"My Child Needs Help" — SS #50

“My son has been coached by his father for about eight years now. It’s been a tough road for both of them, but in our country, we don’t have many better options. My husband is also afraid to hand over the coaching to someone else who might not care as deeply. That said, this setup sometimes causes tension.

My son has moments of frustration because of the father-son dynamic. At times, he feels alone—other kids have full teams supporting them, and he doesn’t. He also struggles to concentrate during matches and gets distracted by things happening off-court.

Tennis is his whole life—he doesn’t go to school, so everything revolves around the sport. But even though he loves it deeply, he sometimes doesn’t know how to express that love when he’s on court.”

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I received the above set of questions from a parent asking for help with their teenage son. I’m going to use sports and performance psychology theory to help them out.

For context, the son has been ranked as high as no. 7 in all of Europe in the 16s in tennis. So, they’re obviously playing at a high level.

If you’re a parent, coach, or even player, I hope my answers are genuinely helpful.

Point 1: Fear of Bringing on Outside Voices.

I get it. I, too, like thousands of tennis players around the world, had a parent/child coaching relationship. It can be difficult to navigate, especially as boys start to mature, want to develop their own identities and try to find their place in the world.

And parents are correct that no one is going to care for their children like they do. That being said, parents underestimate the value of bringing on outside voices. These voices could lend critical insight, support when required, and offer new perspectives for their child’s development.

It’s not about giving this new person or new coach the keys to the car and expecting them to never give them back. But it’s about inviting them along for the ride, perhaps into the passenger seat, and asking for their thoughts and inputs on the coming journey. The family is still in control of the direction of the vehicle. But they should be willing to take onboard input. Input like, “You’re heading straight for a cliff here if you don’t adjust your approach.” Or even simple things like, “We need to spend some time making your child’s serve a weapon. Right now it’s the weakest part of his game.”

For example, I know so many parents are unwilling to bring on sports psychology professionals because they think that this means that their child has some sort of “mental problem.” Other than misunderstanding what we do, parents are potentially depriving their children of building the mental skills required for consistent quality performance.

I will add a word of caution here, though. Be wary of jumping from coach to coach to coach every year. The way motor programming and myelination work, you don’t want to be changing up technique and ball striking skills every year.

Point 2: Frustration from the Son Due to Father/Son Dynamic

Intrinsic motivation. I’ll say that again. Intrinsic motivation. You want to develop intrinsic motivation in athletes.

What does that look like?

• The player is the one who wants to go to the practice courts

• The player is the one who wants to improve their skills

• The player is the one willing to do daily imagery exercises because they know it helps them perform

• The player is the one who wants to travel and compete

Notice the absence of a coach or parent yelling at the player, guilting the player, or manipulating the player to get them to do the work.

And to develop intrinsic motivation, there are three main psychological needs that you need to consider—this is based on Deci & Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory. They are: competence, relatedness, and autonomy.

As the son is heading towards adulthood, I can imagine that autonomy might be the biggest challenge at this stage. What is autonomy? Feeling like he has a say in where his life and tennis are going. Giving him more of control over his journey and making him realize that he is the one who impacts his final destination.

Think about it this way. Let’s use our imaginations. You are 17. Your parent controls every moment of your week and your life:

No, you can’t eat that. No, you have to practice this. No, you have to study now. No, you can’t go spend time with your friends because I want you to work on your serve. No, we can’t play that tournament, we have to go to this other one. No, do the warm-up routine I taught you. No, you’re going to use this string. No, you have to use these new rackets. No, you can’t do that, you have to go train. No, you have do what I say.

Do you get it?

Taking away autonomy from someone is a surefire way of making them lose intrinsic motivation in sport and performance. These are some of the reasons that players start to hate tennis.

Telling children to be grateful for all the work, time, and money you’ve spent on them won’t help them with their motivation, by the way. Guilt doesn’t build intrinsic motivation; only resentment.

So, what can you do?

Give them back some autonomy.

How do you want to develop your game? Which skills do you want to add to your game?

This doesn’t mean letting them do whatever they want, though. For example:

Okay, we have to do conditioning—which would you rather do? Spider drills or 400m sprints? Anything else? It’s up to you.

You’ve been working really hard for the last few weeks… do you want to practice on Sunday or would you rather take the morning off and do some yoga instead and then maybe hang with your friends?

Giving your child back some component of autonomy will go a long way towards creating intrinsic motivation in their pursuit of tennis.

Let’s quickly touch on the son feeling alone. Here, relatedness comes in.

Competitive tennis can be a brutal and cut-throat industry. I’m sure. But that being said, you can form relationships and support networks along the way. Individuals need to feel like they belong—in some sense—to the community they are partaking in or involved in. If your son feels alone, encourage training sessions with competitors of a similar age. Get them to hang out once in a while outside of tennis if possible.

Relatedness can also be built in other ways. For example, bring a sports psychology professional onboard who checks in with your son once a month, or a physical trainer who he sees once a month. This will signal to him that, yes, I have a team around me. I have a working alliance. I am connected. Though they don’t travel with me, I have a diverse and supportive network around me. 

To be clear, relatedness means not just having generic connections, but having people and networks around you that care for you beyond your performance. An athlete can be surrounded by the “best” support network, but if they perceive that all that this network cares about is their results, they won’t meet this psychological need.

Point 3: Struggling to Concentrate and Distracted by Court Stimuli

This one is a little harder because I would have to find out what exactly is going on with his thoughts or what is exactly distracting him. So I can only offer generic advice. For example, he can try a shorter version of Kaufman et al.’s (2018) Mindful Sport Enhancement to help him with his concentration. Link below.

If he doesn’t blend well with mindful-acceptance approaches, he can also try cognitive behavioral approaches to curb the effects of psychological factors that might be standing in his way. Link below.

Again, think about the information that we just covered. He has to be the one driving engagement in improving his concentration.

Point 4: Tennis is His Whole Life

I’m not as familiar with the research around athletic identity. But I can say from a small understanding that it is important that he develop himself as more than just a tennis player. Tennis is something that he does. It’s something that he’s good at.

Why is this important?

Because you don’t want to base your whole persona and sense of being on what you do. If he hits a slump and doesn’t perform as well, then it becomes, If I’m not good at tennis, then i’m not worth much. Tying self-worth to results in a sport is not a great way to go. Your son is more than just a ball-striking machine. And it’s important that you encourage and help him grow through that lens. Develop him as a human being first.

It’s Just Information

I hope this was helpful and lends some insight into the kinds of work that sport psychologists and sports psychology practitioners do. Except we would also help you apply this information, monitor progress, and adjust as required. Simply receiving this information is not enough. You have to actively work on applying it.

Perhaps some of this information was confronting. Perhaps it was hard to swallow.

I get a few messages asking for free help every week. As long as you’re happy if I respond to them in my newsletter or other public venues (with your details anonymized), feel free to keep sending them through! I love helping tennis players.

You can always just reply to this email if you want to chat, share your story, or have questions.

P.S.: I gave answers based on minimal information from the parent. A normal working relationship usually begins with a 30 to 45-minute intake session so that the practitioner can fully understand the client and their situation.

Disclaimer: I am not an Association of Applied Sports Psychology CMPC, certified sports psychology practitioner, nor am I a licensed mental health counselor, PsyD, or clinical PhD. I am pursuing a master’s in sports, exercise, and performance psychology, and I am a sports psychology practitioner-in-training. I have over 20 years of experience in tennis, including playing, coaching collegiately and with professional players, along with club management experience as a director of programs. I am certified by the Professional Tennis Registry and am a member of Tennis Australia. My aim is to bring the best information to tennis players around the world so that you can apply it for long-term improvement—but sometimes I will make mistakes. If this is your area of research or expertise, and you feel I’ve misunderstood something, please get in touch with me and if required I will happily issue a correction.