Latest / UNCOACHED / Sports Psychology Tips Every Parent and Coach Should Know
Transcript
- Brad: Welcome to Uncoached, a podcast for volunteer coaches and parents figuring out youth sports as we go. episode, we keep things simple: five questions to talk about practical insights you can actually use with your youth athletes. Today's guest is Katie Castle. Katie is a youth sports psychologist, former competitive gymnastics coach, a sports mom, and someone who's dedicated to her career to helping youth athletes build confidence and develop healthy mindsets. She's worked with athletes for years and has even spoken internationally about the changing landscape of youth sports. we're gonna dive into her expertise and what parents and coaches can do to create environments where kids can truly thrive. Katie, I think I barely probably touched on the surface of your background. Please do me a favor and introduce yourself a little bit, and then we'll jump in Katie: Perfect. Yeah, thanks for having me. Um, so yes, I u- was a gymnastics coach for many, many years. Um, 18 years, uh, uh, just about 18 years coaching, um, competitive gymnastics here in Canada. I was lucky enough to be able to attend nationals a few times with my athletes, um, and a few of them went on to, uh, NCAA scholarships as well. Um, so some high-level experiences and then mostly working with developmental-level athletes there while I finished all of the schooling to become a, a psychologist. So, um, eventually, when I, when I finished school, I switched over and now I strictly see youth athletes, uh, of all variety of sports. Probably the majority of them are gymnasts, uh, but lots of variety of sports too. So I have two boys. They're competitive, very, very competitive kids. One is a hockey player, uh, who also plays baseball. The other one is a basketball player who also plays football. So I'm just... If I'm not in my office, I'm probably on a sports field or in an arena somewhere. Brad: Yeah, there's no stoppage for you throughout the year. You've got four different sports you're competing at, so that's pretty neat. Katie: Alternating seasons. Yeah, we manage to find sports that don't conflict too much Brad: That helps. And I think you and I swapped some emails here. You're in a hockey hotbed there in Alberta, correct? Katie: Yeah. Yeah, I'm in Edmonton. So actually if, if you've heard of the Brick Tournament, I think it literally just wrapped up a couple days ago here at West Edmonton Mall. Um, so th- this was the year, was the year below my son's year. So last year's Brick Tournament was my son's birth year. So, um, one or two of the kids that we kinda knew from hockey here or there when they were little played, and, uh, it's at West Edmonton Mall, so you can, you know, go and watch. There's no admission or anything. So yeah, it's, uh, a lot of hockey around here. Brad: That's fun. I'm, I'm a little jealous 'cause I grew up playing hockey and I, um, I, I truly enjoy it, but not, not to the extent that I'm sure, uh, is there in Edmonton. So it's, uh, it's a lot of fun, and I'm, I'm sure that your boys have benefited from your experience with the sports psychology and, and things that, that you've helped them with. So, um, let, let's jump into it. We'll talk a little bit about what, what some of those lessons are. I, I hear a lot of coaches and parents say, "Hey, just be confident," or, "Be more aggressive," and I hear that all the time. And so I just, I'm interested in your experience. Like, what's the relationship you think between confidence and aggression in youth sports, and how can we as adults help kids develop both in a really healthy way? Katie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I hear that a lot too, and there's no-- there's nothing wrong with saying those things, certainly. You're telling a child to be confident. I think it's just so much easier said than done, and kids are often not sure how to get from one, one step to the next, right? We tell them, "Be confident." We might as well tell them to climb to Mount-- the top of Mount Everest, right? It-- there's, there's a million steps that, that would take them from point A to point B. So confidence is built through experiences, right? It doesn't, it doesn't really matter what we say to them. They have to believe it, and every kid knows their parent believes in them. What matters is if they actually feel confident on the inside, right? So I, I talk a lot to kids about inside versus outside confidence and, you know, we've all met a kid who appears to be confident. They do confident things. They say confident things, right? But they're probably not on the inside. It's not consistent. It's not congruent, right? What they're feeling on the inside, and I am much more interested in, in the inner confidence piece, and that's built through experiences, right? Have I overcome challenges? Have I had some successes? Do I know I can pick myself up if I fall? That's where confidence comes from, right? Brad: For sure. So when you're, when you're talking about this kind of confidence building thing, are there triggers that you try to teach youth athletes to, to lean on? Like, "Hey, I just did this in practice, so I know I can do it in a game." Or, "Hey, I messed up, so what? Here's... I need to reset and I need to do Katie: Mm-hmm. Brad: Are there some, some tips and tricks maybe you could share that, that you provide with your youth athletes as well? Katie: Yeah, one of the things that I, that I think really lands well with kids, um, starting around that 10, age 10 is kind of when I find this can work. Younger is still a bit tricky, but, uh, around age 10 they can think back to a time where they felt really confident. Even if they're not feeling confident in that particular moment, they can sort of... I tell them to like transport themselves back to that one game or that one practice where they felt like they were on fire and all- almost like they make a little like avatar of themselves. You know? Like, "Okay, I'm gonna be like, like Calgary Katie, like that, that Calgary tournament, tournament that we played in where I felt super confident, and I wasn't worried about mistakes. Like I'm gonna be that version of myself today." Because it helps them, um, picture something specific Brad: For sure. I, that's cool. I, I haven't heard that before, so I might, I might steal that myself. Katie: Yeah Brad: I think the one thing I lean on as a coach when I see somebody's lack of confidence or maybe they're not being aggressive is, what I always try to preach is, is try to find a small win, something that they can do successfully to, to encourage them, whether it's just making a good pass or, you know, just being there for a teammate, whatever it is that helps get them going. Um, that's something that I've tried to focus on just from a coaching perspective, you know? Katie: 100%, yeah. Yeah, and you know, you- the second part of your question, you asked about what adults can do to help them develop, um, w- I mean, confidence and aggression was your question. But I think one of the things that we know our kids need but we as parents really struggle to do is to let them be uncomfortable. No parent wants to watch their kid be uncomfortable, and we almost always have the ability to jump in and, and fix it, and so we do. But what we're doing is we're, we're actually preventing them from building confidence in their own ability to, to tolerate being uncomfortable and to overcome that challenge. So the next time a challenge comes up or an uncomfortable moment in the game happens, they don't have that experience to lean on. Brad: Right? Katie: can't look back and be like, "Oh, I've handled this before. It wasn't a big deal," because we didn't-- we stopped it. Like, imagine if we were, we went into the gym, and we stopped them every time they were doing a rep, and, and it started to get uncomfortable. They started to struggle, and we're like, "Oh, just stop. Just stop. You're uncomfortable." Like, they'd never get stronger, and it's the same as, as emotional resilience, right? They have to be uncomfortable in order to know they can be uncomfortable Brad: For sure. You kind of, uh, hit the nail on the head. You stunt their learning a little bit, right? You stop the educational process of them figuring out what's worked and what hasn't worked, and they don't have that as a repository to call back when they actually need it in a game or, you know, in a situation. So that's, uh, uh, that's a really cool way of looking at it. And, and I know we, we, we talked about confidence there, but, you know, I, I really like aggressive athletes. And, and I'm... And when you say aggressive, I think people get negative right away. Like, you know, you've got this kid running around crazy just hammering into people and, and being reckless, that's not really what I mean when I say I want people to be aggressive. But you want them to have that lack of fear to go after the puck, the ball, the, you know, the fly ball, whatever it is. I want them to have lack of fear. And I Katie: Yeah Brad: you know, I always tie confidence and aggression together. Maybe that's the wrong thing. I don't know. Maybe you have some insight o- on that too. But m- give me some thoughts on just aggression by itself and try to promote that type of, um, style of play with a kid Katie: Yeah, I think they can be tied together. Certainly, I think it is trickier to be aggressive if you're not confident, um, sometimes. I also think that for some kids who are not confident, maybe aggression is what they lean on, um, because you can feel confident in one area and not the next, right? Like, if they feel confident being the aggressive, and we all know kids who have sort of the old school mentality of like, "I'm the enforcer," kind of kid. And so they, they take that on, and then that becomes the only thing they do feel confident doing, and they struggle to get out of that comfort zone. So I do think that it can be linked, but I think it's important when it comes to aggression to help kids understand the difference between, um, a helpful kind of aggression that is targeted at advancing a play or, um, like you say, going in for a puck battle, um, or, you know, defending aggressively if you're playing basketball, not being afraid to kind of like, you know, push back a little bit if someone pushes you versus what we often see, which is kids who are very dysregulated and acting aggressively, and they're not in control of their actions. So I think it's really important for the adults to talk to kids about what's, what's good aggression that is needed for my, my position, and what is the kind of aggression that is not gonna get me anywhere in this game and probably make me play worse because I'm seeing red. Brad: Yeah, for sure. And y- it's a great way to look at it 'cause you're looking at both sides, and I, I think a lot of coaches and parents probably have seen both sides, where you've got an over-aggressive, almost the reckless, and it's almost like you have to try to c- curb that a little bit. Um, but it's the same conversation on, hey, what's good aggression and what's not, not good aggression, you know, that Katie: Yeah Brad: A- sticking with this topic of confidence, you know, you've worked with, with kids seven all the way through high school, and I'm sure it changes with different ages, but what's one mistake you maybe have seen well-meaning parents and coaches make that kinda slowly chips away at that confidence? It's hard enough to do it on your own, right? Katie: Yeah Brad: adult influence, are there some things that you've seen that have kind of hurt, um, certain kids in, in certain instances? Katie: Yeah, this one, this one actually tends to be a bit of a hot topic and, and I think it's because they are always well-meaning. Uh, the parent is always well-meaning when they make these kinds of decis-decisions for their child. And so when I suggest that this might be hurting their confidence, people tend to feel a little bit defensive about that and that's, that's not the point of it, right? It's just me bringing this up to get people to think about it from a different perspective. And I-- the answer I'm gonna say is shrinking their world, right? So anything that makes your child feel like y- the sport is their whole world Brad: Mm-hmm. Katie: can, can eventually sh- really shake their confidence. Um, because what you're-- what's happening for them is that the pressure to do well at that thing becomes greater and greater and greater, even though nobody's intentionally putting pressure on the child. By, by having them spend more time having more conversations about the sport, how we talk about our kids like, "Oh, this is my child, the gymnast. Um, this is my baseball player over here." We are talking about, "Oh, we can't go on family vacations because we have this tournament here and this tournament here." Their world becomes their sport, right? Even, even changing schools to be closer to your, you know, your sport location where your practices occur, right? All of those things sort of accumulate. No one of those things is gonna do it, but like they accumulate and eventually a lot of kids these days feel like, "I am my sport. This is all I do." So how could they not feel pressured to be good at it? Brad: I'm guessing too, like what builds into that is when you do shrink that world and things go wrong and something doesn't go your way, that it has such an even more of a larger impact. It's almost like twofold, the impact, because that is their world and now something's not going wrong. Where do I go to, like, who I am as a, as a kid and, and gain some confidence back if that was my world? Katie: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's, it used to be, um, you know, I'm a different generation, I guess, but, like, it used to be that you had your school friends and you had your sports friends, and sometimes you had your neighborhood friends, too. Um, and you know, if you had a bad day, if I came back from the gym and, and I had been yelled at for four hours, I Nobody even knew about it. If I didn't tell my parents, I could just come home and go and, and play with the neighborhood kids, and I didn't have to talk about it. You know, but these kids often are going to school with the exact same kids. So it's like at sc- the school is no longer a place where you can just be a different version of yourself and forget about your sport self for a moment. Imagine that as a grownup. Like, you know, if you had no break from your work life and your w- it was, like, everywhere you went, people knew exactly how you did in that last performance review with your boss Like, it's, it's hard Brad: Yeah, that'd be brutal. I mean, I, I would, I wouldn't like it. And I, I love that you put it in that context because you've got, you've got me thinking too. It's, it's important to have that break between sport and team and, and probably family life and other friends outside of it and school world. So, um, it's nice to have some barrier sometime to hel- have a separation of that, of that personality. Katie: Mm-hmm. Brad: and this kind of builds on this, this conversation we're, we're having, um, you know, the, the old way of having, a little bit of, of more fun or I don't know, you've got this school, school buddies, and you've got your, your, uh, sports team buddies, and you recently spoke about this, but, like, the professionalism that's happening in youth sports today, what, what's concerning you the most about youth sports and this direction that we're heading? And what can families do to kind of help keep that experience more healthy, um, along the way and allow those kids to chase big goals but not lose themselves at the same time? Katie: Yeah. Yeah, and I'm, I'm all for chasing big goals. I think, um, we wanna let our kids dream big, and we want to support them on their journey. Um, but my biggest concern is that business has different goals that are not congruent with the goals of developing youth athletes. Like, they're just two completely different areas, and one of them... Like, you're a business owner. You want a return on your investment, right? You want success. You want predictability. You wanna know, "Here's, here's how I run my business in order to get this result," right? And so then I can keep doing that, and then I can get more result, right? That is not how kids work. Kids are unpredictable. The progress is slow and requires a lot of patience, and every child and every athlete requires a completely different approach in order to get them to... There's no formula, right? Like, you can't plug in a formula to create an elite athlete. Um, as much as we know, I mean, as much research as we have, you still can't. You still have to interact, you know, with the particular child in front of you. So I don't... I worry about how many kids we're losing because they don't fit the formula. Um, that's what I, that's what I'm worried about Brad: Yeah, and I, I have a similar worry, I think along the same lines, but I worry about how many kids we're losing because they just can't afford that engine that is becoming youth sports because everything has gone the club route or, you know, big, larger conglomerate type of clubs. Katie: Yeah Brad: take your money, but the price tag goes up because they know that people are gonna pay it or, or a, a majority of people are gonna pay. So feels like we're losing, potentially losing athletes in multiple facets because of this big sports engine that we've got. Katie: We, we are absolutely, and I don't know that we're creating any more, um, success than we were before anyway. Um, people are spending a lot more money, and in the end, the same percentage of kids is-- are gonna end up with, you know, contracts, uh, scholarships, that kind of thing, right? Like the amount of money that is spent, I had it somewhere on a slide here, but like, you know, the amount of money that is spent is exponentially grown from the '80s, but the number of successful athletes is-- has not really. Brad: Right. Katie: So, Brad: Yeah Katie: and, and, you know, even jobs like mine didn't exist in the, in the '80s and the '90s, right? Brad: sure Katie: because there weren't as many stressed out athletes Brad: Well, I think maybe there were, but it wasn't, it wasn't Katie: Maybe. Brad: about it. You know what I'm saying? Like, it wasn't okay to Katie: Yeah Brad: just, just suck it up and, and keep playing type of Katie: True, true. There definitely were stressed out athletes for sure. I think, um, the ones that were stressed out, you know, having grown up doing, doing gymnastics in the '90s, um, I probably could have used a sports psychologist, sure. But the kinds of things that we were dealing with, the kinds of things that stress kids out now, it's happening much earlier and for much less purpose. Like, I'm seeing more, like, recreational athletes being super stressed out or, um, you know, kids that are training tons of hours that are not really needing to be training that many hours to re- for the level that they're at, right? So yeah Brad: Yeah, and, and is probably thinking too big or too long term, but fresh off this, you know, s- soccer loss that, uh, the, the US team just had, we're, we're losing out on athletes for a variety of reason in these club environments and things like that because of the big business that sports has become, it makes me also wonder, are we diluting our, our athlete base at these higher international levels where, you know, we've got tremendous athletes. I, I have no doubt we're missing out on a Messi somewhere because that child just isn't able to function in the club environment, either from a time perspective or a money perspective. Um, y- you know, you just re- you really have me thinking, and it's kind of, it's kind of sad to think about almost, um, Katie: It's very sad, yeah. It, it's-- That's 100% happening. There's no way that's not happening, um, because the sport... I mean, hockey is a-- Hockey and gymnastics are two of the most expensive sports that you can participate in, right? Um, there's no chance that, that there weren't other little hockey players somewhere that could have been phenomenal and like, you know, difference-making type players Brad: Yeah. Um, we're in a little bitty hot, hotbed where I live here in St. Louis, um, Missouri. We, we love hockey here, not to the extent of probably Edmonton, Canada. Um, but it is very much that way here where there's a lot of love for this sport, but not a lot of opportunity to play it Katie: Mm-hmm. Brad: you know, just the expense, but also just the opportunity to, to find ice to get on because there's just clearly not as much rinks. I mean, you, you might Katie: Right Brad: backyard. I don't know. But I know, uh, you know, I've, I've got other Canadian friends who had an opportunity to grow up. There's a park nearby that had an ice rink that they could go to, things like that. And, um, yeah, it, it's a bummer. It's a bummer. I don't know what we can do to fix it, but, but maybe talking about it'll help a little bit shed some light on it Katie: Well, and that's, that's why I went to these, uh, couple of international conferences because I wanted to know h- what was different, what are they doing differently over there, you know, in Europe that we're not doing? And, um, you know, gotta say they, they were a little shocked, um, at some of the stuff that goes on over... Oh, yeah, yeah. And I had, I had assumed that some of the really popular sports like, you know, football, soccer, um, you know, in the UK, I had assumed that because it was so popular there, it would be similar to our popular sports here in North America. No, not. Brad: What's the, Katie: They don't Brad: big differences that you found, if you don't mind sharing? Katie: The money. It's just, they just don't have the private options, um, that, that we have here. And Canada is a little bit not quite as extreme as what it is in the States, right? Like, we have private academies. Sure, there's, um, there's two hockey, private hockey academies in just a few minutes from me. Brad: Mm-hmm. Katie: tuition is probably 30 grand a year. Um, but I know in the States there's some that are 100 grand a year, right? So I think it's-- they're, they're almost a dime a dozen down there. You can pick a ton of private. It's not very common here to have private sports academies still. I don't think there are any in Europe Brad: Wow, okay. That's good, Katie: So you're paying... Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So they just-- And they also have a lot stricter regulations on... So like I know Norway in particular, um, they come up a lot in the youth sports world because they do-- they have a lot of regulations on, say, how many hours kids are even allowed to train, um, up until a certain age, what age you're allowed to introduce things like a national championship, um, keeping score, and that's across the sports. Whereas here, so much of what we do is unregulated, right? Like y- for you guys more than us, you, you don't really have very many coaching regulations either. Um, and that's un- in the States, most of them have a master's degree, or sorry, in Europe, they have a master's degree most of the time. So that's a career. Like a coach is, is their career that they go to university for. They get paid often by the city or, um, you know, that's... So it's just different. It's not m- it's not a million-dollar making industry for people who go into youth sports over there like it is here. Brad: Yeah. Awesome perspective. And, and you're right. I mean, that's why I started this whole platform here, just because so much of the coaching here, at least in the US, is volunteer-based. Like, there is no... It's not even paid, uh, much Katie: Yeah Brad: on how to coach, right? Um, and so, real- really good, insight I think that you, that you're bringing here from your international experiences. And we just touched on this a little bit, so it's a great segue, but, you know, I think parents I hope are wondering if they're pushing too hard or maybe not hard enough, um, on, on this aspect of, of training and, and practice and how hard to push a, a child. What are some signs that you think are some good red flags or green flags as far as, like, a a child experiencing a healthy challenge versus a unhealthy pressure? Katie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, I look at everything on a spectrum, right? Like this is the, when your, uh, mental health, you look at the gray, right? Like, that's kind of the, the point of what I do. Um, and I very much think that there is a sweet spot of, of how we support our kids. And yes, you need to push them a little bit so that they're not avoiding things that are challenging, because we don't want our kids to avoid challenges, right? If, if your child, say, wants to quit, this comes up from time to time in gymnastics, if they're afraid of some skills. They might say, "I wanna quit gymnastics." And this would be a time where I would say to a parent, like, "Do they wanna quit gymnastics because they don't like it? Or are they wanting to quit because they don't think they can overcome this challenge?" Because that's, that's not a good reason to quit your sport, right? So if you're pushing your child to do something they love, but that is hard, that's a good kind of push, right? Um, as long as we're providing, you know, small steps and support along the way, right? Um, but I really don't think there's a big problem with not pushing our kids hard enough. I think it's almost always the opposite. And one big indicator is if you're noticing a lack of motivation in your child. Um, a question I often get from parents is, "How do I motivate my kid?" You don't, really. Like, if they're n- I'm sorry. Like, if they're not motivated to do it, they're not motivated to do it. Like, how do you, how do you get... Like, it's like telling me, like, "How do I motivate you to go and take up wrestling?" Like, you're not going, you're not going to. I'm not going to be motivated to do something that I'm not interested in doing myself, and neither are kids Brad: yeah. I, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. Um, advancement and the ability to get better has to, has to reside with that kid wanting to do it. Um, it's a, it's a conversation I have in my house a lot. I have, you know, my son is 10, my daughter is eight. They love playing sports. Uh, what they don't love to do is the kind of a lot of the practice outside of the structured Katie: Yeah Brad: and, and that's okay. I'm not at home, like, pushing them to do this. But I'm also saying, "Hey, I know that you like the way that Sam plays. He's a very good soccer player. But I also know Sam's at home, you know, practicing every night in the backyard." Or, "I know that you like, you know, the way that Kristen is able to hit a softball," right? "She's at home hitting softballs off of a tee every day. Katie: Yeah Brad: you guys to do that, but just I want you to understand there's not, like, this natural ability. You have to, you have to work at this if you wanna be better," right? And there's-- You have to educate kids, I think, too, to get them to want to do that and, and to try to get better at what their sport is. Katie: But then it's still their choice too, and I think this is where the disconnect happens with a lot of parents. And again, very, very well-meaning because what parent-- every single parent wants their child to reach their potential. So that's a question that I-- or that's something I hear parents say a lot, which is, "I just want my child to reach their potential." But whoever really 100% meets their full potential on, on anything, right? Like if I had, if I had been motivated to, I could have done different types of degrees in different universities and, you know, pushed myself to maybe publish more, but I wasn't motivated to do those things. So did I-- should I feel like a failure that I didn't reach my full potential academically? No. I-it just, I was motivated to do what I did. I got it done, and then my motivation stopped, so I stopped. And it's the same in sports. Like, just 'cause your kid is talented enough physically to, to make a certain level doesn't mean that they are motivated to put the work in to do it, and that's okay Brad: For sure. Um, it just goes to speak to physical is only 50% of the equation, and it's the mental side in, in no matter, you know, this motivation, the confidence building, um, you know, your focus. There's just so much that, that this mental side, that's why, that's why you have such a fantastic opportunity in what you do, um, to, to kind of talk about the mental side of, of youth sports. let's say you had five minutes with a volunteer coach like me, uh, before their first practice of the season. What's one piece of advice you'd give them that would have the biggest positive impact on their players? Katie: Yeah, I love this question. But five minutes, that's hard. Uh, that's a hard one, 'cause I do love, I do love to talk to coaches. I miss coaching, um, you know, in some ways. I think if I had to pick, and there's probably a few things that I was, I was debating, um, I would say the importance of teaching kids a difference, the difference between a good mistake and a bad mistake, I think is just absolutely crucial. Because we see so many kids who are afraid of making mistakes, but they can't clearly define what a mistake is, or more commonly, their version of what a mistake is is not the same as the coach's. So when we say to, when I say to a child or they say to me, "I'm afraid to make a mistake," I'll say, "Well, what, you know, what kind of mistake?" Or, or whatever. Um, and they'll say, "Well, not scoring." Which most, most coaches wouldn't ever describe that as a- the kind of mistake that they're concerned about, right? So I think it's really important, similar to how we talked about the aggression, right? Where we differentiate between good aggression and bad aggression. A good mistake is when you tried to do that thing we were just working on in practice, even if it didn't go well. But you tried, you took a risk. A risk is a good mistake, even if it goes badly, right? A bad mistake might be you taking the exact same penalty that you've taken the last three games that we've talked about several times, um, or, you know, you not passing over and over and over. So maybe a bad mistake is just something that, um, a basic black-and-white thing that we've talked about over and over, and that's a mistake that I would like to see not happening. But it's never about, you know, a specific outcome. It's not a ba- it's not a bad mistake to miss a pass when you just couldn't get there on time Brad: Right. That's a power- powerful piece of advice because, I mean, I don't think that just is for a new coach. I think that fits any coach because you're able to... I- if you're able to set that foundation of, of them describing a mistake, you describing as a coach what you think a mistake is, that sets a fantastic foundation for the rest of the training that's gonna happen with that, with that team and with that player. So I think it's a great piece of advice. I, I wrote down an answer to this question myself, and, and I... mine was a lot more simple-minded, I would say, this coaching hat, but I literally would tell people just to slow down. Because I feel like want to advance so quickly with the drill that they're doing, the skills that they're trying to train, the, the gameplay that they expect, or, you know, whatever it is, just slow it down a bit. Uh, take your time, and just make sure you're getting those foundational done first before Katie: Yeah Brad: to push them way too hard, Katie: That was the other thing I wrote down actually was, was pretty, pretty much exactly that, which was fewer instructions, fewer skills, but done more clearly and explained more thoroughly, right? We're, we're piling on the amount of information that a child can take in is almost never, um, you know, when I'm, if I sit and watch a practice, I'm going like, "That's too much info." Like, they can't process all that Brad: Yeah. I, I'll, uh, speaking of too much info, like I'll watch some teams, the post-game conversation that the coach is having, and you'll be there, you'll be like, "Okay, it's been 30 minutes." Like there's no way that the, these kids are even remembering everything that you're telling them, and it's happened to my son, and he's coming back, and I'm like, "So what'd coach say?" And he's like, he's like, "Ah, he said we, we made some mistakes, and we gotta, we gotta change this and that." I'm like, "Okay, so you basically didn't hear anything he was really saying to you." I think that was, that was the majority of our content. I Katie: Yeah Brad: to, I like to get in a, a bonus question. So I, uh, let me slip in a bonus question here and just get your perspective. Um, I want you to put your, yourself in, in the, in your coaching shoes again and imagine that there's a 10-year-old athlete that's telling you, "Hey, I'm afraid to make a mistake." Um, what's that conversation you would have with the child, and maybe what's the conversation you could help the parents, um, if that child is kind of talking about that fear at home as well? Katie: Yeah, so that is a question or that is a, a, a scenario that comes up, uh, you know, weekly if not several times a week for me. Um, and the first thing that I have to do is understand the environment around mistake-making that this child is in. So it's not... I don't, I don't jump directly to, how do I fix this? Um, how do I teach the child to fix this? I need a full much better understanding of, um, what is this child's experience with mistakes? How do people typically respond when mistakes are made? And what does the child think is going to happen if they make a mistake, right? Not what will actually happen. What does the child think is gonna happen if they make a mistake, right? Um, because they, they just sometimes they fill in the blanks on their own, right? And it's not necessarily what the coach would, would do, right? So I need-- I, I would say I would ask the child, "What happens when you do make a mistake? When was the last time you made one? How did your coach respond? How did your parents respond?" Um, and if the answer is, "Well, I got benched," then how can I, how can I teach a child to become less afraid of making mistakes when there is a very real, Brad: Right. Katie: quite scary consequence for them, um, in that moment? So I think we have to, as adults, take, take responsibility for the environment that the kids are in before we ask them to make changes as well. Brad: No, that's, that's spot on. I appreciate that so much. It's good insight. Well, Katie, that's all the questions I had for you. Um, I think we can probably talk about this a lot more, um, but I do wanna keep it to, uh, uh, the, the promised five questions, even though I did slip in a bonus there. Um, got such a tremendous view on youth sports and such a wealth of knowledge. Um, thanks for spending a little bit of time with me here. But where can other people find, um, your content? Where can they follow you? And, and give me some more information about where viewers can go to, to see more of you Katie: Sure. Yeah, this is, this is a question that comes up a lot. I have a, an Instagram page. It's, uh, @castlepsychology. Um, however, as a licensed psychologist, we are only able to practice in, in the province that we have a license in, right? So, um, I can't take clients, um, personally one-on-one clients from outside of Alberta where I live. However, um, I have developed a, an online course that, you know, kids can take in their own time, um, with parents. There's no-- it's not, you know, treatment based. It's more skill building. So that's called aimsforsports.ca. That would be the website there. So if you are interested in sort of starting to plant the seeds and, and having your child learn some basic mental skills, um, as a protective factor, then that's a good option. Brad: thank you for sharing that. I would encourage listeners to please check out Katie and, and Castle Psychology on, on Instagram. Some great stuff being shared there. Um, definitely check out the, the website and the, and the program that she talked about there as well. And if this episode helped you, share it with another coach or parent who's figuring it out too. You can find Uncoached and this episode wherever you listen to podcasts. You can watch the episode on YouTube, and make sure to follow the Coaching Dad on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook. We'll see you next time on Uncoached