Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to the Raising Elite Competitors podcast. I'm Coach Brie, a mental performance coach for girl athletes, and I am so excited that you are here Today. We have a very special episode with one of our own elite competitor parent coaches, rachel Olson, and I'm really excited to bring this to you because Rachel is the goat of sports parents. She has two kiddos who are playing at the division one level. She has a son playing soccer at the university of Portland and a daughter playing division one basketball as well at the university of Michigan, and she comes with a wealth of knowledge and experience on this whole sports parenting journey. So recently inside our community for sports moms, our private community, we interviewed her and had her just share, from her perspective, the things that her and her husband did along the way to help cultivate I mean, her kids are talented but not just allow their talents to shine but also create an environment where they love their sports.

Speaker 1: 1:02

And preventing burnout the main thing that we lean into in here, especially for these athletes who are playing year round and who are just nonstop. Rachel gives some really tangible tips on how to navigate that so the athletes are not mentally and physically burned out. That is a common thing that we hear in our community is how do I help prevent this? Not only that, but she touches on a lot of different questions from moms in our community around sports specialization at a young age. She talks about different ways to navigate coaching conflicts or teammate things just the whole gamut of experiences that, as a sports parent, you face. Rachel provides just such knowledgeable perspective on.

Speaker 1: 1:43

So enjoy this episode. Coach Melinda, who is another elite competitor coach in our community, is the one who is interviewing her and, like I said, this was an interview that was for our private community of moms of athletes going through the elite mental game, and we decided that we were going to pull that out and share it with our broader audience so that you can not only benefit from Rachel's knowledge but also get a glimpse inside what our community looks like as well and the periodic trainings and pop-ups and live events that we have for moms inside our community. So go ahead and enjoy this episode and I will see you in the next one.

Speaker 2: 2:20

We are interviewing Rachel Olsen. She is an elite competitor coach. She is a multitude of amazing things in my opinion, but mostly she's a sports mom and her wealth of information about avoiding burnout and really guiding your athlete in order to be their best in their endeavors is really what she does and she knows about so eloquently and she's able to give that advice so eloquently. In my opinion, it becomes relatable and for me even being able to turn to her and ask her things about my athletes. So I'm so excited to share her knowledge with you. So any questions, like I said before, if you drop it in the box, we will definitely be able to get to it. So don't hesitate or keep it or jot it down so that we can ask at the end. I'm going to head over and kick it off to Rachel and my first is just a basic introduction your name, which we know a little bit about, your background, your sports kids, your athletes, where you guys live. Yeah, you want to take it over.

Speaker 3: 3:22

Awesome, nice to see all of you. I'm really happy to be here and happy to talk about this. First of all, I you want to take it over Awesome, nice to see all of you. I'm really happy to be here and happy to talk about this. First of all, I just want to frame this with I'm just a sports mom. Like all of you, I am very blessed that my children have been able to really achieve some wonderful milestones in their sports careers, and I'm what I'm most hopeful about is if I can give you some information that's helpful. I have made a million mistakes in my own parenting career and sports career, but what's really important is that we continue to show up and be there for our kids and help and support them in any way that we can. I just wanna be able to give you some advice today for whatever it's worth. Take some questions. If we can't get through to everything, feel free to ask on the Facebook page too, in that community, if you have a specific question about recruiting or something that we don't get to today. I monitor that as well and I'm happy to connect with you to try to get your questions answered as well. But in the interest of time.

Speaker 3: 4:19

Let me give you some background on myself. I have been in and around sports my entire life. I was a three-sport athlete as a kid. As a high school kid I was sort of like named maybe the best female athlete in my high school so I got an award for that, went on to play college athletics, struggled in college with the mental turn of getting to the next level. So with my kids I've been really cognizant of the mental challenges that come into play and the mental support that they need, and so I'm much more aware of those things with my own kids and paying attention to those things and trying to give them support that I potentially didn't have or didn't know how to navigate when I was an athlete myself. So I met my husband in college. He was a collegiate track and cross country runner and, fast forward 10 years, we were married and we have three children. All of my children are high level athletes, my younger two very high level athletes. My oldest participated in soccer. She was a varsity starter, played on a club team, but not ultra competitive, I would say. She went on to college. She was not an athlete in college, had a very happy and well-adjusted college life and that's great for her. Part of parenting is helping your child find the best fit for them.

Speaker 3: 5:38

My son, I could tell from a very early age, had incredible skill for his sport. He's a soccer player. He showed real aptitude at a very young age and so what we really worked to do was to get him into different environments that could help really push him and really get his skills to the point where he continued to advance past his peers. I'm from Minnesota. We have a professional sports team here called Minnesota United. In its early phase it started an inaugural program for a development academy. So my son tried out. He was in the inaugural program to be in their professional track at 14 and played on their Minnesota's academy team for three years. Traveling nationally. I didn't take him to his games in California. I put him on a plane or put him on a bus and we could go if we wanted to, but he essentially was like a college player at age 14. He learned a lot, navigated ups and downs as far as coaching went, in a sort of like a professional atmosphere. Then COVID happened and they shut the academy down. They told us to go find another team to play on. So in our area he had to take a step down. So levels sports are kind of levels. He had to go down to an ECNL team which ECNL is still a very good program and actually that was a blessing in disguise for him. He ended up being recruited from his ECNL team. He's a kid who was a captain in high school, is an all-state player, an all-region player, an all-conference player, and went on to play or he's playing in a Division I program on the West Coast at the University of Portland and they're a top 10 team in the nation.

Speaker 3: 7:20

My daughter I could also tell that she had very high-level skills at a young age. She's a big kid. She's tall. I never use the word big with her because as a female, I'm very careful about my word selection, especially with a tall young female athlete. We were always very careful with the words that we chose to describe her, but she's a very tall child. She showed very good aptitude for sports at a young age. Her list of accomplishments is long. I will not go through all of them, I don't want to bore you with them, but she is a high-level soccer player, she's a goalkeeper and a high-level basketball player. She's chosen to continue her career in college as a basketball player. She's a high school senior, but some of the things that she's achieved in her career in her AAU team or culture she played on the Under Armour circuit. So for those of you who are in basketball you probably know there's different shoe circuits.

Speaker 3: 8:18

She was in Under Armour.

Speaker 3: 8:19

She had a first place state finish. She had a second national finish, third national finish and a fifth national finish. She's a back to back state high school champion in basketball and a state high school champion in soccer. She has the most points ever male or female on her high school team over 2000 points. For basketball she's ranked nationally. She was ranked third in the country for a while. She's gone down a little bit, but she helped Team USA win a gold medal when she played on the U16 national team. She just competed for the second time with the national team against the world. It was like a world game. That was about three weeks ago in Portland called the Nike Hoop Summit.

Speaker 3: 9:05

She was invited by Steph Curry to his basketball camp two years in a row where she worked out with 11 other girls in the country with Steph Curry. So that's been pretty cool. She was just invited to Michael Jordan's camp and we just got back from New York City. For that she was McDonald's All-American. This year she's Gatorade Player of the Year. She was Minnesota's Miss Basketball and she had 43 Division I full-ride offers for basketball. So that is like a snapshot of my three very different children, from someone who played competitively and did not want to go on to play in college to someone who has achieved a lot in her game. And if I can help you by answering questions today about the crazy sports life, I'm happy to do that. Please feel free to drop things in the chat so I'm not just talking about things that you know. I want to make sure that it's all relevant to you guys. So that's my background. Melinda, do you want to jump in and start with kind?

Speaker 2: 10:00

of questions. Yeah, number one, I can't believe you're in New York city and didn't call questions. Yeah, number one, I can't believe you're in New York City and didn't call, but on another day you know how you feel about your daughter. Number two yeah, I wanted to just highlight a couple of things now when I have some questions, and so, if we can go through that, this is going to be like podcast style. Guys, if you do have questions, feel free to put it in the box. We will get to them, I promise.

Speaker 2: 10:23

So the biggest thing that I wanted to touch upon was that burnout, and I think burnout can go both ways. Can you expand on some of the ways that you alleviated that for yourself as a sport parent? But how did you manage it for your kids? Especially, some things that I heard pop out, was you put your kid to send to go play on a train, plane, bus, automobile, like that's huge, and what was that like? How was? Did he experience any burnout? Do any of your girls have burnout? I know your daughter, just since we've met, has been all over the country multiple times and I can't imagine that. I'm like, does she sleep? So I look at those like little things.

Speaker 3: 11:08

And then, if you flip the burnout side, if you can expand on how you and your husband navigate those schedules without while maintaining your relationship and mitigating burnout for yourselves Absolutely so first of all, because there's a wide variety of people on this call, from people who might have younger kids and you're just getting into the sports world for people who might have high school kids and are going through this right now. I'll just kind of frame the start with give yourself a break, wherever you're at, because parenting is a continual evolution of learning and using the information that's in front of you. So yay everybody for being here just to learn from other people's experiences and how to support your kids, but I would say from. If your child's younger and you know that they have higher level skills and you know that there is an aptitude for them you know potentially being an elite athlete, or maybe they are an elite athlete it is really important that you use the opportunities that you have this is a very competitive landscape to try to get your kid to the next level. So if you have access and you have the resources to be able to put them in the opportunities to have them play on higher level teams, if that's their goal, then you want to support those goals. But first and foremost is having an open conversation with them about what are their goals. Do they want to play? Because if you are pursuing something that you want but your player doesn't want that, your life is going to look a lot different and burnout is going to happen at a faster rate for them, if this is your dream, but it's not their dream. So, really having some good, open communication with what their goals look like, knowing that those can change right, when you're 12, your goals might be different than when you're 16. So just continuing to check in with your kids on what they want and where they're going and what's fun. But in a nutshell, burnout happens in many cases when athletes feel that they're not getting from their sport what they're putting in and they don't have the control to be able to make the decisions in their sport. Ways that you can work around that or help prevent that from happening is let them take time off of their sport Really really important.

Speaker 3: 13:18

We encourage our kids to be multi-level sports. I know in today's day and age that's really hard to do because you're navigating impossible schedules. You've got multiple kids, you work, you have dinner like I live it, so I get it. But we let my daughter play soccer and basketball as long as we could. Now that to us meant flying all over the country into club sports, which we knew at some point we weren't going to be able to do. So she ended up stopping playing club for soccer in ninth grade. We navigated all of them until ninth grade when she naturally decided that basketball was the avenue that she wanted to go. She continued to play high school soccer because she could do that. The skill level needed wasn't as great as the club level for her, so she was able to navigate that, keeping up her skills on the high school side.

Speaker 3: 14:05

The second thing I would say is teach them how to manage stress when they have a lot on their plates and they're trying to be good students, which I would encourage, because any athlete also needs to have good grades to get into school. Time management. Those are all really important things. So if there are ways you can help them prepare or manage their stress, it's really important. Look at what pressures they're facing at home, again checking in with you and your partner to make sure that you're not a primary source of stress for your child in wanting them to achieve and do well. We all want our children to do well in their sport. Achieve and do well. We all want our children to do well in their sport, but the most important thing at the end of the day, we also want to be their safety net, and my advice to you is don't sacrifice your relationship with them in order to drive them to achieve really high levels in sports.

Speaker 3: 15:02

Children's pediatric psychologists told me at a very young age to not to sweat the small stuff, and I know that's so cliche, but what he went on to say was that your relationship with your child is more important than the external factors of worrying about cleaning up their room and nagging them all the time to do that right. So be careful about what battles you really choose to take on, because as they get older, you want to be their source for conversation. You want them to talk to you about their frustrations in their sports, their goals and their hopes and their dreams right, their drug or alcohol use. We hope that doesn't happen, but we want to preserve our relationship for all of those conversations to happen at a later date. But if we nagged them to the point when they're little that they stop listening to us and they completely tune us out, then it closes the door on the conversations that really matter when they're older. So that piece of advice has always stuck with me, and one thing that we've always said to our kids is if you ever want to walk away from your sport, I understand I'm still going to love you. Our love is not tied to whatever the success that you achieve in your sport, and so just making sure that's a really open conversation and they don't feel that your validation and your love is tied to their achievement in their sport is a really important like foundational concept in life, and I know that sounds really common sense, but in some households that people get really caught up, and one thing that I always tell athletes and you might be able to use this advice too is to zoom out, not to be so focused on what's happening in your sport, in your life, but look at the big picture and know that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and your relationship with your child is for your life, not just during their teenage years.

Speaker 3: 16:59

The couple other things that I would say, the points for the preventing burnout look at their relationships. Do they have a support system? Is it? You Are there? Friends? Are there coaches? Are there people that they can talk to outside of their sport, so that they are forming relationships for people who are just not their teammates, because if something happens with that team or they choose to do something else, they need a support system and they need to be able to have people who are positive in their life.

Speaker 3: 17:26

And then, lastly, I would say, give them some control in the decision-making process with sports. So if you think that it's important that they are on a different team and you decided to sign them up for a tryout, make sure that you're talking to them with it. If they don't feel that there's any control, they don't feel that there's any control. They don't have any control of their environment. It leads to burnout faster because they just feel trapped in their situation. So those would be kind of my navigating burnout or things to think about. Melinda, anything to add from a parent perspective.

Speaker 2: 18:01

Yeah, I think that when you said about zooming out, for me one of the biggest pieces of advice, and so my children. So you guys know, I have a 17, 14 and a four year old. Don't ask Really quickly. They all play sports. My son slept, he didn't have a lovey, he slept with the footballs. He's a very good baseball player, he's a hockey player, multi sport kid.

Speaker 2: 18:23

And one of the things that I realized that I just wanted you nailed it with this statement of your relationship with your children when they're living under your household, which is now expanded because I guess nobody leaves, but I'm okay with that, but it is for a season. Your relationship that you are building now is the foundation of a lifetime relationship and how you are interacting with them and feeding their soul. It could be good, it could be challenging, it could be a lot of things, but zoom out and what kind of relationship do you want with your children when they're older? And I know for me I can call my mom anytime. I want my children to want to come home and have Sunday dinners. So just that zoom out point is huge and it gives you really the gift of perspective because we have them for such a short season, and I just wanted to highlight that.

Speaker 2: 19:22

Another thing that I want you to just discuss is with Olivia, who's Rachel's youngest I didn't realize. I guess that she was also high level soccer. Now, when she got older and she started basically figuring out for herself, it sounds like that she was going to play basketball. How did you navigate them? Or Olivia, or any of who multi sport kids? How did you navigate them? Or Olivia, or any of who multi-sport kids? How did you navigate them through that process and support them to figure out what their passion was like, what they were truly passionate about? And in that discovery, how did you, or how did they, know what was a better fit? Does that make sense?

Speaker 3: 20:05

Okay, yeah that's a great question because many of you might be facing that right now. If you have kids that are in different sports, I think it naturally happens. She's a goalkeeper in soccer and being on a good team as a goalkeeper, sometimes there's not a lot of action, right, it can be a really boring game. If you go three or four games then you don't ever touch the ball. So I think for her in basketball there's a lot more action that happens. There's a lot more excitement. So I think that was part of it. I'm just going to be realistic.

Speaker 3: 20:34

If you look at the financial piece of continuing on in the sport, in basketball the scholarship opportunities and the financial opportunity is much greater for females in basketball than it is for soccer. So we had a coach that sort of I never had really thought about it and he mentioned that so I started thinking about it. I didn't push her to make that decision, but we did talk about it Like we need to look at some of the reality. If you want to continue to play, you might have more opportunities in certain areas and so. But it really was, we really let her do it naturally and she decided that she wanted to stop playing club because she wanted to be able to go to Steph Curry camp and she wanted to be able to do some of the things in the summer that she wouldn't have had an option to do if she was still playing a club season for soccer. So it's not an easy decision.

Speaker 3: 21:24

But also I would say, don't compare yourself to other families. This is your journey with your child. It's really easy to get caught up in what everybody else is doing and during tryouts and during the club seasons you get so much feedback from all these parents. You guys all know that there are highly excitable parents on some of your teams and they're doing this training and that training and while that might be really important and great for them, if it doesn't meet your goals and it doesn't meet the expectations in your family, don't feel like you have to get sucked into that.

Speaker 3: 21:58

But I will say that if you do have a child that has high-level aspirations and they are a good athlete you do have to put money and time into training. Everybody does extra work outside of the high school season. Everybody does. Most kids are playing on, except for football and I don't think there's not club football but most kids are playing on a club level in their sport, if they have aspirations to go further. So if that's your reality and your child saying, hey, I wanna keep playing, you're gonna wanna find resources to get your child the support that they want. If that's important to you and that might look like investment in travel or trying out for another team because most kids around the country are doing that to get to the next level, yep yep.

Speaker 2: 22:44

So now just going back to the experience of year round and burnout what I noticed in the hockey world and feel free to drop it in If you're a part of the hockey world. My son was recruited to play year round hockey from a very young age and his dad didn't want that for him initially because he did play baseball and he loved his baseball seasons. So when you're looking at that from the perspective of that younger athlete who you can see that raw talent in them but it affects the bigger picture what advice do you have for the younger athlete parents who you can see like you could very quickly take that one sport and run with it or you keep them playing multiple sports year round? Because I see a lot of thought on this and it's very mixed and I love your opinion on it.

Speaker 3: 23:38

First of all, it is a great question and I can only speak from my own experience, so other people might have their own take on it. Speak from my own experience, so other people might have their own take on it. For me, I wanted my kids to play other sports, to work other muscles, not to have the overuse problem. We still had overuse problems. I've been through a million injuries with kids but that's why we encouraged our daughter to continue playing and we did the best we could of supporting those dreams until, naturally, organically, in ninth grade she made that decision. But she started playing basketball in second grade, club level, basketball in fourth grade travel club. She was playing soccer year round. So we were continuing to support that at a very early age.

Speaker 3: 24:18

I think it is great for kids to be in multiple sports. I was asport athlete in high school. There aren't very many three-sport athletes anymore. There's a few. Two is more common. If kids can do it, I am totally on board with them doing it.

Speaker 3: 24:34

But I will tell you as a parent it's not easy and there were many, many nights where I fed my kids at 4 o'clock or at 10 pm because we were driving from one practice in basketball across town to soccer practice, to a tournament that I had to get this kid.

Speaker 3: 24:49

So it takes a certain level of commitment on the parent's part and not every parent or family is equipped to do that. So I think that there's not one right or wrong answer and if you can find something trial and error with what works with your values, I think that's the most important thing. So, melinda, I know it's not like a this or that, but I think that it really is case dependent and it just depends on your situation. But I'm a total advocate of doing as much as you can with the time you have and with what your child can handle If it's becoming very clear that your child can't keep their grades up or is burning out or is like not getting the nutrition or the sleep, or stressed out, then it's time to reconsider your choices and maybe make different decisions.

Speaker 3: 25:35

So just watching how your child responds to these things is really important too.

Speaker 2: 25:39

Yeah, so that whole thing too. Just to go just a one step further on, when you say school, nutrition, sleep, all of that stuff. Now, speaking for your three individual athletes, in terms of schooling goes, it's the experience that every child is a little different. Both of my children have ADHD. They display it very differently. My son is highly also type A, so he can use it almost to his advantage, and my daughter is type B second child syndrome all over the place. So one has very good grades, the other has very I call them eclectic grades for the artist. And with that, how did you manage that Like, how do you manage? Because it's such a big piece of all this. What does that look like for somebody who's literally feeding at four and 10? I'm with you, girl. What does that look like for somebody who's literally feeding at four and 10? I'm with you, girl. What does that look like? How did you navigate it, especially when they get into higher stakes like high school?

Speaker 3: 26:35

I will say that we always had high expectations for our kids with grades. It just wasn't acceptable not to do your work in our household and not acceptable to not study. So we continue to make sure that we intentionally praise their effort in school for them to know that that was a high value for us. And thankfully my kids learned that work ethic in a short amount of time when they were younger, and so the sports helped them. They knew that they had an hour after school. Let's say it's you got to get your work done, because we need to leave at 4.30 PM to get to training. So for them it helped that they were really busy because they knew that they had to get their work done. And my kids became really efficient If they got class time they would do their work in class so they wouldn't have as much work to do at night.

Speaker 3: 27:19

But there also comes a certain level of perfectionism that many athletes have and that can also tie into procrastination and that can also manifest itself in schoolwork. And so if you're seeing that, it's something to pay attention to, because what you want to learn and want to give them are tools to curb that perfectionism, because that procrastination is going to catch up with them and that's really hard habits to break. And the reason for that reason for the procrastination is going to catch up with them and that's really hard habits to break. And the reason for that reason for the procrastination is sometimes they don't want to start something because they don't. They either takes them a really long time to do it because they're perfecting it or they don't want to fail. They don't want to get a grade that they're not proud of, so they don't start. So if your child is experiencing that, it's something to pay attention to and to get somebody or help counseling or get somebody involved to kind of help you navigate, so that doesn't continue to get worse. Yeah, that answered your question.

Speaker 2: 28:13

Yeah, totally, especially now that I've read a ton of books on this and that high level or the very committed athletes, like you're saying, tend to get this. I look at that. It's like the perfectionism tweak and you really have to normalize, in my opinion, mistakes because it does transfer over to other. Yes, betsy, one book is why Maddie ran, and it's actually a very sad story, but it talks about high level sports and it's I'll share some other books too. But that perfectionism in normalizing mistakes it's so key and I see it with my son. My son will get very hyper-focused on things because I think that's just sometimes the way the athlete brain works and they're just so put into these regimented schedules where they are looking to achieve their version of greatness. So it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I do see it has to be like tempered a little bit. Okay, stephanie, thank you, we're going to put the replay up, no worries.

Speaker 2: 29:11

Now, when you're talking about these schedules a little bit, what I want to touch upon is how did you manage when you had three children? First of all, what's the actual age differences between the kids and when you were managing multiple sports between the kids? And when you were managing multiple sports, multiple schedules. I had this idea that we can all go in on with a safe Uber driver for a sports parent, but there's a lot of nuances with that. How did you manage it? What did you do? Like, how did you and your husband stay away from the tag? You're it ruts, see you tomorrow, because we find ourselves doing that a lot in our house. It can get away from you if you don't get ahead of it. So can you just touch upon that and that was from Lori, I just expanded on it. Did you choose which practices to go to? Sometimes Did you miss things? Like how did you make the schedules work?

Speaker 3: 29:59

Yeah, that's a great question. We did all of the above. Everything that you mentioned we have done. I've been through I've. I'm a working parent, so my husband and I both work full time. Three kids my daughter is 23. My son is 20 and my daughter is 18. So there's four years in between the first two and then 15 months in between the second two. So when they were really little I put them in together in swimming lessons and everything together. But as they age and they're different genders, obviously that has to change.

Speaker 3: 30:31

We were not big proponents in fast food, so I made a lot of sandwiches, I bought a lot of things that we could. I would pack a picnic, I would pack a little cooler, and so I would feed them while we drove or in between sports or when I had the other kids at the field with me. I would oftentimes act like I would bring walking shoes I always have walking shoes and I didn't get in the car and I would use the time if I was at a field or a track or something to like at least get. I'd have earbuds and at least get some of my own personal care done. Through that process we did end up, you know, for the most part, giving up family dinners. It's something that makes me a little bit sad, but just based on our schedule, there was no way we could do it. We just we couldn't say yes to those teams if we were going to have a family dinner at 5 or 5.30 PM every night, so we did have to put those on the shelf. We tried to do it on the weekends to make sure that we had time to connect. When we were on Sundays, we had a family dinner on Sundays and, as far as travel goes, there were many tournaments that we tag teamed. One of us would go with because then maybe the other one was in a different place, and that's what works for our family. That doesn't necessarily work for everybody, but that's what we found was usually easiest was divide and conquer, just based on the age ages of my kids.

Speaker 3: 31:48

It's difficult. It is difficult, but you can do it. I'm living proof that you can get through it and you can do it. But I would also say safeguard and protect the things that are really important for you. Teams are going to take and take. Coaches will take from you. Teams are going to take and take, Coaches will take from you If you have grandma's 80th birthday and it's really important and you want your whole family there.

Speaker 3: 32:12

Tell your coach ahead of time my daughter's not going to be there. We have a really important family event. Make that a non-negotiable for you. You probably can't do that every weekend, but you can safeguard and protect the things that are really important to you. And also the message that sends to your family and to your athlete is that you don't give everything up for their sport. You give up a lot of things and you make a lot of sacrifices, but you can't give up your family values and you can't give up the people in your life, because it's the relationships that are most important when all of your sports are finished at the end of the day. So just don't be afraid to be protective of some things in your life. Maybe it's a family vacation. Maybe you don't want to give that up, and that's okay.

Speaker 2: 32:53

Yeah, I think that's important too and I always feel the tangent guilt. I don't know if you and our community feels like this, but we don't do a lot of family dinners and I read every mom blog, every book, I, I do all the things and it says protect the family dinners. Yeah, it was actually creating stress for everybody and really I think, honing in on what works for your family, would I love to have dinner with my family, absolutely. Is it always possible? No, it just doesn't work and it was creating stress. So it's okay to step away from what on the perfect Instagram reel that we have dinner every night and we don't we eat, but it's usually my son's coming in, he's grabbing food and we're on the go or something like that, but I do like the idea of Sunday dinner. Now, another thing I just want to touch upon with you.

Speaker 2: 33:41

You spoke about teens coaches setting up and proactively creating, being in communication with them, about what is non-negotiables for you guys, and so when you talk about working with the coaches I mean you've probably dealt with hundreds at this point, a thing that comes up common in our community is difficult coaches. We had recently read something on our Facebook Sports Moms Inner Circle where they were talking about something that just seemed outlandish to me personally in terms of the way that coach was handling the team. How did you navigate difficult coaches? Especially, I would say there's two big things. There's going to come a point in the athlete's journey when they're about 13 and up where they have to start advocating for themselves with the difficult coaches. So I want you to touch upon it when the children were under 12, 13, and the parent had to navigate, and how you handled it or your husband handled it, and then, as they got older, so that evolution of the difficult coach.

Speaker 3: 34:41

Yeah, this is so common and you all probably have already had a situation where you have a difficult coach. Unfortunately, when someone decides to be a coach, they don't automatically absorb communication skills, and many people who are coaches are not great with communicating. So one thing that we talk about in EMG or in the program that Coach Bree offers and you'll get more information about this at the end of the week is taking feedback from coaches can look, the feedback can be given in a variety of ways. We'd all love for feedback to be given like packaged like a beautiful present, right when it's. No, jenny, this is how you, but we all know that many coaches don't present feedback in a really easy way. So what's important for parents and athletes is to like peel back the layers of how that feedback is given. Instead of it being in a wrapped up like a present, it might be wrapped up like a trash bag, and so it's important for us to help our athlete peel that you know away and look at what the feedback is. So I have made mistakes in the past of getting frustrated with how coaches give that feedback, but I would caution you in learning from a mistake that I've made and not jumping on the bandwagon of like tearing down a coach in front of your athlete or saying negative things, because what it does is put your athlete in a vulnerable situation that they might not respect that coach or that coach's rules or that coach's ideas and you have to be in a whole season with that coach. So be careful of making sure that you don't do that and really trying to take the side of you know what. Let's take the feedback that your coach has given, or let's take the situation where maybe you're not getting as much playing time as you want and don't allow your child to be victimized by it by blaming everybody, but really help them to understand, maybe, where their strengths are and where their weaknesses are and where you can help to support them so that they recognize that they still have work to do and it's not just the coach's fault. But that being said, yes, there are still going to be coaches that you don't agree with how they operate. They're not very good communicators.

Speaker 3: 36:49

I would be careful not to get really involved emotionally with these coaches, because it can ruin your experience in that sport. It can ruin your experience for your child. So just really taking a step back and trying to not become that parent who's yelling from the sidelines and who's like cornering the coach. Allow your child to navigate this because, as you all know, sports play a really valuable lesson in the life of our children, and so, if you're able to think about it as they're in a situation where they're learning to advocate and learn from people who might be difficult to work with in life, this is not different than what they might experience as an adult, and so letting them be a little bit uncomfortable in figuring out ways to communicate or go to their coach and ask about things is actually a really important skills.

Speaker 3: 37:42

But what you can do at home is help to shape that environment. Help give them some talking points, help them to understand how to approach their coach and not put their coach on the defensive, but to be able to ask for feedback. So you're creating an environment at home where you're helping them, but you're not contributing to this negative environment that maybe they're feeling because of the way that the coach is handling situations. Melinda, did I answer all the parts of the question you?

Speaker 2: 38:10

nailed it. Yeah, we had similar experiences, so it's exactly that. It's a fine line, especially as they get older. In my opinion, what you were stating about helping them understand and how to navigate that I tell my kids all the time you could be the sweetest peach and you'll still find somebody who doesn't like peaches, and you have to learn how to work in those circles. So I love it. Sport can definitely be a platform for life. I think that it transfers over to those skills. Thank you for that. Okay, speaking of that kind of challenging part of it, let's talk about how did you maintain your love for the games? And number two how did the kids maintain their love for the game? Did you ever take any time off, or did they ever take extended periods off where they didn't play, or they played on lower levels where they were able to reset and recharge? And if so, what is that maintaining of the love of the sport look like for your athletes and in your experience? I think that's a great question.

Speaker 3: 39:07

I will say that I think it's interesting if you step back and look at the journey of how sports happen. When they're little, they start playing sports just because it's fun, right. They learn new skills, they meet new friends. It's very intrinsic. Right. They're getting some inner satisfaction from playing a sport. As your child grows and they like the sport, you are probably investing more time in the sport Child's investing more time. The level goes up, right. They're playing on more competitive teams. You're all of a sudden now traveling or you're investing in different ways.

Speaker 3: 39:43

What happens is, in many cases it switches to an extrinsic focus and the focus becomes on trophies and awards and box scores and recognition right. And what happens with that extrinsic focus is the expectations and the pressure are feels like a big weight on kids, and so that's what happens with the joy and why kids stop having joy is that inner intrinsic value or joy that they feel becomes replaced with the expectations of their parents and their coaches and their teammates, because the stakes are higher and allowing them to have outside interests, as we talked about before, is really important, allowing them to understand that your love is not tied to the recognition. One thing that I hate in basketball is, whenever we talk to people we always ask well, how many points did you have in the game last night? I realize that in society that's important, but it shouldn't be the end-all be-all of what every kid thinks about their success. Is the box score right? Because you might have a kid who had 40 assists maybe not 40, 20 assists in the game, but that's not going to show up in the box score. And so making sure that you are preserving that love of them and you're intentionally raising their effort and their attitude and their coachability on the things that they can control in their sports Really important and helping them to see where the things are that are still fun, and if that means that you give them some time off.

Speaker 3: 41:17

Or, for example, my daughter I mentioned that she didn't play club soccer for a while. She came out of retirement this last high school season because she skipped a high school season when she was focused on basketball and she went back in as a goalkeeper and they won a state tournament and she was like this is really fun, but she didn't feel any expectation because she was coming out of retirement just to help the team. So there was a lot more joy in it, and I know it's really difficult to navigate that as a parent because you do feel the expectation just like your athlete does. But finding ways to make it fun for them and to just take the pressure away is really what I would say is what is most helpful to keep their love fresh and their enjoyment of the sport possible. Melinda, did I capture all the?

Speaker 2: 42:09

pieces? Yep, absolutely. And just to bridge or expand on that slightly, like with the children or the kids or they're like adults now playing at such higher levels. Now can you just talk about the level of competition and kind of behind the scenes what that looks like? I mean, we watched Olivia play the McDonald's All-American game and you could tell the competition was deep. And you talk about box scores and stats and this and that that's all they do is blast that on the TV and obviously she could watch the replay on that. But like walking into those intense situations, what's their like? For? I'm just using the McDonald's All-American game, but what's the mindset like for the athlete? Do they doubt? Do they have moments? How do you navigate that? Like what? What's it like? Give me a I guess a snapshot of you can use Olivia behind the scenes because I'm her number one. It's a great question.

Speaker 3: 43:04

Yeah, because a lot of people think, once achieved a certain level in your sport, that you don't have those frustrations or those insecurities anymore and, to be honest, it's something that she's going to always have to work on. She is a kid that carries some anxiety and it sometimes is not mass, but exposed when you're playing in a game where everybody's watching on TV, right Like all of a sudden those things are exposed. So she was worried in that situation that she wasn't starting. So her thought process of people at home watching are gonna think she's not a good player because she's not starting. And so I have to help her zoom out of that situation. Like Olivia, there are 20 girls, 24 girls in the country that were given this opportunity to come and play. So just because you're not starting in this environment doesn't mean that you're not a good player. And so just helping her with some of those reassurances to zoom out and to feel the joy of just being in that situation.

Speaker 3: 44:00

But, melinda, to your point, absolutely, she still feels that stress.

Speaker 3: 44:05

And so my job as a parent I really help her to calm her nerves, relax, help her with her positive self-talk, just be a reminder when she sort of has that adrenaline going and it's hard for her to remember those really important mental tools that we've worked on for so long.

Speaker 3: 44:21

So, absolutely, they still have moments where they need you as a parent and you can still step in.

Speaker 3: 44:28

But the goal is that they are building their skills and their mental, their mindset to trust themselves, so that they can trust that in any situation, they can navigate to figure out what they need to do.

Speaker 3: 44:41

And that's really what's most important about like developing tools and a mental mindset is that it's really important as their game progresses. It's really important as their game progresses, it's really important for their mindset to improve as well. So, absolutely, we've had difficult navigation through that, but she's a winner and you also have to learn how to win, and so putting your child in situations where they have the opportunity to rise in big moments gives her the opportunity to look back on that and say to herself I did it in the state tournament, I was able to rise, I'm a back-to-back state champion and so allowing that to be able to be part of her fabric so that when she gets to the next challenge, she can step back, zoom out and look at it and see look, I got through that hard challenge, I can get through this one. It's really helpful in building those foundational skills for kids.

Speaker 2: 45:30

I love that you said giving them the opportunities to rise and like giving them back that confidence or not back the confidence, but building that confidence because they're going to have to step over a few failures and I like that she's worked with Steph Curry because it's well-known he takes 500 shots a day and I remind my kids he's not making 500 shots.

Speaker 3: 45:50

And you know what's so interesting, that you say that, melinda, the kids at the camp got to watch him do a full workout and he didn't. You know, there was like 50 to 60% of the time that he was not making his shots and I often remind her, steph Curry doesn't make those shots. So thank you for saying that, because you're the professional don't make every shot.

Speaker 2: 46:09

No, no, and they go through seasons where they're a little bit flat, and I think it's some of that is. I would say if a door feels like it's closing, it's because you might have to push through another door, or the walls aren't up to keep you out there, to filter the ones who learn how to climb over it and get resourceful, and I think that's important. So Christina wants to know let go of the mom's sports spirit when your kids go out of the sport. Oh, okay, she's talking about life after sport. What happens to the sports mom, sports parent, hype person when your child stops playing the sport?

Speaker 3: 46:48

I think your oldest isn't playing a sport right now correct, correct. You know what? That's why it's so important that you maintain that relationship I talked about earlier, so that you haven't traded this or now have a broken relationship because you put so much stress on them when they were in their sport that it just you have to evolve with it, you have to adjust, you have to trust yourself that that you're going to have things to do. She liked to play pickleball. When she went with us to one of the kids' tournaments and her and I found a pickleball court and she taught me how to play pickleball.

Speaker 3: 47:14

So it's like we just find new ways of doing things. She likes to take walks. When I go visit her in Chicago, we take long walks on the lake. So you just find ways to reconnect with them and your relationship does change. You have to let that leash out. You have to show them that you trust them and that your love transcends keeping them in a little box, because, as parents, that's the beauty of them growing up is they get to do these things. So it's really hard, but you have to let the leash out and let them go.

Speaker 2: 47:45

Yeah, I get that. I always get that tinge of like, oh my gosh, he's in 11th grade, he's playing varsity next year's 12th grade and I start to get like that emotion, like what do I do? What do I do next? So it's evolving with them as well and also giving yourself a little bit grace. My mom said it was. It meant a lot to me it's okay to be sad about them getting older. It's okay to. It's okay to be sad about them getting older. It's okay to be sad. And she said I used to sit in my car and cry every now and then just to let it out because it is sad and just it lets out that feeling of nostalgia and it prepares you for the next stage, which is just as amazing.

Speaker 3: 48:20

I just saw a quick note, pop in and I'm going to try to answer this quickly and I apologize if you have typed something in and I hadn't, melinda, and I haven't caught it.

Speaker 2: 48:27

I'm working on it, yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:28

I just saw somebody mentioned a question about feedback coaching feedback so I'll try to answer that, but I know we're also running out of time, so I'm going to add that I'm happy to stay on for a few extra minutes to talk about recruiting, If anybody is interested in that and wants to stay on. I know it doesn't apply to everybody, but if anybody's interested in some tips on recruiting, I'm happy to stay on for a few more minutes if you're interested. But going back to that question, I think the feedback, if I understand the question correctly, is how to get your child to understand that it's not a personal attack on them if they're getting feedback from a coach and I think that's the part about unwrapping the feedback is the gift right and giving your child the perspective that maybe their coach isn't the best at communicating this. But let's say that the feedback is I'm just going to pick a sport, I'm going to pick basketball. Hey, you got to get back on defense, right?

Speaker 3: 49:20

That can be said in a lot of different ways. It can be screamed at you hey, get back on defense. It can be hey, get back on defense. So if you just say the words hey, get back on defense, it can be hey, get back on defense. So if you just say the words, hey, get back on defense, it doesn't sound that bad right?

Speaker 3: 49:31

Sometimes it's just the vehicle, and so helping your child understand that sometimes the coach is emotionally charged. So if you just say the feedback without the tone, you can get them to understand that they may have made a mistake in using the wrong tone during that time and it's not a personal attack on them. They just wanted to get feedback and the important thing is the feedback. So what do you do with the feedback is up to your child, and so just giving them coaching around how to understand that in that situation I think can be really helpful, because a kid might feel like they got barked at or they might feel like they take it personally. But if you explain that the coach is just like really worked up and anxious, then I think it helps them understand where the coach is coming from?

Speaker 2: 50:16

I hope I answered that question in the right context. Yeah, you nailed it. And then, just really quickly, we have about a minute. Do you recommend taking athlete Alice Spokes? So yeah, I just Stephanie, we touched upon that.

Speaker 2: 50:25

Talking about the, I took the from above and she's stating that she's currently fighting with the preteen. Whatever my parents say, I'll go against. Interesting phase. How did you navigate that? Did you navigate with that? It's actually really that preteen teenager. It's actually called the individualization stage and it tends to hit moms with girls more hard. I forget who talks about it in the book. It's called the Emotional Life of Teenagers and if you have a teenager and you're familiar with her work, her name is escaping me right now. But I do recommend the Emotional Life of Teenagers because it talks about this phase that they go through, and that individualization phase is that they're actively pushing us away for a reason they're trying to establish themselves as individuals. Now, how does that interplay with sports, when you want to run away while simultaneously hugging, while simultaneously crying, because your team is an absolute rollercoaster?

Speaker 3: 51:22

Yeah, and I for sure saw this in sixth grade with both of my girls, not with my son, but in both girls. I saw them push me away in sixth grade with both of my girls, not with my son, but in both girls. I saw him push me away in sixth grade, sixth, seventh grade, and then they slowly came back around. So just stay the course, continue to be there, continue to preserve your relationship. They will come back around if they feel that they can talk to you and that you're not pushing. So just give them some space that's my best advice and know that they're going through emotions too and they don't know how to handle them. So just be patient. Every day is a new day. Keep loving them and you're going to be okay.

Speaker 2: 52:00

Yeah, I had to remind myself because my daughter was an absolute terror the last two weeks and I went back and read the chapter on the individualization phase and I just decided that you know what I'm going to back off a little bit and I just popped in and I just say to her all the time I love you so much, or I'll send her a text I just love you so much, exactly the way you are. So now, if anybody wants to hop off or if you guys have last minute questions, I know Rachel can stay on. Yes, jen, the emotional life of teenagers and oh, you got it. Yeah, I forget who's it by. I can look it up quickly, but it's a good one. All her work is good. I think she also wrote Untangled, which I found can apply to boys and girls, but Untangled is really about the female preteen and I forget the name of her, but I'll look it up. Yes, lisa Dumar, love her, she's a great one. We use a lot of that work, but it's a really actually you're not crazy when you read it moment, when you say like, oh, she's actually supposed to be pushing me away. Yeah, I always say to her you're actually being really mean right now and I'm walking away, but okay, if you guys want to hop in with any other last minute questions or I can stay on.

Speaker 2: 53:15

For I don't know, rachel, do you have five to ten minutes and you could talk about the actual process of recruitment? We touched upon D1, d3, what's the differences? Clubs. I can jump it off a little bit. My son is varsity baseball player. He's like a D1 or nothing, or D one or I'm not playing sports in college. How did your kids decide what they wanted to do? And I like the perspective also from your older daughter. Did she remind me? Did she play D one sports or?

Speaker 3: 53:43

She actually said. This is a quote. Why would anyone play college?

Speaker 2: 53:48

athletics. She's my kind of gal. Yeah, she had her own.

Speaker 3: 53:52

she had her, and that's okay. That's perfectly acceptable. We embrace that, that's okay.

Speaker 2: 53:57

Yeah, so talk about the recruitment process, selection process. I know, Olivia, you said had 41 free ride offers. The kid is just a stud, but can you talk about a little bit of what that looks like and what happens if you? I'm sure you see some people that she played with that may not be as heavily recruited? What does that look like for in your experience? I know that you might not have the exact solution for it, but if your child doesn't have scouts coming and banging down the door, but they're a very good player, like what's, what do you offer on that perspective?

Speaker 3: 54:28

the door, but they're a very good player. Like, what's, what do you offer? On that perspective, yeah, I think first and foremost you said it, melinda, like my experience is maybe an anomaly it's not the normal experience, but I also have. My son is also a high level soccer player and he had a much more regular experience with recruiting. So my tips for you, just in the interest of time for girls the recruiting process takes place earlier than it does for boys. So if you have determined that your child has determined that they do want to go on to play, it is not uncommon to start in eighth, ninth grade to really be working on recruiting Now. Not to say that your window is closed if you have an 11th grader and you haven't started this process. But I will tell you that a lot of college coaches, at least in basketball and in soccer, are looking at 8th, 9th, 10th graders for recruiting. They might still have some spots for juniors, but my daughter committed September of her junior year, so she had her first full ride offer in 8th grade. So just to put that in perspective again, you're not on anybody else's carousel. But if you're in the seventh, eighth grade space and your child thinks they do want to go on. It is not too early to start the way that you can help shape the environment and help them to get going. If you have no idea, start looking at schools. I know that it seems way too early, but research them online. Get going. If you have no idea, start looking at schools. I know that it seems way too early, but research them online. Does your child have a certain state that they like? Do they like Florida, or does grandma live in North Carolina? Or does your child think they might want to stay close? Because you have to have some parameters, even if those parameters change throughout the recruiting process. Another thing is do they think they want to live in a city or do they want to be in the country? And again, I realize that your list when they're in eighth grade might look different when they're in a junior, but you have to start somewhere.

Speaker 3: 56:18

Make sure that the communication that you are sending is only from your child. Please, parents, do not write an email and send it to a college coach. The college coach wants to hear from your child, not from you, and I know for most of us that's really hard because it's also a 14-year-old kid and you're like you feel weird about that, like my 14-year-old is emailing. Now you can help shape that email with your child right. You can help them write the email, you can be the support person with them so that you know exactly what they're saying, but it has to come from their email and going to that coaching staff. Also, if you have highlights available or game footage available, that's really valuable for the coach because they're getting hundreds, if not thousands, of emails and you need to find a way for your child to be standing out Next. Don't expect that you're going to get a response. Okay, so you're going through this process, just trying your child's trying to get out as many like inquiries or get out as much as they can, just so that the college is starting to build a profile and then if the coach wants to get in contact with your player, they'll get contact through the coaching information. So make sure that in the email you put their club coach name, email, phone number and same with high school coach. If that college coach wants to get in touch with you, they can go through the club coach. It is different in different sports, so I have limited experience in just a couple of sports, so make sure that what the rules are in your sport. But that's my biggest takeaway, if anything, is make sure that it's coming from your child.

Speaker 3: 57:57

I started on the girls track.

Speaker 3: 57:58

I'll just quickly segue to the boys track, boys. The recruiting process for boys is a little bit later because they don't reach their full maturity of the physicality until they're older. So I would say sophomore year, junior year, is really more the time that they're being recruited. Sophomore year is the time that you should be doing the prep work and they should be like making sure that they're playing on a club team and starting to gather their information about colleges and starting to send them out so that they can be attending camps or they can be sending their schedule for tournaments. Sophomore and junior year, because by senior year, depending on if they're a baseball player, then senior year they're already going to have. The coaches have already made that decision. So you just want to look at, kind of, the landscape of your child's sport and make sure that you're starting early enough where you're not like running out of time. I know that was a lot of information but if you have specific questions, drop, drop those in and we'll make sure we can get to those.

Speaker 2: 58:58

Yep, yeah, I highly encourage you guys. And another thing is, if you have specific questions for Rachel or I, you can always reach out to us on the coach, on call texting, or shoot us an email at hello at elite competitor, or you want a fast response, you can reach out to us, or you can always use our text platform, which is private, and, of course, you can always email. Coach. Bree is always willing to help on this aspect too. I just wanted to thank you guys for being here.

Speaker 2: 59:24

I think, rachel, you know I hope you know how much I admire you from a professional here. I think, rachel, you know, I hope you know how much I admire you from a professional you know what we do and what we love to do but also from a mother, a sports mom, a, just an amazing human being, and I feel, always feel lucky to have you in my life and, yeah, you guys too. You guys, this community is very unique. We all are what I consider like-minded individuals that just want the best possible outcomes for our children, so I always feel immense gratitude when I'm in your presence. Thank you guys so much, and thank you, rachel, for your time, as always.