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One of the challenges of coaching youth sports is to incorporate mental skills training so that young athletes are not just learning physical skills but also developing their mental skills. These mental skill performance principles help players play better on the field.

These same kinds of principles also help parents act better on the sidelines. The focus of my regular column will be to help parents understand performance principles that will help them be better sport parents. In this column, I will begin to explore some of these principles that are useful to young athletes as well as their parents watching on the sidelines.

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Probably the biggest obstacle to peak performance that a young athlete faces is anxiety. Kids don't necessarily recognize it as anxiety, but they sure know the symptoms. They recognize when their stomach has that strange churning feeling and they feel like throwing-up. They are relieved to some extent when an adult tells them it means they have "butterflies in their stomach". They can visualize that and can work on helping those butterflies "fly in formation".

Parents experience anxiety while they are on the sidelines as well. Each sport creates its own level of anxiety in parents. It may depend on the level of contact in the sport or the skill level of the participants, but most parents start living the game with their child. They can see themselves out there on the field and they can feel the muscles twitch in their body as they feel their child catch a pass and then fumble. Or they feel the elation when their child hits a home run. Most parents live through their children to some extent while the child is on the athletic field.

When you begin to experience an intense identification with your child you are entering the "Intensity Web." Unfortunately, parents do not have the same outlet for the release of building intensity that players do during a game. Parents can't block the opponent. They can't dribble the basketball and focus their anxiety on that activity. Parents have to stay on the sideline or in the stands while the tension builds in the "Intensity Web."

When the intensity level gets too high, parents start to experience "Tunnel Vision." They literally lose sight of what is important in youthsports. Tunnel vision is often the reason parents act out at the game.

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Article Updated: August 25, 2007

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