When Sports Become Your Child's Whole Identity — And Why That Concerns Me
This is something that we can heavily relate to personally. Sports help shape so many things that helps us navigate real life when the sports career is said and done. When sports turns into a year round activity, trying to find balance between your true identity and an athlete becomes extremely difficult. Your kid is developing as a person while also developing as an athlete. Our son started playing flag football at 4- so from 4 to 18, sports have been in his life. So when parents say ‘my kid doesn’t know who they are outside of sports’, it makes total sense. Imagine working at the same company for 14 years, or maybe even 10 years. How would it feel going to a new company when your life has been at the old company for all that time? A bit foreign right? That’s the same as our son trying to find his identity outside of football. Many athletes sit with the dilemma of not knowing what they like enough to make a career of when they hang up the uniform.
Here are some things that I asked our son as he began to explore his options
What are things that you enjoy doing that you’d do for free?
Once he answered, I asked what careers that you know are out there that support your passion? If there are no careers that they can think of, you create ideas on how to make one. If your kid loves camping for instance, there is a career there.
When asked those questions, he was able to identify things that he enjoyed so we were able to start talking about what it would take to meet his goals. He is learning that he can still use sports as a vehicle for a long term career- the avenues are infinite in this space. He will explore areas within the business of sports while he plays college football so that he can continue to learn what he likes and what he doesn’t like. As he continues to discover over time, it will all become more clear but you have to begin with curiosity about the possibilities.
The goal is to help create a vision of what life could look like after sports. Once athletes begin to see the possibilities, they can begin to dream about something else besides their sport. When they are exploring, encourage them to note any possibilities that come to mind. There are no wrong answers- the worse thing that they can do is disregard ideas. If they think that an idea is “dumb” it limits their belief in their ability. Dream big, then shape the dream as they build on it.
Other tips to help your athlete build confidence on doing things outside of sports is to encourage them when they gain wins like exploring something new- no different than when they began with the basics of learning their sport.
Bottom line, athletes must dream big with their dreams especially the ones outside of sports. Why? Because they are capable of so much more beyond sports, they just need to be reminded of that.
If you have questions on how to help build a stronger athlete, book a 30-minute session right here on our site so that we may connect.
Lorraine Eloms | Top Speed Athletics & Mental Performance and Life Coaching, helping young athletes develop the mental and emotional tools to compete and thrive.
