Adapted from: Wrestling Through Adversity

This is the third blog that addresses the content of my free e-book, “Unlocking Your Child’s Potential: Six Game-Changing Points for Sports Success.” It aims at showing us how our kids, by their words and actions, teach us how to help them grow, if we just listen.

Why should parents actively listen to what their kids are saying?

It is important to listen to our children to foster trust, gain valuable insights into their lives and their perspectives, and to improve communication so we can better understand their needs, fears, and desires. Listening assists young people to feel valued, understood as persons, and empowered.

The benefits of listening to your children are:

• Building stronger bonds between parent and child
• Creating a safe place to openly express feelings and thoughts
• Providing opportunities to give empathy and support to them
• Helping children to feel more confident
• Reducing the risk of mental health issues during a crisis
• Learning how to solve problems
• Showing them how to be leaders

What can parents learn from young people about sports and life?

Young people can teach parents to:

• Be open to trying new things
• Have fun and laugh
• Get excited about things –big or small
• Understand that winning isn’t everything
• Express their feelings sincerely
• Adapt to change
• Be creative
• Relax and let things go
• Be active

A lesson on what parents can learn from their teens

As a peak performance coach, a concerned mother reached out to me to talk about a situation she found challenging for her and her 17-year-old son who is a wrestler. In part, our discussion focused on a recent loss on the wrestling mat that he “should have won.” At the end of the conversation, I spoke to the student-athlete about my program, “Winning Ways for Wrestlers,” and he was open to working with me as an opportunity to grow and learn the Mindful Toughness® skillsets I teach.

Our first session took place the following week where both parents attended for consultation at the start of the session in the presence of their son. Each got to voice their concerns and opinions, which is my usual protocol.

In a private room their son revealed how he took down a formidable opponent in the match mentioned by his mother but failed to score more after “freezing,” which resulted in a loss because of a “fight-or-flight response that weakened his legs. Since he had never experienced this pain before, he did not know how to counter the reaction and was in a daze, which no one addressed subsequently. Despite his embarrassment initially over the loss and the negativity of others, upon personal reflection, he saw the benefit and value of scoring the takedown, which built confidence in himself for the future.

In this case, the lack of listening and the pressure to win placed on their son overshadowed the success he had with the swift takedown. In turn, it prevented him from emoting how he felt when in fight-or-flight and what to do on a feedback loop to prevent it from reoccurring. Thus, his parents missed an opportunity to learn the lesson his son could have taught them about winning in sports and in life.

I felt great!

Despite the miscommunication with his parents, to show that he learned what to do to improve on the mat after our first session, he wrestled at a tournament the following weekend. He later wrote: “I did amazing this weekend, and my whole vibe was different. I wrestled great…I used the breathing techniques before, and I felt great!”

What my kids taught me                                                                                                                                                      

While raising my four children as a young mother, I recall being doubtful at times about my childrearing capabilities, and as I look back and reflect now, I see how my children helped me to learn what to do to help them.

On the piano bench

When I was pregnant with my fourth child and for some years later, I took piano lessons in my home. During the 4^th of July parade, high school bands played on the main street of a nearby town, and my abdomen and baby bounced up and down inside so hard from the vibrations of the music that I had to go three blocks away from the parade route for her to calm down.

When she began walking around by holding onto our furniture, my daughter would climb up on the piano bench and sit there, placing her fingers on the piano keys, saying: Momma, show me where my fingers go [on the keyboard], and she would imagine herself reading the music and playing it.

She started piano lessons at five years of age. When she had her first piano recital, she was on her way to the stage and fell. She wore her Sunday shoes and a pretty lace recital dress. After the fall, she picked up her music off the floor, gracefully stood up and fluffed up her dress with an air of confidence and focused on ascending the stage steps. Without her feet touching the pedals, she sat on the bench and played with aplomb on a large concert piano her three-minute rendition of “Ode to Joy.”

I think Beethoven would have been proud because I know I was. She taught me that, when you fall, you must get up, brush yourself off, and start all over again in harmony.

The sit-up champ

Another daughter, when she was in grade school, won the sit-up and push-up contest and scored higher than the boys, but her name was not listed as the winner. I went to the school principal to ask why and was told that it was embarrassing for the boys to lose to a girl. Besides, she questioned whether my daughter was cheating. To prove herself to the gym teacher, he demanded that she, but not the boys, repeat her winning performance, and she won the award. The strength of my daughter and bias towards her taught me how to be, as a woman and mother, a strong advocate for my children.

On the balance beam

At eight, my third daughter had recently joined her first gymnastics club and learned all the routines soon afterwards. Since toddlerhood, she always loved to tumble. During her first competitive meet, she got through the first three events, scoring high on floor, but fell off the balance beam twice before finishing her routine. Thinking she would be disappointed, I did not know what to say to her. However, she bounced back with a smile to the stands where I was sitting and said, “Mom, didn’t I do good on the balance beam? I scored five points” (out of ten). She showed me how to balance myself and to hop back on the beam of life when I fall off.

A champion on the mat

My son, as a newborn, tried to escape from the nursery bassinet and said at an early age that he wanted to be a wrestler when he grew up. At 16 he had an allergic reaction to food that caused an asthma attack at wrestling practice. Our doctor advised him not to wrestle because of shortness of breath that required a nebulizer and inhaler, but for the benefit of his team, he was adamant about doing so at a dual meet. I watched him turn blue on the mat when he wrestled two weight classes up to win.

Afterwards, a spectator approached me and said he was surprised he did not pin his opponent. During the State tournament that year, he struggled with breathlessness. People placed bets on him to win, but he fell short of their expectations. However, he bounced back the next year when he won several national competitions. In college, he became an all-American wrestler. He taught me how to wrestle through adversity to win in life.

Learn more

You can learn more about my peak performance coaching practice on my website, https://www.idealperformance.net and about my book: Wrestling Through Adversity: Empowering Children, Teens, & Young Adults To Win In Life, on https://www.drchristinesilverstein.com.

The book is available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and Audiobook. It contains other case stories of interest from my practice and details on how to use Mindful Toughness® skillsets to improve your performance and meet your goals.

I invite you to follow me on my Facebook page, The Summit Center for Ideal Performance and subscribe to my educational YouTube channel, The Young Navigator, to meet me face-to-face.