Is Your Child Experiencing Sports Performance Anxiety?

May 22

With multiple youth sports in season, this is a great time to discuss performance anxiety. Children experience performance anxiety in many different situations. In sports, they often start to feel pre-game pressure as they move up into more competitive levels or solo competitions.

Each child will express this anxiety differently. For example, your child may be able to express their fears and say they feel worried about an upcoming game, or they may struggle with connecting their anxiety to their sports performance. Caregivers are in a unique position to offer reassurance and guidance.

How do I identify performance anxiety:

As many of you may already know, kiddos won't come out and say what they're nervous about. They may not even realize they are anxious.

Common signs of sport anxiety can include physical symptoms, unusual behaviors, or changes in thinking.

Warning Signs:

Increased sweating unrelated to physical activity
racing heartbeat
stomach upset (butterflies)
headache
biting fingernails
being slow or refusing to get ready for their game or practice
Wanting to quit or reporting “I don’t like it anymore.” in an emotional or dysphoric manner.
Negative self-talk
Pretending to be sick or injured to avoid practices/games/performances etc.

What can I do to help?

It can be hard to figure out how their day at school was, let alone what they feel anxious about. Hopefully, these tips will help you identify and ultimately help your child with any performance anxiety they are experiencing.

First, try and approach it indirectly. No child has ever answered, “What are you anxious about?” easily or well. Come to think of it….not many adults do either! Instead of asking that question, try sharing your own experience about feeling nervous before a game or performance - either recently or in your past. It can also be helpful to ask questions or talk about their favorite professional or college athlete getting nervous before their games. “Do you think Catilin Clark ever gets nervous before a big game?” Also, feel free to interchange that question with scenarios like:

Making mistakes
Getting upset
losing

Once you get a little more info from the above techniques, try to help them name specifics. Are they worried about not winning? Messing up and everyone laughing at them? Making a mistake? Once we can isolate some of their specific worries, we can help reassure them. It is important to remember that reassurance is not “Oh, don’t worry about it. Everything will be fine.”. Reassurance is guiding your kiddo to find their own comfort and safety. This is done by helping them problem-solve, utilize calming strategies, improve self-talk, and recognize their strengths and potential.

Some strategies to try:

Preparation: scope out the field, morning/departure routine, driving route, etc., in the days or weeks leading up to the event. This can also be arriving at the game/practice early to avoid feeling rushed.
Calming Tools: diaphragm breathing (belly breathing), holding an ice cube (grounding), listening to music, playing a game, or watching a video (distraction).
Make it fun! Smile and laugh as much as possible. This helps lower expectations in your child’s mind.
Finally, visualization: This tool is used by athletes worldwide at all levels and can be helpful for your child as well. Before a competition, athletes can visualize themselves being successful. For example, a golfer struggling to make puts may want to try closing their eyes and visualizing themselves making puts in a real match scenario.

During visualization, focusing on breathing and staying calm are helpful techniques. Have your child think of game-time scenarios that cause the most stress, then have them visualize themselves being successful at that moment. Commonly, this could be the feeling of everyone watching them, distractions from the crowd roaring, or the expected pressure from a game-time atmosphere. Visualization can be a difficult skill to implement on your own. Seeking a trained clinical professional to aid with this type of visualization is suggested.

Am I causing my Child to have performance anxiety?

No, but you need to be aware that caregiver behavior and attitudes can contribute to performance anxiety and stress without even really knowing it. For instance, some kids are more afraid of disappointing their parents than anything else. So, try to avoid adding pressure to your kiddos when it comes to sports performance.

You can reduce performance pressures by being aware of the language you use before, after, and during a game.

Praise effort, not results
Keep post-game discussions positive (focus on effort); avoid giving advice on improving or identifying what they did wrong unless solicited by your child.

Please stay tuned for more blogs and videos on sport performance tips.

Logan Stano, LPC, CCTP

Lenore Stine