parent is on, but I already talked to this parent about this and they're going to remain anonymous honest mistakes that parents are making. I want you guys to understand before I dive into these. Please know I've been guilty of doing every single one of these. Every single one of these I have made the mistake of either doing as a coach or even with my own kids and my kids don't play intense sports yet but I've been guilty of doing this. So when I talk about these mistakes, it's not to make you guys feel guilty. It's not to call you out and say, aha, I knew you were doing it wrong. It's just an opportunity to get you guys to think differently about how you're having these conversations with your daughter.

Speaker 1:

So the first one is over praising pep talks. This sounds like did good out there. You've got this smile out there, relax, you're going to get it. And what happens is your daughter may have this response of puke, eye roll, yuck. Why are you telling me that I did good, I did horrible out there, I was trash whatever the cool terms are right, not lit, and she's embarrassed and all she can focus on is those negative things.

Speaker 1:

And so an analogy that I could give you is my two-year-old right now is obsessed with bananas. He wakes up first thing in the morning. He wants a banana. So if I try to distract him with hot wheels, it's an ever loving meltdown. Right, and so that's the same thing. Her brain is hyper-focused on what I did wrong, what I need to fix. And here's mom saying well, don't you want a Hot Wheel? No, I want you to see A. I'm frustrated, I'm feeling these big emotions, and you're totally ignoring what I'm saying and what I'm telling you.

Speaker 1:

And so what I want you guys to start thinking about is, even if you saw her and she was successful, or she had a great play, or you're seeing progress, we tend to praise attitude and effort. She's not ready to receive that. Until you meet her where she's at, she thinks oh, your mom, your dad, you have to love me. I have to say these things, you have to praise me. And so when we're constantly reverting to praise, praise, praise and making her feel good, no amount of praise will get her unstuck from that. It's going to make it worse. She has to own her own confidence and please don't feel bad because I've done this.

Speaker 1:

You may not even realize that you've been doing this, but I want you to kind of listen. What's your gut reaction? Actually, this would be a really good exercise. I want you to just take a moment and I'm going to be quiet so you can think and reflect. I want you to pretend like you're in the car.

Speaker 1:

Your daughter just got done with a really frustrating game and she's coming at you and she's telling you mom, I suck what comes up for you. What's the first thing you would think to tell her? Write it down. Or think and write it down Mom, I suck. What's your first initial gut reaction to that? Yeah, some of you are popping in the chat. Yeah, no, you don't. You don't suck, just reflect for a second. Hmm, what do I? What do I tell her in response to that? And you don't have to share in the chat. You don't want to.

Speaker 1:

And this is a really good exercise because I'll be talking about the other two mistakes and you may not be an over-praising parent. You may not fit into this category. Yeah, I like it. Alexis, you don't suck, but it wasn't your best game, right? There's that sense of realism there. So, all this to be said, this first category of over-praising I just want you guys to start to think about well, what are you praising? And if you can come up with a better like, yeah, bill and Rachel and Alexis, give her feedback on something and get her to see. Hey, see her in that moment. I know you want a banana. I know you want to hit. I know you want this. I see you. I understand you're so frustrated.

Speaker 1:

Think of it like a news anchor. I got this from a parenting course. Actually, if you think like a news anchor, you're literally reporting what's happening in real time. You struck out and you're mad. That's all they need to hear, right Of like, what are, what are they telling you what? You're interviewing somebody on the news, what are they telling you has happened? And literally newscast that back to them. Hey, this is what I'm hearing, and then you can move into that next conversation. Okay, are you ready? Are you guys ready for the second one?

Speaker 1:

This kind of makes me nervous because this is a brand new training and I feel like I'm calling you guys out. But again I want to remind you I've made all these mistakes. The second one is nagging and bribing. Nagging and bribing this sounds like go practice. You got to get your reps in Go to the cages.

Speaker 1:

Your dad and I spend a lot of money on softball. We just bought you a new bat. You need to earn it right. We talk about how much we spend on our sport and I get it. I know it's expensive, but as soon as you start talking about it, that's a dangerous game, because now she's starting to associate the pressure of her performance with the money that you're spending and the resources and the evidence that you're giving her One of the first athletes I ever coached. It breaks my heart.

Speaker 1:

To tell the story and I know some of you guys have heard this. There's a pitcher from Nebraska and she made it and she wanted to major in journalism and she went to the University of Maryland. She had made it D1, baby D1 pitcher. I made it. I'm going to Maryland. Maryland has an amazing journalism program.

Speaker 1:

She got to Maryland her freshman year and everything came crashing down. She was from a very well-off family. She had access to every single hitting instructor, the best teams, the best pitching coaches. They drove an hour each way to go to a pitching instructor and when she called me and told me that she was hanging up her cleats, she literally said to me coach, I had every resource available.

Speaker 1:

So, as much as you're saying these things of, like, honey, you have all the tools you need, you can do this, you have all the physical training, you have the best instructors and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it's actually creating more pressure, and so I want you guys to be careful about how you're talking about those things with her, even me, even mental performance hey, you have all the mental tools. Aren't you using them Right? There's a different perspective of hey, how can I help you? Right, um, what do you need that you don't have? And then have her say it right.

Speaker 1:

Maybe she'll say it like oh well, I think I have everything I need. I'm just having a hard time doing X, y, z, and then it's a conversation. The other one that I wanted to talk to you guys about is the opposite of like bribing. I just had a parent that, um, yeah, what do you need to do to make it better? I love that, jen. Um, is we say okay, if you start hitting well, we'll get you that new bat, or you can get a phone if you hit well and I get it, you guys can do these things jokingly, like.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'll give you a hundred dollar bill If you hit your first home run.

Speaker 1:

I'm not saying you can't do those things. I was getting some laughter. I'm not saying you can't do those things. I just don't want you to guys to rely on those when she's not performing well, okay. So think about how that that pressures her.

Speaker 1:

The last one that I want you guys to be careful of is if you hit well, we'll go out to eat or we can have ice cream or we can have dinner things that should be very basic necessities that you should provide for your athlete anyway. They should never doubt that mom and dad are going to feed them and I know this sounds crazy, but we're talking about preteen and teen brains that are not fully developed. They will make crazy inferences that we don't even mean to do, that we're not even intending. They kind of take it to a new level because we're starting to associate ding, ding, ding, pavlov's dog, right, we ring the bell, and now I'm going to associate hitting well with ice cream and we can't get ice cream any other time. I want you to take your daughter to ice cream on a Sunday afternoon after church, just because you freaking love her right, like, do those things, sprinkle those things in? Okay, I got on a soapbox there. But that's the point of tonight's training. I want you guys to kind of like think, think about this with a grain of salt.

Speaker 1:

The next thing I want you guys to think about is when you're nagging her to practice. You must build habits with her. So tonight is all about routines. You cannot expect a 10 year old, 11 year old, even a 12 year old, to practice on her own. She's not going to be motivated. She doesn't have that, that ability to think and have that discipline on her own. So how can you make it fun? How can you make it so you're just playing catch in the backyard? How can you make it so it's fun to go to the cage with mom and dad? How can you make it fun where you may not be catching her at her pitching lessons, you may not be putting the ball on the tee at the hitting lessons, but you're right there with her and starting to build those habits and routines with her. The same thing goes with her mental skills. So if you're, if she's doing my program or another program or reading a book or whatever resources you want to give her on the mental side of the game, if you're just setting it and forgetting it, she's not going to use it. And so ask her about it. Hey, tell me about visualization, tell me about self-talk, tell me about your grounding technique. Do you want to practice it? Do you want to tell me about it? Do you want me to try it? And really having that, um, that connection with her is going to be huge, and really having that, um, that connection with her is going to be huge.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, nagging and bribe and bribing that's the second mistake. And the last one is constant correcting and criticizing, and this one stings the most because I did this. This ruined one of my coaching careers. I know that you mean well, and I know that you guys want to coach her and I know that the pressure is there, but this is like non-negotiable Do not correct her on game day. Don't correct her in the stands, don't don't try to rush and tell her hey, remember to keep your elbow up and do this, this, this on game day. Don't do that.

Speaker 1:

And here's why, even as a pitching coach, even as, like a high school coach, as a mental coach, as a parent, you are not going to help her gain any more knowledge than what she already has. Whatever training she has put in is whatever training she has, and you have to be at peace with that, whatever amount of muscle memory is there. That's like saying, um, does any read your hand? Does any of your daughters play instruments? That's like saying I'm going to pay for piano lessons and right before your piano recital I'm going to plug in a couple more notes on this song and you have to relearn this song with another bar of music. Right, they're going to panic. If they've practiced the song, they're going to play the song how they play the song. They may have a few plunkers here and there, they may hit the wrong key, but they played the song. Let them play the song. And I know that this is hard. Again, I'm reminding you I've made all these mistakes. I'm going to be great by the time McKenzie is playing softball. I have a six month old got my softball girl Okay.

Speaker 1:

So when you think about constant correcting and criticizing, um, I could go into a whole nother training. But I wanted to talk to you guys, or remind you guys about the three P's. And if you are a fearless warrior parent, this is the same as the parent conversation framework. The first P is to praise her on something that's tangible, right Of like not over praising or not fake praise, but hey, you went deep in the count and you fouled off those pitches, that was great. Or hey, you kept your head in and great contact, even if you ground out, even if you popped up. The second one is to ask her perspective. The second P is hey, what did you think on that, what'd you feel on that? Get curious. And then the last P is then you can share your perspective. Then you can say hey, what about this? Do you remember in pitching lessons? You know, coach Cassandra said this right. Or hey, I kind of noticed you were rolling your hands over. That's the last thing.

Speaker 1:

And so there's a time and a place for correcting. But you have to ask them there, praise them first, ask them their perspective and give them your perspective. Um, this is a whole like, this is a whole can of worms. But we make this mistake of immediately correcting after games. Give them that time and space. And if they don't want to talk about it, you can say hey, I understand if you don't want to talk about tonight's game, but I'm here for you and I do want to talk about it at some point. When do you want to talk about it and then hold them accountable to that. If they say, hey, maybe after dinner or I'll talk with you about it tomorrow or later in the week, and then when you know you're at the kitchen table or you are going for ice cream on a Sunday afternoon and you're not, she's not in her uniform and she's not hot off the game, you can have those conversations and it will break down her walls.

Speaker 1:

Another awesome tip. I can't remember who I heard this from, but it's a good one. It's stolen from somebody else. If you want your preteen or your teen to open up to you, do an activity where she doesn't have to look at you. Go for a drive, go for a walk, go for a bike ride, sit on the same side of the dinner table as her and be doing something else, and you will be amazed at how much they open up. And no phones has to be an activity where she doesn't have her phone. Okay.

Speaker 1:

So now that we've, like, gotten all that out of the way for the training, let's transition into training for routines. So how do you give her tools for mindset? Actually, before we dive into the second half of this, how are we doing? Questions, comments, thoughts, what's one thing that you're like Ooh, I can't forget this, this is good, this is gold. I want to remember this. And you can unmute too, you don't? You guys don't have to just use the chat. What's like? Your biggest like oh, this is so good. Oh, jb, you got me got to remember it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, the not um, having her like make eye contact, because we have the best conversations in the car and it's totally like Taylor starting them and it's a lot probably because, like, she doesn't have to look at. I mean, she can choose to, but she doesn't have to look at me while we're driving down the road and we have the best conversations on the way to games and practices and wherever else we're going in the car and practices and wherever else we're going in the car.

Speaker 1:

So good, so good. I can imagine she's just. We cracked her shell, jen, no, going back. Oh my gosh. Okay, so I don't know if it's Bill or Rachel or both over praising. I want to make her feel good after a rough outing. She's not always ready for it. Yeah, yeah, they're, they know, they know, guys, they totally know. Yep, I love it. I love it.

Speaker 1:

Sharla, that's a hard one. It's so, oh, it's so hard. You want to correct? Um, I can't remember who it was. Um, but I was talking with a parent, a catcher parent, and things like oh, drop third strike, be ready for the drop third strike, things like that actually pulls their attention away from the task at hand.

Speaker 1:

It's almost I know this is cringy it's almost better to let them fail, because once they fail at that drop third strike, they'll remember it next time. But if we're constantly saying, hey, drop third strike, hey, but situation, hey, this, this, this, we're just pulling their attention into the stands and then they'll never learn on their own, were you? They're using this as a crutch. So hard, so hard. You'd like some. It's hard for me to be in the stands, um, okay, so let's transition. Um, I already gave you guys the um. Like. Routines are like driving a car, so you have to drive the car whether it's going well or not. So don't, if she's doing really, really well, still remind her to use her mental skills. If things are going Rocky, use her mental skills. She has to do her mental routines whether she's feeling good or not. That's going to give her that level of consistency. And so what I wanted you guys to understand is sometimes the easiest thing is saying hey, this is from coach AB, she's a mental performance coach, try this out Right. And with a little bit of guidance, you you won't just be able to plop this down on her desk or the kitchen table and tell her hey, fill this out. You may have to guide her a little bit. We have to be self-aware before you can control your performance, and that comes from Ken Revisa. He's considered the pioneer of mental performance. If you guys want to Google, um, ken Revisa, amazing videos. Um, a lot of what all of us mental performance coaches teach is due to what Ken was teaching in the nineties.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's talk about routines and holding your daughter accountable with mental skills. So some of you guys are like yes, mental skills, let's go. We know what they are, how they work and how we put it together. Some of you guys you may be hearing this for the first time. So these are the 12,. Well, leadership and problem solving are missing, but those are like our final two modules. These are the 10 that we teach that we would consider to be mental skills that they're going to use pregame, in-game and post game. So when we talk about mental skills, the cool thing about it is that she's not going to use all 10 of these. She's going to pick one or two that she really, really loves, she's going to latch onto.

Speaker 1:

So, knowing her support system what's her identity beyond her sport? You're not your sport. We talk about identity pie. There's other pieces to the pie. You're a musician. You're a soccer player. You're a Christian. Your sister, your daughter. Remembering your a Christian. You're a sister. You're a daughter. Um, remembering your goals. So, holding your athlete accountable. If she has a goal of making the all-star team or she wants to make varsity as a freshman, you can hold her accountable to those and say, hey, remember your goals. You wanted this. What's it going to take to get there? Um, knowing your why is all about. Why did you start playing softball in the first place? Because it was fun. Um, some of the girls is wise are I want to play in college? And then that's going to dictate how, how hard they work, or or their dream. Um, and really understanding that there's a bigger picture to this, and then, um, we start moving into the what I call the game skills.

Speaker 1:

So, self-talk, I teach a pop method and so a lot of you guys, um, whether you've been on coaching calls or not, um, I think it's easy to reference these for your daughter and say, hey, like, what's your self-talk, are you using your self-talk? Um, even if you're not in our programs, self-talk could be as simple as instructional self-talk. Like, if she's learning a new pitch, you know, rise ball back, leg under. You know, in their swings, elbows tight, whatever those self-talks are, you can have instructional self-talk, you can have motivational self-talk, and then we can reframe negative thoughts Again. Instead of trying to, like, coach her or pep talk her, you literally just get to say, hey, what's your self-talk, are you using your self-talk, are you using the pop method? And then, um, if your daughter has done the program previously and you're looking at this, going, oh man, these are kind of out of order. We've updated the program and it's in kind of a new order and we've added more stuff. So I highly encourage your daughter to go back through or to research some of these Breathing she now gets to choose.

Speaker 1:

We used to just teach the box method, now we teach belly breathing, six to eight breathing and box method. And so if you're noticing that she's getting nervous, hey, are you doing your breaths? Visualization if you haven't heard of visualization, we're. We're creating mental imagery as if it's a physical rep only in the mind. She can do this pregame, she can do this in-game and she can do this post-game. We talk about failure recovery in stoplight method, and so she has a failure reset routine.

Speaker 1:

Again, you can set a very specific flush it routine. What's she doing physically, what's she doing mentally? What's flush it routine? What's she doing physically, what's she doing mentally, what's her body language, what's she telling herself and how does she shift back to a green light? And then she can use anchoring and grounding technique. How do we keep her in the present moment?

Speaker 1:

And then, obviously, putting it all together with routines. Routines aren't sexy, but if she does this work and she knows, I love knowing my why. I'm going to remember my why and I love visualization. That's all she needs to use. And then, if you give her this worksheet, she's going to put those two down. And then you know, as a parent hey, she loves these two. I'm going to hold her accountable to these two. Instead of just a broad overarching, hey, are you using your mental tools? You can literally say, hey, what's your, why, are you visualizing? And then she gets to figure out how she wants to use them. So like, uh, a couple of my one-on-one athletes will do a five, five, five method. So we'll visualize five low and in pitches, five middle pitches, five out pitches. You can do that for pitching as well, pre-game and post-game.

Speaker 1:

And then this is where this is more generic have her come up with a hitting routine? Have her come up with her defensive routine? This is a pre-pitch routine, her pre-game routine and her post-game routine. Does she know her why, before she goes up to bat, Is she remembering she's not defined by her sport? Does she know that mom and dad love her, no matter what?

Speaker 1:

She can have these in any of her routines as well as the physical. So, for example, um, a common hitting routine would be. I step in the box with my right foot, then I scratch the dirt, then I step in with my left foot, I twist my bat. I look at my bat and I tell myself my self-talk take a belly breath. Look at the pitcher. That's the same every single time. So whether she's done mental training or not, again this is like driving the car.

Speaker 1:

So if she's changing her hitting approach, no wonder her hitting is sporadic. She's hitting really well. Is she following a routine, or is she not? Same thing with pre-pitch routine? Does she know where the ball is going? What's she doing with her glove? What's her down and ready position? And then how does she come back out of it so she can build all these? Um, and then the cool thing with parents is you guys can talk with her about her pregame and postgame routine. You can ask her do you want me to talk to you pregame or do you want to focus? Do you want to listen to music or do you want to talk about the game? Same thing with after Do you want to talk with me afterwards, right away.

Speaker 1:

Do you want my advice or do you want me to leave you alone? What's your post-game routine? Are you going to journal? We highly recommend journaling, which so we also included this. We talk about well, better and how she can self-reflect and say what did I do? Well, ding, ding, ding. She has to figure out what she did well First. When she practices this, you could print off one of these sheets for every single um game. Or if she has a notebook, we have this in our mental skills notebook it's on every single page, at the top. If she has one of these, it's like these three questions are literally right there on the top of every single page, and so when she gets into that habit, she's going to remember oh, this is what I did Well, first. Then she gets to focus on what she could have done better and then how she can change it for next time. And here's where you get to step in as parents and say oh well, are you struggling on number three?

Speaker 2:

Would you like my advice.

Speaker 1:

Do you want my help? Here's how you can do it better next time. And then she gets to self-evaluate her body language, her self-talk and whether or not she did her routines. So if she had a really crappy game, she probably had bad body language, bad self-talk and she wasn't doing her routines. If she had a great game, she's going to see oh well, I did do my mental skills.

Speaker 1:

So it's kind of like a um, you know those like pitching tools or hitting tools that give them immediate feedback, like a Frisbee drill with the curve ball. If the Frisbee is floppy, you don't have to tell her that she messed up. The rep, the Frisbee's going to tell her. The PDF is going to tell her. The reflection questions are going to tell her Okay, I know that was a lot, but again, going back to the goal of tonight, help your athlete with her mindset and her mental game, without worrying about what to say or nagging her Hope, we talked about those with the mistakes and then knowing which mental skills she's using.

Speaker 1:

And then you get to just say hey, are you using your mental tools? Pretty simple, it makes it simple for you guys. Um, thoughts, questions. We got lots of time for questions, uh, this time is for you guys. So, whether you're a warrior parent or not, I get to serve you guys for the next 20 minutes. So what's coming up for you guys? So, whether you're a warrior parent or not, I get to serve you guys for the next 20 minutes. So what's coming up for you guys? Or even an update what's the latest with your warriors?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I have a question. So my daughter is eight, she's still an eight. You were actually going to 10, you in the fall Um. So I've followed you guys for like a year but we haven't actually gotten into um, one of the fast pitch programs, um, is this something that you think that you know could still help and work with that age?

Speaker 1:

help and work with that age. No, okay, and here's and here's why. So at that age they haven't faced enough adversity yet, they haven't experienced coach pitch and they may not understand the topics yet.

Speaker 1:

So we do talk about like how the brain works, why it's important. Um, I think the youngest we've had in the program is nine. Again, you know your daughter best, but I wanted to give you an honest, like an honest, depiction. So here's and maybe you guys can answer this too Um, you guys have lifetime access to the program. So if you're worried about like, oh my gosh, she's 10, she's nine, she's eight, is she going to grasp this?

Speaker 1:

A lot of um, a lot of these parents on here that I'm seeing their daughters have gone through the program more than once. Once you have access to the program, you keep it forever and I want you guys to go back through the program. Um, but to answer your question, eight might be too young just because we hop on group coaching calls, um, but if I have enough time working on this so much, I want to come up with a parent uh course for you guys where, if you have a younger daughter or you're not sure if your daughter's receptive to this, we're coming up with a parent training where I'll do much like what I'm doing tonight, where I'll walk you guys through some of these skills.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay. So, jamie, buying in on tools, I try to ask if you use visualization. She's like mom, that doesn't work, okay. So, first off, she's in season, second off, I think, when she experiences something that does work, visualization may not work for her. And so I would almost ask her um, you know, like the question we asked tonight is which of the skills has stood out to you most? And maybe she hasn't, you know, if she's in season and she hasn't watched all the trainings, maybe she's only hopped on the visualization call and maybe she hasn't watched some of them. And so I would almost encourage her to and kind of ask her and say, like well, okay, carly, which one of the skills are your favorite? And if she's like, well, I don't know, I haven't, you know, I've only done this one, this one, these are dumb I would just kind of put it back on her and say, well, which one of these skills do you feel like really clicked with you?

Speaker 1:

Um, some girls, visualization is hard, visualization is one of the harder ones. Um, I would honestly have her look at the self-talk one, revisit the self-talk, because I think everyone could use um self-talk on that. Whether they admit it or not, they're so hard on themselves. I hope that helps, jamie. Yeah, good, good, good what?

Speaker 5:

else. I think tonight you helped me realize, at least with Bella, that like when I talk to her about routine, it's more like the getting up to bat routine that she does, and I think we probably skip over some of the other ones about self-talk. I think she likes self-talk. I think she likes self-talk more than visualization. And for the mom with the eight-year-old I think from another mom's standpoint, why eight might be too young is because they don't have that negative self-talk yet, like there's there's still, like they're still fun and they're still trying and they're willing to listen. Or when you hit, like that 10-year-old age, just I think, the way society, we know society to be and have learned, that's where, like, the negative self-talk comes in. But it's definitely. This program has definitely helped in that, at least with my own daughter.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, at eight they're having fun Like it's all about snacks and popsicles and coach pitch and know 13 she's more into.

Speaker 5:

Like the social aspects of stuff than wanting to like self-reflect and journal, um, but I know she's got the notebook and stuff so, knowing that those questions are, are there, but like in the actual notebook, I don't think I knew that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think one of the things that you could have Bella do, when she's kind of either in a frustrating moment where she comes off a game, any sport, and she's like beating herself up and you're like nothing, I tell her is helping Go, dump your thoughts on a page, girlfriend, and then come talk to me like spelling, don't care, I don't want to see it, I don't care, just you're being kind of sassy with me, right, like go, whatever, that is right, go, right, go, put your thoughts on a page and and then it's not the pressure of like, oh my gosh, I have to journal every single day and I have to do the five minute miracle morning routine and get my Zen on every morning or every night. It can be sporadic. The other thing is, um, they're the note app on their phone. I've noticed that a lot of the girls, if you meet them where they're at, they have the note app on their phone.

Speaker 1:

open up the note app, you can voice memo your thoughts. Voice memo your thoughts just just just puke it onto your phone, and sometimes that helps too.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, yeah, and we've always talked like, since doing the team 11, like you know, did you like, what was your win? What would you say your win was? Or like if she asks this week on the call and you get picked like, what was your win? Um, they had a great middle school season. They went undefeated in league play, it was you know. But then she also plays rec and she's the oldest with a lot of. They removed the 12u age range, so everybody who was 10u jumped all the way up to 14, you and it's like she struggles with some of the younger ages, but then they're the winningest 14, you team in their you know, part of the rec league and so it's. It's been an interesting dynamic.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah and play curious, like. Okay, tell me more, like pour your heart out to me. What's what's frustrating about this? And help her navigate some of those things she might open up.

Speaker 5:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what else I get to hang out with you guys? Uh, for as long as you guys need me, so we can keep rolling. If you I know sometimes some of the questions that I get are hard to explain or you feel like you have to write a book, you guys are more than welcome to email me. I do get long emails. If it's something that you're like I don't know how to articulate this and I don't know if I feel comfortable sharing this on a group Zoom you guys can always email me as well, which I should probably put my email in here. If you reply to any of our emails, it goes to our hello email, but this is my personal email as well. How else can I help?

Speaker 4:

I have a question sorry, the toddler was screaming um. But like when Carly is playing on a different team, like as a pickup player, and this particular team doesn't really have energy and they tend to make a lot of errors, like, what advice or tools would you recommend so it doesn't drag her down? Because I feel like, um, she plays really well with her team, but when she picks up with this particular team, um, it really just drains her and then she starts making mistakes, um, and she doesn't really enjoy playing. So I'm like, as far as like advice on how not to like, what tool could she use to not let their energy bring her down or throw off her game?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Um, hard, easy to do, heart, easy to say, harder to do, um, this past Sunday we did circles on control, um, and so I would go back to module 11, mental skill 11, and say like, okay, what are the facts? Think like a scientist. What are the facts here, carly? Can you control other people's performance? Right, play curious, play dumb? Can you really like I know you want to, but can you um and like what's within her control? And then what are the facts? Right? And so sometimes we can spiral and say like, oh man, you know, my teammates made an error and they don't support me as a pitcher or they're not trying Cause they don't, you know, whatever. Whatever those thoughts are is like really just investigate those and say like, okay, carly, let's talk about this, let's journalist, what are the facts? And do the circles of control would be huge.

Speaker 4:

Okay, cause she's like the point where she doesn't want to play with them again. I was like, well, I feel like we should give them another chance. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And she's putting a lot of pressure on herself too. I'm guessing of, like, well, they're seniors, now I have to strike everybody out and then she's not going to perform well because now she's putting that pressure on herself. Oh my gosh. Yeah, adam, you're so welcome. I'm glad it was helpful, awesome, so good. You guys.

Speaker 1:

I'm like really bad about being quiet and not feeling dead space. So, um, how about this? If you have a question um, type it in the chat of like I have a question Um, and if nobody does or nobody wants to unmute, um, we'll let you guys go and have an awesome evening. Um, we'll let you guys go and have an awesome evening again. I really do appreciate your time. I know that we had a crazy mix of of all different people, but it was so good to spend time with you guys tonight and I hope that you took away some awesome nuggets, because I do appreciate the fact that you guys are here and you care about your daughter's mental health and um are learning about this. It's growing. So, yeah, thank you guys. All right, have a good night.

People on this episode

Contributor

Amanda Schaefer

Host