Jason was a professional baseball player for the Anaheim Angels organization, a Cape Cod league standout, California Baseball player of the year for 2 years in a row, highly recruited by a number of Div. I Colleges and eventually a UC Berkeley graduate. But, before that he was my little brother. Jason was a wonderful baseball player, soccer player, swimmer, you name it – if it was athletics, he was good at it. He wasn’t exceptionally fast, tall, or muscular – although his legs are like miniature redwoods. Jason’s “specialness” came from his ability to perform – he didn’t feel pressure, or more importantly, he didn’t let pressure affect his game.

After an extremely successful 4 year Varsity High School career, being drafted out of High School and recruited by a number of Division I schools, Jason chose UC Berkeley. In just his second season he had to have Tommy John’s surgery (reconstruction of a tendon in his elbow). Jason had been rarely injured, so a devastating injury like Tommy John’s could have been career ending – not just physically, but psychologically. Jason’s mental toughness and determination ensured he was able to get back on the mound, and get drafted by the Angels in the 14th round. It wasn’t an easy journey back to the mound. His velocity wasn’t the same as it was before the surgery, so Jason had to accept it and adjust his approach to batters – the questions from fans, fellow players, coaches and from within himself increased the difficulty of returning to form. Jason realizes now that a Walk the Fire experience would have done wonders for him as he worked through those times of high expectations, uncertainty, disappointment and success.

Jason has experienced an amazing journey and has reflected on what would have helped him and many of his fellow athletes excel, embrace the challenges and setbacks they constantly faced, and enjoy the journey that was before them. Your athletes may arrive in Hawaii with questions, doubts and trepidation. But with Jason’s help, they will, should they choose, complete Walk the Fire and gain a new perspective on their athletics, and journey called life.

Here is a note from JD…

Our first camp is called “Return of the Jedi Within” and what I mean by that is learning how to use “The Force” to become a better athlete, teammate, man, student, family member, etc. We focus on promoting the concept of “Excellence Within All Things” by helping the kids find purpose and a strong sense of self. Walk the Fire uses ancient Hawaiian tradition, physical training, the wisdom of nature, and metaphysics to redefine sports and athletics as gateways into Self Mastery. The Epic Journeys we create provide a common ground where boys and men can do the inner work that’s necessary to achieve excellence in all things. As we discover our real power and truth (and shed the crap that holds us back) we give ourselves to opportunity to follow our hearts clearly and confidently, unencumbered by physical, mental or emotional obstructions. As men, it is our duty to stand firm in our truth…with this, we will transform the world.

We’re going to teach your boys how to meditate, the value of listening, the value of unplugging from technology and communing with nature, the value giving of themselves in service and using their bodies…

All of the acitivites we do will be restorative in nature for the body, mind and soul. For example, we’ll be stand up paddle boarding, farming, swimming, hiking, surfing, yoga, sweat lodges, cleaning sacred Hawaiian Spaces, doing ceremony and community service…

We know you want to accomplish all of these things, too, as their coach/parent…so we have an opportunity to team up and really make this happen. We’ll take them out of their usual element, away from their peers, parents and team and sport for a bit, to help them really reconnect with themselves and find out who they are. We’ve put together a team of world class leaders in wilderness survival, physical training, health, and ancient Hawaiian wisdom to support all aspects of each individual’s journey. We are looking for athletes who:

• have a lot of potential but do not know how to access it (is a bit lost and is rapped up with the wrong crowd or would really benefit from a break or just a change of scenery)
• things are emotionally or physically challenging (he could use a boost or fresh perspective)
• could really step up and become leaders on your team or become better leaders

Here’s what we believe:

WE BELIEVE THAT ENTHUSIASM ALIGNS US WITH OUR DESTINY.
WE BELIEVE THAT NATURE REFLECTS OUR POWER AND HUMILITY.
WE BELIEVE THAT EXCELLENCE BEGINS WITH EMBRACING FEAR.
WE BELIEVE THAT MEN WHO HONOR THEIR TRUTH BRING STRENGTH AND BEAUTY TO THE WORLD
WE BELIEVE THAT WALKING IN TRUE BROTHERHOOD KEEPS THE FLAME ALIVE.

Our 1st training camp is 21day Epic Journey. It is coming up July 14-Aug.4; for competitive high school male athletes (all sports).

Thank you all for your support.

Come Walk the Fire,

-JD

Jason Dennis (JD)

Founder, Executive Director

Walk the Fire, Hawaii

Pahoa, Hawaii, USA

www.walkthefirehawaii.com

(m) 808.747.9251

(h) 808.965.8311

jd@walkthefirehawaii.com

IGNITE YOUR FLAME. WALK YOUR FIRE.

“Be slow to correct and quick to commend.” – John Wooden

I’ve seen coaches get frustrated with an 8 year old player that hit the ball with a karate like kick to clear it out of a dangerous situation… it was successful, but the coach had to rip into him about his technique – in a game no less. I’ve seen coaches who are running a session focused on tactical passing, get caught up coaching communication, when to dribble, defending,  and throw-ins. I’m sure we’ve all been there, or have observed a coach who is running a session and thinks the kids aren’t communicating enough… but often it is because the coach is drowning out any chance the players would have to communicate. It has been said many times that there is a 10,000 hour rule to mastery, everything doesn’t have to be fixed immediately… some things can’t be.

Over communication from the coach kills the flow* of practice. Not only do you remove the opportunity for the players to enter the “flow” of practice, but you chip away at the enjoyment of learning too. The good coach,  figures out that some things come with time and exposure — aka patience. Positive reinforcement, used too liberally can have a similar effect. If your players are capable of hitting one time passes on the ground and they do it consistently, you don’t need to send them the positive message… save it for the new, more advanced expectation, maybe the overlap after the pass?

In the chapter covering ‘Expert Coaches in Action’ in the book “Developing Sports Expertise“, a study of national team coaches in Canada found that “Overall, our analyses of practice sessions across sports found that coaches spent the majority of practice (sixty percent) observing in silence.”

Pick your coaching points and stick to them. If it is a tactical session on when to pass the ball to a supporting player and you consistently see passes when they should be running with the ball, make that your next session. If you see that your session on tactical passing is not working because the players don’t have the technique to kick the ball, change up your practice and come back to that unit. Horst Wein, in his book “Developing Youth Football Players“, encourages the methodology of starting with small-sided-games (SSGs) and then breaking away to work on the technique that needs the most work for the SSG to be successful, then to return to the SSG and see the improvement. Be flexible in your approach, learn new concepts, learn “Why” something works, try new things. After all, those are the traits we want from our players.

Coaching soccer is teaching – ask any teacher, mother, father and grandparent… what you do for the child, they don’t learn to do themselves.

When kids are young, its easy to look at what they are doing and dive right in dispensing coaching critiques – after all, as a coach, you know how to break down each type of kick, trap, movement and even what needs to be said when. Think about when you learned to type… you are taught where to put your fingers on the keyboard, but the teacher gives you lessons that you follow (practice) and steps out of the way, only to enter when you may need guidance. How ridiculous would it be if the typing instructor stood over you  and called out each letter for you to type, constantly congratulated you when you did what you were suppose to do, or criticized you for hitting the wrong key  … B!, great B stroke Julie, C!… Have you ever taught a child how to do addition… just because you know, doesn’t mean you stand over them giving them step-by-step instructions on when to carry the one, how to add the 3 numbers… you may show and explain (quickly), but then you are often better getting out of the way. Try it, step-back and observe part of your session for 10-15 minutes… sometimes your players will surprise you and solve the problems themselves… they may even start communicating with each other.

Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

Dennis Bergkamp, the great Dutch striker said that when he was a young player at Ajax, they had little three foot high walls. He would knock the ball against it for hours. Every time he hit the ball, he would know whether it was a good touch or a bad touch. He would do it over and over, trying to establish a rhythm.

“I would also hit the ball against the side of the house… Hitting the ball with both feet, seeing how long I could return the wall passes without losing control. I found out later that so many pros spend lots of their childhood doing that.” — from More Than Goals, by Claudio Reyna

Ok, so how do we make hitting the ball against the wall more interesting after you’ve spent a few minutes just kicking the ball:

Tennis:

Single player — Volley your ball against the wall with one or two bounces in between each volley. Eventually, keep the ball going with only one bounce in between volleys. Vary your distance from the wall as you play. See how many times you can keep the ball going as you move closer to and farther from the wall. Use different surfaces of your foot and develop a rhythm.

Partner tennis — Set up a rectangular court out from the wall and play soccer tennis against the wall with a friend. Set up your own rules with regards to services and bounces, etc.

Squash:

This game is played with more than one player. You can set up a rectangular court or play in an open area. After a kicking order has been determined, the player #1 kicks the ball off the wall. The player #2 must get to the ball before it stops and immediately kick (1-touch) the ball against the wall. If there are more than 2 players, the game proceeds accordingly until all the players have kicked the ball against the wall, at which time the first player is up again. You get a point if the player that follows you allows the ball to stop before she kicks it or if she misses the wall on her kick. Play begins with the next player in the order striking the ball against the wall. This is a great game for scheming (strategy)…putting the right pace on the ball so that it barely moves after hitting the wall or rebounds off the wall with great speed. Passing angles become a strategic threat in this game as well.

Whether you play a game that has rules or you make your own rules up… only left feet, driven… hit targets on the wall, one touch, juggle against wall… the wall will always be there for you and it doesn’t get tired!!!

What is the coach suppose to do? What would you do?

Information should be delivered correctly, concisely and clearly. Provide enough information to get them started and then add new challenges. The area also needs to be psychologically safe, free from ridicule. The players should have the opportunity to become decision makers. The activities in the training session should relate to the game.

1. Simple to complex – all coaching courses train this, but great coaches are really good at designing their sessions to build seamlessly. If your session is well structured, your players should be moving after 10-15 seconds of explanation and you should only have to stop and explain the next layer for about 10-15 seconds. This takes time, experience and planning. You also need to recognize when the session has become too complex and step it back. Often the players, because they don’t understand, provide the coach with the solution to simplifying the session.
2. Training area – The size of the training area should be appropriate for the players. Playing 3v3 on a 50 yard field is too much – 20 yard square for practicing push passes, may be too much. Create challenges, but start the activity where they are likely to have success and then increase or decrease the area, depending on the topic’s goal.
3. Psychology safe (free from ridicule) – if you want a certain action, reward that action. Positive reinforcement creates an amazing affect on practices and is an experiment that is fun to watch as a coach. If you create a learning environment, your players will respond to the challenges. Catch someone doing the “right” thing and let everyone know. You want intensity, “Hardest workers get a yellow penny.” Good way to get them warming up with intensity and a good way to split up your group for later activities. Ridicule isn’t part of the session or the culture, because it’s about learning and getting better… and everyone can always get better.
4. Decision makers – the wholly grail of the supreme soccer player. This doesn’t happen if you are telling them when to dribble, when to pass, when to shoot, when to get back on defense. If you find that you are doing those things, you need to rethink your practice structure. Use the Socratic method (ask how, when, why, where) – have them “show” you. Build your practices for IMPLICIT learning… where the structure of the activity/drill/ssg teaches the players how to solve the problem.

Activities and coaching methodology for should take into consideration the following so that they are developmentally appropriate (U10 age group):

1. Psychosocial — Children in the U10 age group become more serious about their play. Peer pressure is significant. Team identification becomes important and adults outside the family take on added significance. Through social interactions, children begin to develop a sense of pride in their accomplishments and abilities. Children who are encouraged and commended by parents and teachers develop a feeling of competence and belief in their skills. Those who receive little or no encouragement from parents, teachers, or peers will doubt their ability to be successful.
2. Psychomotor — The u10 player’s psychomotor development is such that gross and small motor skills are becoming more refined. Therefore, their is a greater diversity in playing ability. Physically mature children will display more refined motor skills. Children will make rapid gains in learning. They will also function at increasingly sophisticated levels in movement skills.
3. Cognitive – The U10 player is in the concrete operational stage, which begins around age eight (+/- 3 years) and continues until approximately age eleven. During this time, children gain a better understanding of mental operations. Their attention span increases. Children begin thinking logically about concrete events, but have difficulty understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts. Children in the concrete operational stage are fairly good at the use of inductive logic. They can understand how a specific experience leads to a general idea. They may be able to begin to understand that passing backwards keeps possession of the soccer ball.

Each age group has a set of psychosocial, psychomotor and cognitive constructs that you should know to ensure your expectations as a coach match what is possible. Understanding these concepts make you a better coach because “why the kids” aren’t getting something will not surprise you. If you understand these concepts, you can manage your expectations and your players’ parents expectations… which will lead to a better season and more growth from your players.

Consistently do these five things and everything else follows.

1. Develop every player. Sure, you can put your primary focus on winning games, winning tournaments and winning the “cup” —but do that and your visions of grandeur will fade away and just be a mirage.

Even the greatest players require a coach to develop styles of play, impart tactics and manage relationships to become a team. Players can only see the now, it’s your job as a coach to paint the picture for them of what they can become.

You provide the training, mentoring and opportunities your players need and deserve. When you do, you transform the game into a living, breathing passion that is contagious – results will follow.

So don’t worry about wins. Spend the bulk of your time developing the skills of your players and wins will be a natural outcome.

2. Deal with problems immediately. Nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don’t get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, formation of cliques, feuds between cliques (definitely has gone too far by then)… all negatively impact player motivation and enthusiasm.

And they’re distracting, because small problems never go away. Small problems always fester and grow into bigger problems. Plus, when you ignore a problem your players immediately lose respect for you, and without respect, you can’t lead.

Never hope a problem will magically go away, or that someone else will deal with it. Deal with every issue head-on, no matter how small.

3. Mistakes are OK. It is inevitable in soccer, players will make mistakes. Mistakes and the acceptance of mistakes need to be embraced in a culture of learning. If a mistake is made because a player is trying new things, pushing the envelope of their skills, they need to be celebrated for the effort. Only in this way will your team except them and become special.

Sometimes, however, the mistakes aren’t because the player is pushing the envelope. They’ve lost confidence, don’t have the skills of their teammates or are falling behind.

That player knows and feels what the team, parents, fans and coaches are thinking.

Before you give up on the player, put your full effort into helping them improve. Let them know you understand their plight, “I know you’re struggling, but you’re trying. Let’s figure out how we can get you back into the groove.” Be confident. Most importantly, tell them you will be with them along the way.

Don’t lower your standards, just give more attention to the struggling player. If you don’t give the attention you promised, you lose all credibility. The worst thing a coach can do is promise something and not follow through.

The team sees your effort and there is one thing about sports, most athletes will go through a time or two — or more — where they aren’t in form and they’ll know they can trust you to address the problem and be by their side. It also provides mentoring to those players, their “understanding” and desire to help will come through and they’ll be better leaders and better teammates because of your example.

Sometimes the player won’t improve, won’t “catch” up, but they will appreciate the effort you made. Just because they can’t play at a certain level, doesn’t mean they won’t eventually — by all means, it sure doesn’t mean they aren’t good people.

4. Serve others, not yourself. Soccer is a great sport because the coach that does his job during the week, is required to do very little on game day. People see this and they know the play on the field is reflective of the coach sitting on the bench taking notes and encouraging his/her players when need be. Don’t be the coach that needs the spotlight, never put yourself on a pedestal, because you just might knock off some of your well deserving players. Your glory should always be reflected, never direct.

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

When players excel — when your team succeeds, you and your club succeed. After all, you were just doing what a coach should.

5. Remember what it was like. You are the coach. So, players look up to you. When that player wants to talk about their day at school, how they did in PE and it seems meaningless, it isn’t. You need to take an interest in your players outside of practice, get to know them as people and they will appreciate you all the more. They want you to know about them because they want your advice, your approval or just some 1 on 1 time with an important person in their life — you.

When they want to talk to you, look them in the eye, and let them finish. Looking them in the eye and listening to them builds a valuable personal connection, and mirrors the respect you want from them when you are instructing, guiding and inspiring.

The season is always interesting at this age group. I often see teams of Latino kids that are amazing at such a young age and really fun to watch. This season was no different and we were trounced by a team called “Brazil” in our second game.  The Brazil team’s coach has a couple of teams and usually has a U8 and a U10 group. They play and practice together all year and the kids play great soccer for their ages; demonstrating wonderful dribbling, some nice combination play, with intelligent attacking movement.

In our first game against Brazil we lost 23 to 1. We scored our first goal late in the second half and the kids got so excited it was like we had scored the winning goal. Their attitude the whole game was to give their all and play hard every second, which is inspiring to witness and made every parent proud.

Halfway through the season, and after seeing that Brazil was winning all of their games by 10-20 goals, a couple of parents asked me, “Why do they play in under 8′s if they are killing all of the teams?” and another parent asked, “all of these players are so good, why isn’t our National team better?” Each question seems completely different, but they are related in many ways.

Is it really a problem if the Brazil team wins every game by 20 goals?

Although the Brasil team was technically and tactically superior to our team, their formidable technique and intuitive tactical acumen will eventually run up against more athletic defenses. When you are young and technically capable and win almost every game by 10 goals, what happens when you are 12 and can’t score against the same suburban rich kid you were killing before? Well, if you have a fixed mindset, you quit because you aren’t good enough. If you are that suburban rich kid, you’ve always played hard and figure you can get better – after all, each year the scores have gotten closer when you played the Latino teams and maybe there was a win or two along the way.

After all, it is much easier to defend than score in soccer. As kids get older the technique differences are evened out through athleticism. You just have to look at the U.S. National team (both men and women) over the years – athletes – vs. technique (Mexico, Spain, Ghana, and Japan for the women). So, the suburban rich kid that plays soccer, baseball and basketball can stay up with the technically superb Latino player who plays only soccer. Do I think that the Latino player should then start playing other sports, nope… that’s not the problem.

The problem is that the Latino player’s mindset is formed when (s)he’s U8 and is expecting to win by 10 goals against the suburban rich kid. The Brazil coach, for all of the good work he is doing on developing the technical side of the kids games, is not paying attention to the mental side. He should be playing his players up a year, so that they have “challenges” and seek out challenges. Only then will they begin to develop a “growth” mindset and be able to handle adversity when they don’t always have success. Approaching the game at the early ages to only win, to measure success and value on wins is hurting the Latino player. I’ve spoken to a few “older” Latino players to see what their experience was and, unfortunately, their tales are very similar. At about 13, many of the kids that they played with stopped playing.

Every coach should read “Mindset” by Carol Dweck, which covers the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. It definitely wouldn’t hurt the parents to read it either, because it sure has helped me think about how I frame learning (challenges) and mistakes (means you are learning) with my team and my own children. They also have a wonderful program at mindsetworks.com with a wonderful blog that gives examples of how people are applying the Mindset principles.

I’ve written about the Latino team because it is such a glaring example, but creating a fixed mindset is, unfortunately, what many coaches and parents do to their kids when winning is put before learning.

As an aside, and because I’m a proud coach:

Our second game against Brazil, much later in the season, we lost 13-2 and the score was was 6-1 at the end of the first half. It is always nice to be able to see your players progress and it showed our kids that success comes in many different forms. We were better players now and this was our assessment. For this I am grateful to the Brazil team, but I’m hoping that their coach, and all coaches, look outside of the normal practice plan books and starts understanding the psychological aspects of coaching soccer. It’ll be better for the players, the parents, the U.S. National team and soccer.

Posted on 12/9:

Mourinho has come up with his ten commandments to beat Barca, but any list can’t beat the culture of Barca. This game does worry me for Barca, because they just don’t seem to be in the same form of previous years. That is not to say the extra motivation from playing Real Madrid may be the spark to pull them together… let’s hope and pray.

Barcelona’s commandments:

1) play as a team (always!) -  Another different lineup after 26 official games. Guardiola still hasn’t repeated the same starting eleven this season. The starting line-up for the Clasico was brand new. TRUST in each other and the manager.

2) keep possession (frustrate Madrid) – Barça had 67.5% ball possession. Once again, Guardiola’s players had the ball much more than their eternal rivals.

3) have fun with the ball (frustrate Madrid) – Of the 14 players who played in the Clasico for Barça, 9 came up through the youth ranks: Valdes, Puyol, Pique, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Cesc, Messi and Pedro. Of the 14 used by Madrid, only one, Casillas. Barca play with joy, RM play with the weight of the world on their shoulders. After the quick Benzema goal in first minute… Mourinho didn’t even smile.

Mourinho’s 10 commandments for defeating Barca:
1. Don’t give up a goal. Or at least not in the first half.  – whoops, Barca tied it up just before half time!

2. Let the fans make the Bernabeu Stadium hell for Barca. – RM fans did a pretty good job, but after the goal the fans showed the same trepidation as the RM players.

3. Don’t worry about the referee. But be careful about picking up cards. – Referee was good and not a repeat of last year, thank god!

4. Take advantage of Real’s aerial superiority. – they missed here.

5. Don’t lose sight of the ball for an instant. – gotta watch your marks too, don’t get caught ball watching! Alexis and Messi showed them how that can hurt.

6. Shut down the space Barca players have and pass on the marking. – Early on RM did a really good job here. Barca played a lot in their own half. RM pressure seemed almost Barca like… maybe Mourinho is learning from Pep .

7. Intensity, Pressure, Verticality and lots of rhythm. – difficult to get rhythm when you don’t have the ball.

8. Work hard to tire out Barca. – Can’t tire out Barca, impossible!

9. Concentration and coordination of movements. – just not there yet to overcome the culture of Barca… Barca players don’t have to think because the way they move has become a part of their life… viva La Masia!

10. Believe in yourself. Don’t be anxious. – RM became anxious, immediately after the first goal.

Have you seen a recent FC Barcelona game? After a goal their is euphoria from the players… the more magical the goal, the more congratulatory the celebration. Everyone appreciates FC Barcelona’s technical play, but they really love the creativity they show to break down defenses. The formula is quite simple:

1. Technique is paramount – you’ve got to have belief in yourself and your teammates to take the risks that lead to creativity – you only get that by having sound technical ability.
2. Culture of Support – if your teammates and coaches recognize and appreciate your attempts at creativity, whether they were successful or not, the creative machine is fueled with a constant stream of renewable energy.
   1. Barcelona probably has 40+ buildups each game to the goal and often they only result in 1 or 2 goals… not a good ratio, so consistency of belief and support is

Creativity comes from having tremendous skill and having the freedom to make mistakes. If you are not in an environment that is supportive, you won’t take risks. How many players worry about making mistakes on the field because the coach or parents freak out about losing the ball? That’s rhetorical… too many. Building a level of trust with your players takes time and the older they are, it takes seasons. Why? Because they need to unlearn the fear of making mistakes. Only then can we unlock that creativity, that joy and the passion.

For those that need a little Ivory Tower support, below is a blurb from The Harvard Business Review blog that addresses creativity in companies. Everyone is chasing the creative and the innovative, but the powers that be don’t reward creativity… they punish the unproductive, and reward the robotic… so what type of player are you going to get with that approach.

Tony Schwartz

Tony Schwartz is the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything.

Myth #3: Creativity is genetically inherited, and it’s impossible to teach.

In a global economy characterized by unprecedented competitiveness and constant change, nearly every CEO hungers for ways to drive more innovation. Unfortunately, most CEOs don’t think of themselves as creative, and they share with the rest of us a deeply ingrained belief that creativity is mostly inborn and magical.

Ironically, researchers have developed a surprising degree of consensus about the stages of creativity and how to approach them. Our educational system and most company cultures favor reward the rational, analytic, deductive left hemisphere thinking. We pay scant attention to intentionally cultivating the more visual, intuitive, big picture capacities of the right hemisphere.

As it turns out, the creative process moves back and forth between left and right hemisphere dominance. Creativity is actually about using the whole brain more flexibly. This process unfolds in a far more systematic — and teachable — way than we ordinarily imagine. People can quickly learn to access the hemisphere of the brain that serves them best at each stage of the creative process — and to generate truly original ideas.

Each one of these coaches are making drastic mistakes and hurting the most important muscle of our young players, THEIR BRAINS. The damage to self-confidence and self-awareness can be extremely damaging to the player in the short term and eventually kill the passion that we so much want to see in our kids as they get into their most difficult teen years.

Parents and coaches alike can use the information below to help manage their “feedback” approach. Try it and see what the immediate effects are and once you see how well it works immediately, make it part of every interaction you have with your children and players. Then go get Mind Set, by Carol Dweck and begin to understand how important words are to affecting those little people we are molding.

The below is taken from MindSet Works:

Rule #1: When things go wrong, keep it real.  It’s not easy to tell a child that they screwed up, and knowing this may cause anxiety, disappointment or embarrassment.  But don’t make the mistake of protecting a child’s feelings at the expense of telling them what they truly need to hear.  Remember that without honest feedback, kids can’t possibly figure out what to do differently next time.

Also, don’t take away a child’s sense of responsibility for what went wrong (assuming he or she is in fact to blame), just because you don’t want to be “hard” on them.  Letting children off the hook for their own mistakes, telling them that they “tried their best” when it’s clear that they didn’t, may leave kids feeling powerless to improve.

Rule #2: When things go wrong, fight self-doubt.  Children need to believe that success is within reach, no matter what mistakes they have made in the past.  To do this,

• Be specific.   What needs improvement, and what exactly can be done to improve?

• Emphasize actions that they have the power to change. Talk about aspects of performance that are under their control, like the time and effort that were put into a practicing, or the study method which was used.

• Avoid praising effort when it didn’t pay off. Many parents try to console their child by saying things like “Well honey, you didn’t do very well, but you worked hard and really tried your best.”  Why does anyone think that this is comforting?  For the record – it’s not.  (Unless, of course, it was a no-win situation from the start).

Studies show that, after a failure, being complimented for “effort” not only makes kids feel stupid, it also leaves them feeling like they can’t improve.  In these instances, it’s really best to stick to purely informational feedback – if effort isn’t the problem, help them figure out what is.

Rule #3: When things go right, avoid praising ability.  I know we all like to hear how smart and talented we are, and so naturally we assume that it’s what kids want to hear too.  Of course they do.  But it’s not what they need to hear to stay motivated.

Studies conducted by Carol Dweck and her colleagues show that when children are praised for having high ability, it leaves them more vulnerable to self-doubt when they are faced with a challenge later.  If being successful means that a child is “smart,” then they’re likely to conclude that they aren’t smart when having a harder time.

Make sure that you also praise aspects of your child’s performance that were under their control.  Talk about a creative approach, careful planning, persistence and effort, and a positive attitude.  Praise actions, not just abilities. That way, when your child runs into trouble later on, they’ll remember what helped them to succeed in the past and put that knowledge to good use.

Sound advice from a great organization, now go get that book (Mind Set) and get better at molding your children and/or your players.