Here, TrueSport Expert Nadia Kyba, MSW, President of Now What Facilitation, is sharing some simple do’s and don’ts for creating a social media policy with your athletes that will improve team culture.

Do: Acknowledge Athletes Use Social Media for Connection

Social media isn’t all bad: It can keep athletes connected during the off-season, allow them to communicate more comfortably, and even create a sense of team unity when it’s used in a healthy way. “It’s the way that people form connections now, especially young people,” says Kyba. “That’s important.”

Don’t: Try to Ignore Social Media Altogether

As a coach, Kyba says part of creating a healthy team culture includes an acceptance of social media. Your athletes are almost certainly using it, so rather than shying away from discussing use of social media, have discussions about social media and etiquette around it.

Do: Set Phone Use Boundaries Early in the Season

“Have an open dialogue with the team about what phone use and social media is going to look like at games, at practice, and on the team bus,” says Kyba. “When people can be on their phones, and when should they be out of sight?” Set these boundaries and include consequences if an athlete ignores those boundaries.

Don’t: Allow Poor Social Media Behavior from Parents

It’s disheartening, but Kyba says that some of the bad social media behavior she sees comes from parents of athletes who turn to social media to complain about referees, coaches, and even other young athletes. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do about parental behavior as a coach, but if the posts can be considered bullying or are offensive, you can bring the issue up to an athletic director or school administrator to determine next steps, which may include barring a parent from competitions.

Do: Agree on Team Social Media Strategy

At the beginning of the season, determine your team’s plan for social media. It will be based on what’s allowed at your school, of course, but while some teams may be excited about sharing on social media and want to take turns posting photos from competitions, other teams may prefer to stay off social media altogether. Make sure the team is on the same page before posting.

Don’t: Assume Everyone is Comfortable on Social Media

More and more young people are opting out of social media entirely and prefer to not have their picture posted online, says Kyba. So, before you post the team photo to the school’s Instagram, make sure that every athlete is comfortable with their picture being shared. If they aren’t, respect that and ensure that other team members understand that boundary as well.

Do: Have a Social Media Code of Conduct

At the beginning of the season, have your team create a code of conduct specifically for social media that enforces good sportsmanship. It can include things like not posting anything negative after a game, or only saying positive things about teammates, or simply retread the code of conduct the team has for in-person situations. Have everyone take part in the creation of the code of conduct so they feel ownership over it, says Kyba. Have them sign it—and consider having parents sign one as well!

Don’t: Ignore Social Media Bullying

If an athlete comes to you with a concern about bullying happening on social media, treat it the same way that you would an in-person bullying allegation. This can potentially be more fraught, as some students will have dummy accounts, or accounts that aren’t in their name, so it’s more complicated than observing one student bullying the other. But it is just as serious and should be brought to the attention of the appropriate administrator or counselor.

Do: Set Clear Boundaries Between Yourself and Students

Social media has also blurred the lines of athlete/adult relationships, and Kyba says it’s important to communicate the appropriate boundaries that you’re setting on your own social media use. “You shouldn’t be following your athletes, especially those with private accounts, and you should never be communicating with them on those platforms,” Kyba says. Let your athletes know that it’s not personal that you don’t respond to their messages or follow requests, it’s simply the policy.

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Takeaway

Social media usage amongst young athletes is almost inevitable, and as a coach, you’re in a position to set appropriate boundaries for phone usage during practice and competitions. You can also help your athletes by creating a code of conduct specifically around social media use and setting policies for posting (or not posting) as a team.

Here, TrueSport Experts Kevin Chapman, PhD, clinical psychologist and founder of The Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, and President of Now What Facilitation, Nadia Kyba, MSW, are sharing their best advice for how you can truly support your teammates this season.

Understand what allyship means for your team

Being an ally for your teammates is part of being a good teammate. “As teammates, understand how much your words matter to the other people on the team,” says Chapman. “Not speaking up for others, letting injustices take place on your team, isn’t acceptable. It’s a cancer to the culture of the team.”

Acknowledge your own bias

Everyone has biases and developing a better understanding of the ones that you have can help you be a better ally to your teammates. “It’s not easy to think about your own biases,” says Kyba. “But it’s critically important. Think about the biases you’ve been raised with.” For example, often young girls are given white dolls, while boys are given white superhero action figures. This sets up the bias that girls are nurturing and caregivers, while boys are the brave, strong defenders. In addition to these gender-based biases, our unconscious bias becomes that being white is the norm.

Along with race and gender, think about other things that may have created biases in your life: your financial situation or how you were taught to think about class and money; your religion; your sexuality and gender expression; and how different disabilities may lead to certain biases. Understanding your own bias helps you become a better ally because it allows you to better understand the microaggressions and everyday biases that your teammates may encounter.

Open the conversation with the team

It shouldn’t be the role of the transgender athlete on the team to push for a conversation about gender neutral bathrooms, or for the Black athlete to have to start the conversation around systemic racism. Being a good ally doesn’t just mean calling out aggressions and issues, it means being proactive. Consider asking your coach about having a team discussion around values and allyship. You may even want to ask a counselor who’s versed in these topics to come in to speak to the team. These preemptive measures not only make your teammates feel seen, but they may lead to a better understanding for the team as a whole. “Be active up front, rather than being passive until there’s a major issue,” says Kyba.

Remember differences aren’t always obvious

Some differences are more subtle, but equally important in terms of being a good ally. You may not have realized a teammate was Muslim, for instance, and needs to pray at certain times during the day. You may not know that a fellow athlete has a cognitive disability that makes it difficult for him to concentrate during team huddles. You may not be aware that one of your teammates is a transgender woman struggling to deal with a stadium’s bathroom policy.

With this in mind, try to take a moment to consider your personal biases and how you can better meet the needs of your fellow athletes, coaches, or volunteers.

Lean into diversity

Chapman and Kyba agree that saying that you ‘don’t see color’ or you’re ‘color blind’ when it comes to race is not a good thing. You might think you’re saying the right thing when you say that color doesn’t matter, but color blindness actually discourages diversity. “When you say that everyone is the same, athletes don’t feel safe talking about their individual needs,” says Kyba. “If an athlete on the team is Muslim, that makes it hard for them to tell the coach that they need a space to pray. And to pretend that being African American is not a different experience from being White denies that there are still huge problems with systemic racism.”

Don’t be afraid to speak up

“From a practical standpoint, being an ally means that if you hear something, like a racial slur or a derogatory comment about someone in a marginalized group, you stand up for them, even if they aren’t in the room,” says Chapman. “It means telling a teammate that what she said was offensive, and asking something like, ‘Can you help me understand why you thought that was okay to say?’” Chapman adds that giving someone the space to express what they meant by the comment, and then providing some education about why that comment was not appropriate is the best approach. Kyba agrees, and adds that sometimes, stating back to them what they said (especially in the case of a derogatory comment) and asking them to explain it can help that person quickly see that what they said was inappropriate.

Be aware of microaggressions

While you might be reading this article and thinking that no one on your team makes blatant racial slurs or derogatory comments, microaggressions are a very real problem as well. Microaggressions are seemingly small everyday instances of racism, sexism, homophobia, or religious oppression. If someone is missing practice on Saturday because of their religion, and the coach rolls his eyes as he mentions it, that’s a microaggression. It’s a microaggression to say  that you ‘don’t see color,’ or that ‘you can’t be racist because you have Black friends.’ “Don’t stand idly by if you see a microaggression,” says Chapman. “There should be a zero-tolerance policy, and calling those out is important. You may even realize that you’ve been guilty of your own microaggressions, and if that’s the case, humbly apologize, label what was wrong about it, and learn from it.”

Take it offline

Remember that posting about your allyship on social media might feel great in the moment, but it needs to be backed up in real life. “Being an ally means being actively engaged,” says Kyba. “Rather than just throwing a post on social media, you have to actually become a little bit uncomfortable, whether that means asking questions, standing up for a teammate, or having a conversation around race or gender or sexuality with your team.”

Don’t just be an ally, be an accomplice

“I like using the word accomplice rather than ally,” says Chapman. “To me, there is a difference. This example tends to resonate with people and makes it easier to understand: If you were planning to rob a bank, an ally would be someone who would keep your secret and not say anything. An accomplice would drive the getaway car. So many people say that they’re allies, but when it comes time for them to take a risk, be uncomfortable, and actually stand up for someone, they won’t say anything. They won’t take action. An accomplice takes action.”

Know when to seek help

There may be points where you need to be the one to seek outside help from a coach, counselor, or school administration. Bullying, racial slurs, and violence obviously can’t be tolerated on a team, and as an ally, you can be the one to speak up and tell someone in a leadership position what’s going on.

It’s not always easy to know when to get help, though. “It’s always appropriate to say something to the perpetrator, when it’s a peer-to-peer situation,” says Chapman. “But if it’s a super flagrant issue like bullying, then you may also need to take it to a higher level—and this is especially true if multiple people are involved.”

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Takeaway

Being an ally means doing more than reposting content on Instagram. It means standing up for your teammates when they’re treated unfairly and making sure that you’re also working to confront your own biases and assumptions. And it means that you may need to get uncomfortable.

Learn more about Nadia Kyba.

TrueSport Expert Nadia Kyba, a social worker and expert in conflict resolution, explains how to avoid cliques forming, and how to deal with them if they do.

1. Understand the skill of team-wide relationships

“The more coaches can do in terms of relationship-building on the team, the better,” says Kyba. “It’s just as important as skill-building in terms of performance and athlete retention: it’s going to serve you when things go south or when people want to leave. The great coaches that I speak to are on top of avoiding cliques from day one.”

2. Recognize that cliques are natural

“Groups of kids who know each other from school or from different activities will naturally want to stick together because it’s comfortable,” Kyba says. “I think that it’s really important to acknowledge that it’s sometimes tough for kids to make new relationships, especially if they’re feeling insecure about their athletic abilities. Close friendships among teammates are fine and normal, but cliques are the negative side of small groups of friends in larger team contexts. When others are being excluded, that’s when a coach needs to step in.”

3. Explain why team dynamic matters

Many coaches make the mistake of gruffly splitting apart small groups of friends. Especially for young athletes, they may not understand why they’re being separated—and they may even feel as though they’re being punished. “Be really transparent about why you’re working to build relationships between everybody on the team, rather than just a few groups of people,” Kyba says. “If you can explain this, it’s easier for the kids to see that you’re not just out to ruin their lives.”

4. Make sure it’s not a punishment

Many coaches let athletes pick their groups early on, and only split them up once the kids are acting up, being loud, or ignoring instructions. But that ultimately makes separating cliques into a punishment rather than a default for the team. ” Separating groups of friends from day one can ultimately create a better team dynamic,” Kyba says. “Normalize that by not letting athletes divide themselves.”

5. Split groups differently

“Be intentional about splitting groups differently on a consistent basis – even for social activities,” Kyba says. “If your team does a group dinner but everybody just sits in their little social circles, it’s not really doing anything to team-build.” You may need to assign tables or opt for activities that keep athletes moving around.

6. It’s a season-long process

“I know a hockey coach who’s been coaching for 40 years. He works on building the team relationships from day one and has it down to a science,” Kyba says. “For example, he would assign lockers in the locker room and change them weekly. He would do icebreakers at every practice. He would even look at carpools and make sure that every single time, the carpools were different. He mixed up rooming assignments and seats on planes. He had it all logged in an Excel spreadsheet to keep track. It was a huge focus for him, and his teams did amazing as a result.”

7. Get parents on board

Don’t just tell parents you’re trying to avoid cliques: Make them part of the process! “That hockey coach also got the parents on board: he thought that it was really important for the parents to also role model team-building,” Kyba says. “He had the parents drive other kids that they didn’t already know in their carpools, so they could get to know the kids on the team. They also had to get to know the other parents—and parent cliques can be just as tough as athlete ones!”

8. If you see something, say something

One of the biggest mistakes a coach can make is ignoring a clique when it first starts to form, hoping it will go away or won’t cause a problem. “When you see a clique forming, it’s important to address it immediately,” Kyba says. “Get back to those icebreakers, randomize seats on the bus, and change up your practice teams.”

9. Don’t just separate

The biggest mistake coaches make when addressing the issue of cliques is separating, but not changing the behavior. Separating groups of athletes is a place to start, but unless you’re also focusing on building relationships between all of the teammates, your athletes are likely to end up resentful and unfocused. “Find ways that teammates can collaborate, even outside of competition,” says Kyba. “For instance, if a few athletes are creative, get them to do the team’s social media together. Give them a purpose and a reason to work together that isn’t just passing the ball.”

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Takeaway

Preventing cliques is one of many ways to proactively avoid conflict on a team, including bullying behaviors. Use these tips from TrueSport Expert Nadia Kyba to prevent and address cliques on your team.

“The more coaches can do with regards to relationship building, the stronger a team will be,” says TrueSport Expert Nadia Kyba, a social worker and expert in conflict resolution. “This is just as important as skill building.”

Here, Kyba shares a few simple ways to add appreciation into practices and game days.

Appreciation means acceptance

Often, coaches view teams as a single homogenous organism. But young athletes join teams for different reasons: Some truly love that specific sport, while others are simply looking for a sense of community, a way to have fun with friends, or a way to stay active. “That means that athletes bring with them really different personal values,” says Kyba. “Having that diversity is always a great thing for teams, but it’s important to foster a sense of belonging by recognizing and appreciating those differences in the team members.”

Set the example

It is important for teammates to appreciate each other, but it’s best if that practice starts with you. As a coach, you are the primary driver behind the atmosphere of the team. “If you’re able to point out what you appreciate about different players and the unique things that they bring to the team, then they will feel accepted, seen, and acknowledged,” says Kyba. “Ultimately, you’re going to build trust and foster stronger relationships.”

Start team appreciation early

Appreciation rarely will happen organically for a whole team. “You need to be intentional about it,” says Kyba. “Plan it into your training schedule. For example, once a week, end a practice with an appreciation exercise. You can have the kids go around and say one thing that they appreciate about each person on the team, or just one thing about the person sitting next to them in the circle. The coaches should do it as well, so that they are role-modeling the desired behavior.” During appreciation activities, make sure athletes aren’t just appreciating their friends!

Make it fun

You can mix up the ways you do appreciation exercises. Kyba likes one where each athlete has a piece of paper taped to their back, and everyone walks around and writes one nice word or sentence about the person. “That way, each athlete has that piece of paper as a physical reminder of how much their team appreciates them,” she says. You can frame the papers and post them somewhere for everyone to see, or the athlete can keep it.

Get older players to buy in

Some athletes might feel silly or uncool doing an earnest appreciation circle or other appreciation activity. But that can be remedied by asking team leaders for help. “Practicing appreciation as a team is helped by peer leadership,” says Kyba. “If you have leaders or older players on your team, encourage them to lead these appreciation games. It’s harder for a young athlete to sit out during an appreciation exercise if one of the team members is leading it.”

Peer-led appreciation can also lead to powerful results. “I was interviewing some varsity field hockey athletes and they talked a lot about their coach who was very enthusiastic about appreciation,” Kyba says. “She created a ‘secret buddy’ system where she would match up new athletes with older mentors for training camps. Those older athletes would be responsible for doing little things like sending notes about what they appreciated about the new player. That feedback really inspired the team and made them much closer—and they performed better as a result.”

Practice appreciation at all times

Post-game—especially if the game didn’t go according to plan!—have athletes sit in a circle and take turns saying what they appreciate about another player. “This should be a practice after every game,” Kyba says. “A lot of coaches will only do things like this after successful games or matches, but it’s more important to do these activities when things aren’t going well.”

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Takeaway

Practicing appreciation is a simple and powerful means of preventing undesirable behaviors, like bullying, on a team. Fortunately, implementing a system of appreciation is easy with these quick tips.

Yes, you should step in to help the athlete who’s being antagonized by a teammate. But as a coach or a parent, you should also look beyond that specific incident to try to understand and ultimately root out bullying behaviors that exist within the team.

Nadia Kyba, MSW, TrueSport Expert and President of Now What Facilitation, explains how to talk about bullying and apply the ‘trauma-informed approach’ to bring your team closer together.

Take a trauma-informed approach

Based on her background in social work, Kyba recommends that coaches and parents address bullying behaviors through a trauma-informed approach, which focuses on an athlete’s background and the ‘why’ of their behaviors.

“It means thinking about what happened to a child, rather than what’s wrong with them,” she explains. “After an incident, think about why the athlete is exhibiting those behaviors. Think about them in the context of a whole person rather than just an athlete on a team.”

With this approach, you may be able to identify triggers behind misbehavior. “Usually kids who have experienced trauma have grown up in really unpredictable situations,” Kyba says. “One of the ways they establish predictability in their own lives is through bullying type behaviors.”

For example, having a practice go 15 minutes late may lead an athlete to act aggressively or talk back to the coach, but upon further inspection, you may realize that even something as small as an extended practice represents unpredictability and could trigger negative behaviors. Seek to understand, rather than to instantly punish. The better you can understand the needs of your athletes, the less behavioral issues you’re likely to encounter.

Get specific

“There are so many shades of bullying,” Kyba explains. “And it can be counterproductive to describe a kid who’s making fun of someone the same way you’d describe a kid who’s shoving a teammate up against lockers. When I hear that someone is bullying, I want to know the actual behaviors.”

Breaking down behavior like this makes it easier to work through the problem with each athlete and create new rules for the team as a whole. “It leads toward actual conflict resolution instead of just punishing the kid,” Kyba notes. “You’re also removing the automatic stigma that comes with the label of ‘bully.’”

Avoid labels and biases

Labeling children as any one thing can be extremely problematic. If you label a child on the team as a bully, for example, now that child will automatically be the guilty party in any conflict.

“I think we use the label ‘bully’ because it simplifies really complicated situations,” says Kyba. “When there’s a bully on a team, then it’s easy for the coach to fix the problem by eliminating or targeting the bully. But that rarely works.”

Similarly, it’s important to avoid assumptions as to who the ‘problem kids’ on the team will be based on our inherent biases from on our own school experience and past traumas. “It’s easy to end up accidentally thinking ‘Oh, it’s the kid who always dresses this certain way,’ or ‘the scary-looking kid,’ or get into stereotypes around race and gender as well,” warns Kyba. Focus on your athletes’ actions, not on labeling them.

Be predictable

In keeping with the trauma-led approach, predictability is one of the best ways to combat the feelings of anxiety that often contribute to bullying behaviors brought on by past traumas. “Every child needs a stable adult in their lives, and for some, that may be their coach,” says Kyba. “The best thing you can do for your athletes is give them a sense of predictability.”

“Set transparent expectations for the entire team and have clear consequences for rule-breaking. Don’t single out kids with problem behavior. And as much as possible, set definite finish times for practice and a structure for all aspects of team participation.”

Identify the positive

While coaches are often kept busy trying to deal with negative behaviors on the team, it’s equally important to identify and encourage athletes’ positive behaviors when they do happen. Too often, good behavior is overlooked, but for an athlete who’s struggling and continually reprimanded, praise for doing something right can make a huge difference.

“It’s so important to identify the positives, especially with the kids who often get called out for the negatives,” Kyba says. “Give them opportunities to lead as a way to potentially channel that negative behavior into some positive. A lot of the time, the so-called bullies are also the natural leaders on the team, whether they mean to be or not.”

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Takeaway

While immediately addressing bullying behaviors is always step one, it’s also important for coaches and parents to further support individual athletes and foster healthier teams by understanding the triggers behind those behaviors.

While we know resiliency is one’s ability to overcome adversity, it’s also important to recognize hidden resilience, which is the ability to overcome adversity using behaviors that are not always viewed as positive. Searching for hidden resilience means taking traditionally ‘bad behaviors’ and figuring out how to flip them to find a positive skill.

Nadia Kyba, MSW, TrueSport Expert and President of Now What Facilitation, gives the example of a player who’s always calling others out for things they’re doing wrong. While the habit may be negatively received by their teammates, the athlete might actually have the makings of a good coaching assistant if those critiques could be channeled positively.

According to Kyba, there is often some hidden resilience behind bullying-type behaviors. But how can you help shift those problematic behaviors to more positive ones?

1. Look beyond the surface

Bullying behaviors are obviously not acceptable on a team, but don’t stop at simply shutting it down. Try to understand what is causing the behavior.

“Some of the reasons an athlete might be bullying others is because they’re looking for a chance to be accepted and have meaningful participation, or they’re looking for self-determination,” says Kyba. “They want to take charge of what happens to them, so they’re creating those outcomes for themselves by bullying other people.” That kind of hidden resilience is a protection mechanism, often hiding a fear of failure or embarrassment.

2. Remember kids are smarter than you think

“If a child can anticipate an outcome, even if it’s going to be a negative outcome, they may do that thing because at least there is predictability,” says Kyba. For example, if a child is extremely nervous about the outcome of a big game, they may actively try to talk back during practice or show up late in order to guarantee they get benched.

If you can talk to an athlete who you suspect is using that kind of behavior to avoid feelings of vulnerability, you may be able to help them set and manage new expectations, and give them new tools for developing as an athlete and a human.

3. Consider past traumas

Kyba often refers to a trauma-informed approach, which means that coaches look beyond how an athlete is currently behaving and seek to understand what happened to them in the past to cause those behaviors. This approach can help you understand how and why an athlete is using his or her hidden resilience as a tool.

“Rather than thinking, ‘Oh, he’s just being lazy by showing up late to practice,’ say, ‘I know he’s being resilient. He’s had some adversity and he’s overcoming it by setting his own schedule to feel in control.’ This shift—whether you’re accurately assessing the situation or not—helps you feel a level of empathy for the athlete that you may not have had before, which may make it easier to have a conversation with the student.” With this empathy, it’s also easier to move to the next stage, where you work to help them to channel their behavior more proactively.

4. Turn the negative to a positive

Often, it’s hard for young athletes to see themselves clearly, and most of the motivators behind hidden resilience won’t be understood by the athlete. But as an adult, you can see how an athlete can tap into that reserve of resilience and channel it in more positive ways.

Kyba explains, “Often, you have to give the athlete a substitute for the problem behavior. Explain that instead of being the ‘loud kid’ on the team, they can be the leader on the team. Instead of acting out to get banned from the game, they can do some extra practice sessions and visualization exercises to feel more prepared.”

5. Normalize team conversations

Communication, done early and often, can solve most problems before they start. “Having regular team meetings is incredibly important,” Kyba says. “Let athletes voice their concerns without fear of reprisal. Talk about if there are conflicts happening, discuss team guidelines, leave the floor open for athletes to talk about areas where they’re not happy.” If you can normalize these meetings early on in the season, it becomes easier to have honest, open conversations.

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Takeaway

An athlete’s past experiences and traumas, however small, may significantly impact their behaviors in many settings, including sport. While these behaviors may be problematic, and even include bullying behaviors, it’s important to recognize the hidden resilience behind them and help the athlete channel that strength into more positive actions.

“We tell parents that their only goal is to make sure that their kids are having fun. Your job is to support kids when it’s appropriate,” Cohn adds. With that in mind, here’s why and how to avoid being tense and distracting on the sidelines.

Sideline Coaching

Your goal as a parent may be to see your child having fun, but research has shown that sideline behavior rarely reflects that goal. “Shouting instructions from the sidelines is a major no-no,” says Cohn. Not just because it’s irritating for the other parents, but because it can actually hurt your child’s performance.”

“Remember, the coach is there to coach the kids, and having another person shouting can also make them lose focus, get embarrassed, or feel pressure to perform perfectly for the parents shouting instructions all the time,” Cohn adds.

Your ‘Cheering’ Style

Showing up with your face painted in team colors while the other parents are in business casual? Try not to stand out too much.

“Pay attention to the cues from the other parents. Parents should be cheerleaders, reinforcing when they’re playing well but not overdoing it,” says Cohn. “Depending on the sport, there are different rules of behavior. Golf has quiet clapping, hockey has more yelling.”

“If you know you have trouble controlling your temper and what you do on the sidelines, I recommend you watch the game from afar where your athlete can’t see you. Watch up on a balcony, or even behind a tree…if you truly want your athlete to have more fun and be more focused, take yourself out of the equation if you know you’re a distraction.”

Handling a Bad Call

Your anger with a bad call in a child’s game may be the same rage you feel on the road, which research had shown is tied to ego defensiveness and a control-oriented mindset. Angry reactions on the sideline often happen because parents make the game about them and take events personally. Even if you think you’re being subtle when you disagree with a ‘bad call,’ your child likely is picking up on it.

“Your tension is extremely obvious to young athletes, and to yell at people around you is actually disrespectful to your kids,” Cohn says. Instead, let bad calls be a learning opportunity for them. If the ref makes a call you don’t agree with, that’s OK.

You won’t agree with every call, and the referee might even be in the wrong. But if you complain every time you disagree, you’re teaching your child that that behavior is acceptable in life. Keep in mind that your child will have to deal with a teacher or boss who isn’t always fair and can’t always rely on you to ‘fix’ everything.

Non-Verbal Behaviors

“Kids are easily distracted during games. If you’re arguing on the sidelines with another parent, they’re likely going to notice, be embarrassed, and even alter their performance,” says Cohn. “If I roll my eyes, my daughter can see from 50 yards away.”

“I try to teach athletes to stay focused on the field or court, but that’s hard. Kids pick up on parents’ non-verbal cues. I’ve heard parents tell me that they got up to use the restroom, but their athlete assumed they had gotten up because they were upset with the child’s performance. If a kid is feeling your tension, they tend to start playing safer and more tentatively, in fear of making mistakes.”

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Dr. Cohn concludes, “From a long-term perspective, the athlete won’t have as much fun in the sport [if they’re worried about their parents on the sidelines], because they’re so tuned into what they think their parent is feeling during their game, which can lead to them leaving the sport altogether.”

Bottomline: Knowing how to best support your athlete is key in creating a positive sport experience for not only your athlete, but also for their team and the rest of the parents on the sidelines supporting their athletes.