Being your child’s biggest fan

Watching the Olympics has reminded me of how challenging it can be to be the parent of an athlete. My daughter’s gymnastics center brought in a sports psychologist to work with the girls on the “head game” part of gymnastics. She also spoke to the parents about our role in supporting our daughters in gymnastics.

Her clear message was that we need to be our child’s biggest fan and avoid focusing on how well she performed that particular day. She explained that we would be the most helpful to our daughters by continually cheering them on and not analyzing what went wrong with their routines. Let the coaches do the corrections and work with the girls on their technical skills. Our job is to cheer our daughters on through the good times and the bad.