Conversations with Kids: A Parent’s Guide to Helping Children Overcome Fear and Mental Blocks
For parents and guardians where we give you prompts so that you can have more meaningful conversations with your children to help them build key characteristics such as mental toughness, resilience, confidence, creativity, focus and so on.
A Question for your Kids
When you feel scared, stuck, or worried about a skill in sport especially something that requires bravery what happens in your body? What thoughts pop into your mind, and what do you wish you could do differently in that moment?
This simple question opens the door to conversations many children and young athletes avoid: nerves, fear, mental blocks, and self-doubt. Whether your child is a gymnast, a trampolinist, a footballer, or a young athlete in any sport, understanding the mind–body connection is key to helping them overcome performance challenges.
Improves:
- Confidence
- Emotional Control
Drawing on insights from research and practical experiences as a Sport Psychologist, two key skills make a huge difference:
Confidence Through Control
When children learn how to manage their thoughts, breathing, and focus, their confidence grows especially when facing backward skills, new routines, or pressure moments.
Emotional Regulation
Helping your child recognise, label, and respond to emotions allows them to move from fear to bravery, frustration to calm, and overwhelm to certainty.
Directions for Parents
Parents play a powerful role in shaping how children interpret fear, mistakes, and pressure. Here’s how you can support them:
- Ask, don’t tell. Start with gentle curiosity about their feelings, thoughts, and fears.
- Normalise nerves. Let them know it’s okay to feel scared; every person and athlete does.
- Focus on what they can control. Routines, breathing, mindset, warm-ups, NOT judges, scoring, or other competitors.
- Shift the definition of success. Encourage bravery, effort, and calm not perfection or execution.
- Model the behaviours you want to see. Calm breathing, regulated tone, positive body language.
- Avoid outcome-based praise. Say “I loved how brave you were,” instead of “Well done on that score.”
Ideas for Kids
Here are simple tools your child can use:
- Cue words such as “Trust,” “Strong body,” or “You’ve got this.”
- Journalling worries or doubts before training or competitions.
- Acting out a brave character (a superhero or a lion) when fear appears.
These tools help children shift out of fear and into a state of trust and confidence.
Helpful Resources
>> Read Book Review: How the Body Knows Its Mind – Sian Beilock
>> Listen: Is Striving For Perfection A Good Thing In Gymnastics with Alessia Bruno
>> Read Case Study: Helping a Young Trampolinist Overcome Mental Blocks with Backward Skills
If you would like to share your experiences as a sports parent or get insights regarding kids sport psychology, you may also wish to join David in The Sport Psychology Hub.
Best Wishes
David Charlton
Online Sports Psychologist for Kids who supports many youngsters and sports parents so that they have more fun and get the most from their talent across the globe from USA/Canada to Great Britain and Ireland to UAE, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, using ONLINE Video Conferencing.
Managing Director – Inspiring Sporting Excellence
Host of Demystifying Mental Toughness Podcast
Founder of The Sports Psychology Hub
Author of Conversations for Kids
With over a 15 years experience supporting athletes, coaches, parents and teams to transfer their skills from training to competitive situations, under pressure.
BOOK REVIEW: How the Body Knows Its Mind – What Young Athletes Can Learn About Performing Under Pressure
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