The SSWSC had two great days of learning and sharing ideas with Dr. Nicole LaVoi last week. Dr. LaVoi is a world leader in research on women and girls in sport. A co-founder of the Tucker Center for Research and senior lecturer at the University of Minnesota, Dr. LaVoi brought so much knowledge to share over the nearly 20 hours she spent with various groups with the club. It was an impactful visit.

On Thursday night, Dr. LaVoi presented to parents. We recorded the presentation, and you can watch it here. It’s all good stuff, but I’ve captured some highlights below. You can click on the link and it will start the video in that section. One overarching theme that Dr. LaVoi emphasized, both to parents and coaches, is to focus on what can be controlled. She calls this theme her “one-page best-seller”.

Dr. LaVoi started by reminding us the top five reasons why kids play sports. Research consistently shows reason #1 is to have fun. Number 2 is to improve skills. 3-5 are to stay in shape, to do something they’re good at, and for the excitement of competition. Note that winning is well outside the top five. We have to keep in mind why our kids participate, what is important to them.

I thought this quote Dr. LaVoi shared was important. It is from sport psychologist Richard Ginsburg. “The question isn’t whether we are emotionally invested in our children because we are. It isn’t whether we see ourselves in our children because we do. It’s when the investment becomes so great that what is good for the child is forgotten that the real problems begin.” Youth sport can be emotional for us as parents. That’s OK, but it is important that we keep things in check, especially in the heart of the season.

Dr. LaVoi talked about the importance of free play. For skiing and snowboarding, this is the equivalent of skiing or riding the mountain, all over, without adult direction. It’s not just time in the competition arena that’s important. We want the kids to be creative with their skiing and riding and this comes from this kind of free play. We include this in some of our training sessions, with the coach there to oversee safety but the kids decide where to go and what to do. This is important training.

There was good discussion about the difference between fixed and growth mindsets. As parents, we can have a big influence over our children’s mindset through our behaviors around their involvement with sport. A growth mindset is essential for long-term success. Failure has bad connotations, and for a fixed mindset athlete it can be devastating, but for a growth mindset Dr. LaVoi shared an acronym for the word FAIL – First Attempt In Learning. Be sure to help your kids learn from their failures, because every single athlete will experience many along the way.

The last third of the presentation focused on things that parents can take part in with their children in sport to help them get the most out of it. Dr. LaVoi shared the 3 Crowns approach: full effort, positive attitude and good sportsmanship. Parents can and should actively encourage and reinforce these three things in their sport context. It’s not technical, tactical or strategy oriented and it is fully within our children’s control.

Dr. LaVoi talked about how attributions – how we explain success and failure – make a big difference in our kids’ experience. This is closely tied to the mindset discussion above. Finally, Dr. LaVoi shared the ABC Model for parents to parent the way our children would like us to in support of their sporting experience. A stands for ask – ask them what they want from us to support their participation. B stands for believe – believe what they tell us! C stands for change – we need to be willing to change our behavior. Put yourself in your child’s shoes! Go back to the quote before, it’s not a question of whether we’re invested, we are, but for that investment don’t we want to do all we can to make it a good experience for our kids? If we follow the ABC’s, that increases the odds!

Check out more resources from Dr. Nicole LaVoi at the Tucker Center for Research on Women and Girls in Sport here.

Each week Athletic Director Jon Nolting will share his insight about happenings inside the club and around youth sport through the View From the Summit blog post.