Losing in Youth Sports: How to Recognize Excessive Reactions
"It’s not a matter of whether or not you should have anxiety, it’s about optimizing that anxiety so it works for you and not against you."
It happens every second in youth sports somewhere. A kid cries after letting in the game-losing goal. A kid is visibly mad at teammates as their volleyball match heads to an inevitable loss. A kid slams down a bat after striking out. A kid refuses to eat dinner after losing.
We all know that losing is a central aspect of sport; you can’t have a winner without a loser. But it doesn’t make it any less gut-wrenching to see your child or another child in misery. When it comes to losing, it’s often difficult to understand which reactions are normal and healthy and which signal a deeper issue.
To delve into the psychology of losing and performance anxiety, I enlisted the wisdom of renowned licensed clinic and sports psychologist Dr. Kevin Chapman. Dr. Chapman is the founder of the Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. He’s also an expert for True Sport, an organization whose mission is to change the culture of youth sports through education.
Melissa Jacobs: Let’s begin with the baseline. You made a mistake. Your teammate made a mistake. Your team is getting crushed. What do you consider the range of appropriate reactions?
Dr. Kevin Chapman: When it comes to anything related to sports, I always teach athletes at any age that regulating emotions of any kind are a necessary part of sport, and recognizing that any emotion you experience during sport is normal. So experiencing anger, frustration, anxiety, saltiness, disgust; all of these things are normal emotional experiences in sport.
If we use that context to understand emotions, it means that losing is obviously not the goal, everyone who plays sport wants to win, so I think in terms of the emotion itself, experiencing anger, frustration, sadness, those tend to be the big three of losing. So experiencing any of those three is completely normal and expected.
In terms of the behavioral response to those emotions, throwing anything related to the sport including a helmet, a glove, a bat, a ball, none of that is appropriate because that represents a disregulated response to the emotions. I can express it. I can explain that it’s upsetting, I can cry, I can get upset with myself. I can do those things, but anything that is an overt expression of that that can include danger or damage to someone else or someone else’s emotion, that’s definitely where you draw the line.
MJ: How much does it vary by age? I assume a 7-year-old sobbing on a pitcher’s mound isn’t the same thing as a 14-year-old having a similar reaction.
KC: It does vary, but ultimately I’m of the school of thought that the issue is emotional regulation. Developmentally, you’re going to see much more outward expression of disappointment in losing of younger kids who play sports. A 7-year-old year is more likely to be bawling on the mound, depending on the kid. But that’s more socially accepted than and older kid doing it.
Within sport, crying is a sign of deregulation when it comes to regulating emotion. It’s fine to cry but once it translates into affecting the performance, that’s when it crosses the threshold. We either need to get you off the mound or we need to practice regulation skills prior to competition to prevent that from happening.
MJ: What are your tips for behavior regulation?
KC: I always tell people that it’s essential to be as preventative as possible as opposed to trying to implement intervention on the fly. Most people when they get to that place want an intervention which I’ll give, but ultimately it’s helpful for most athletes to recognize the skills and tools that will help them prevent that from happening in the first place.
The first thing is to acknowledge that all emotions have three parts. I call that the triad of emotion, and you’d be shocked at how few people know that. It’s important to understand that if I get anxious, mad, salty, that I have thoughts, physical sensational in my body, and I have behavior. All three are the emotion, not one of those.
First and foremost, I’d say, what are the emotions I experience in sport, what are my thoughts, and physical sensations so I can become an expert in my body cues and things like that.
Secondly, I like to tell an athlete to help regulate by taking a deep breath for 45 seconds and exhaling through the mouth for 6 seconds to simulate heart-lung synchronization. If they do that then they can process what they feel in their body right then, what are they thinking at the moment, and what they feel like doing in this moment. If say, for example, I feel like throwing a glove or hitting a kid in the face, that’s not inappropriate to say because I’m being honest and not judging my emotion. but it would inappropriate to act.
MJ: What about the kid who isn’t punching anyone but is still out of control, screaming at teammates, screaming at the refs. What kind of preventive training can that kid do? Come to someone like you?
KC: Yeah, I think there’s a couple things going on. If a kid comes to see me - 60% of my athletes, maybe more - see me for mental skills training. “I’m great, Kevin, I’m killing it on the pitch, on the court, on the field, but I lay an egg in the game. That’s the majority of people I counsel.
Then there’s the sports side where I’m an athlete but I struggle with emotional regulation. Either way they’re going to need someone who’s skilled clinincally to help them regulate those emotions more effectively. So a sports psychologist in general can help to some degree but if it’s impairing their functioning to the point of causing distress and damaging relationships, then it becomes a clinical concern. I see both ends.
MJ: What signs should parents watch for that might signal a clinical issue?
KC: The symptoms have two criteria. The main criteria which we use to identify the problem is asking – does it cause personal distress, meaning the kid is bothered by the symptoms they have themselves. Like they’re upset and expressing subjective discomfort, they’re having a hard time with too frequent and too intense anxiety or sadness or what have you. The other criteria is impairment and functioning.
As sports people, we know that impairment and functioning isn’t just on the field. We talk about parents recognizing things like when grades start dropping, when the kid is isolating themselves more, being chippy. Let’s say you find this irritability and crankiness that isn’t typically there. So it’s like, wait a second, you’re not reacting to me like you typically do, you’re not speaking like you typically do. It’s a sixth sense in identifying that something isn’t baseline.
MJ: How much can puberty play a role when the kid is of a certain age?
KC: Substantially. And I think that what happens is the advent of hormones and when you have an increase in hormones, identity formation and what have you, that’s going to interact with emotions. Many times if you don’t have the skills necessary and the family has not modeled emotional regulation, you’re going to have a hard time being able to tolerate stress, disappointment, and discomfort. How do we learn how to be anxious? We learn it from our caregivers and family. It’s primarily modeled behavior. Emotions are going to be more intense because of puberty, and I think the way that how starts to manifest is contingent upon the kid and the models they have in their home.
MJ: If a kid is dealing with substantial emotional stress, would you sideline them for a bit like you’d sideline a pitcher with Little League elbow?
KC: It really depends on the case but there are pros and cons to taking time off. I’m typically about not taking time away because I think that exposure, therapy in particular from a clinical standpoint and how it relates to an athlete, confronting situations that trigger and elicit strong emotions, is preferred because we don’t want our brains equating intense situations with avoidance. Any time it gets hot in the kitchen, I need to peace out and avoid it which is not exactly true which perpetuates the cycle.
I’m more of the school of thought that if you’re in season and you’re struggling, it’s one thing to take a temporary break and regulate. It’s another thing and more substantive to stay in the pocket – to use a football analogy – like a good quarterback. They might get hit in the rib but they may also put six on the board. It might be temporarily uncomfortable that triggers strong emotions around teammates or when teams are losing, but it’s going to be a lot more fruitful long-term to learn how to work through that.
Now, if cases are extreme and it becomes a clinical issue, a lot of athletes struggle with mental health disorders that have been diagnosed – one I see a lot in athletes is social anxiety disorder which translates into performance anxiety. When they have that, then I still don’t think they should take time off. I hope they can learn the skills through the process.
MJ: You’re also an expert in performance anxiety. What is a healthy amount?
KC: I had a running backs coach in high school who used tell us, if you ain’t hype, something ain’t right. He was acknowledging that if you don’t have a level of anxiety before you compete then something’s wrong.
Anxiety is a normal part of competition. It’s not a matter of whether or not you should have anxiety, it’s about optimizing that anxiety so it works for you and not against you. I always tell people – and this is good, I think – the difference between anxiety and excitement is your interpretation of the arousal. The physiological arousal is literally, not kinda, the same. But if I interpret it as, let’s go, I’m going to blow someone up, then that same heart racing and palpitating is fuel. If I view it as, oh my god, if I get pulled out of this game by making a mistake and they just added that five star dude, I’m screwed. I’m going to interpret that arousal and play tight and maybe lay an egg. I’m going to be more winded, probably get pulled out of the game, and maybe even risk injury.
MJ: How much does performance anxiety feed into reactions to losing? Or are those two separate things?
KC: They’re not necessarily mutually exclusive. But I will say I think performance anxiety pertains to that to a degree. If I think about why I’m so anxious losing to a team, what if the reasons why I’m anxious are because I’m concerned about the negative repercussions. I’m going to get ridiculed; I’m going to let my family down. Now that can become anger.
The bigger one, I think, is that too many athletes equate their performance to their identity, and that’s the elephant in the room. So they equate, if I play poorly, then I’m bad. That’s what you see from so many youth; they not only grow up in this high achievement culture in the United States as a whole which values performance, but so many parents are living vicariously through their kids. Oh, I would have went D1 if I didn’t blow my knee out. So I think there’s this two-headed monster performance anxiety depending on the perceived consequences.
MJ: What about competitive parents? How much does that impact athletes if they feel they’ve done something wrong?
KC: 99% of the problem is what you just said. We learn how to view sport, life, the classroom, achievement in general through the lens of our parents of origin or caregivers, depending on the context of the kid. So I learned to think about myself, the world around and my future – we call that the cognitive triad - through the lens of my family. Even if it’s incorrect, until I get data later in life that refutes it, it’s going to frame my childhood. If I have high achieving parents who say you’ve got to be successful because, you got to go all in or else, you gotta win or else, then my emotional experiences and my identity are contingent on me having a positive outcome. Most parents model this behavior, often unintentionally, but the message is your outcome is your identity. Period.
MJ: In closing, can you explain the impact an overreaction to losing can have on a team?
KC: It has a substantial one for an athlete for a number of reasons. On the one hand, it can damage the relationships with teammates. Depending on who had the overreaction, it can decrease the credibility of said player, or if it’s an adult, that’s worse. Because an authority figure should be emotionally regulated.
So it not only undermines the credibility of the athlete, it can damage peer relationships and cause distress among the players because now they’re not sure about you. They may label you as a loose cannon. They may label you as someone they can’t trust emotionally. If you get a reputation for overreacting it can damage your ability to play sport, not only internally but it might damage your ability to be trusted with the ball. It can be really problematic for the team’s culture, it can be a problem for the team and their ability to effectively communicate and it might lead to the self-fulfilling prophecy of not winning because you can’t be in the present moment as a result of someone overeating and not being able to recover from it.
For more insight from Dr. Kevin Chapman, please visit his website.
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