What's Hot
March 4, 2003
Hi!
My daughter, an almost 11 year old figure
skater, working towards competitive goals, and I read
your site regularly. Since she has started to train one
day a week away from home, at the national training centre,
we have become more attuned to the mental challenges and
needs our little one faces. Over the last year, we had
many problems with her base coach, located here at home
with issues relating to negativity and unprofessionalism,
even worse after our daughter suffered a concussion from
a freak stroking incident. As her self esteem worsened,
I reached out for help, and discovered that this behaviour
was neither normal nor acceptable. S he eventually chose
to leave that coach, and did so a few weeks ago. Already,
there have been huge improvements in both her love for
the sport and her skating itself.
What I wanted to alert you to , since you
are doing book reviews is a Fabulous book that another
skating parent in a similar situation gave me. Its called
“Games Girls Play:Understanding and Guiding Your
Young Female Athlete”, by DR. Caroline Silbey, who
was a skating athlete on the Olympic team herself, and
who has gone on to work with gymnasts, figure skaters
and others, in the her field as a renowned sports psychologist.
Every parent of a young female athlete should
read this book. It focuses on individual and team sports,
such as hockey or soccer, in an easy to read format, including
mental issues in young athletes, how to guide your children,
how coaches should guide their athletes, and little question
checklists for reinforcement, also understanding their
pressures, the dark side of sports, how to pick coaches,
how to support your coaches, guiding parents in being
supportive to the child and the right kind of support,
and knowing when issues related to coaching are inappropriate
or appropriate for your child. Most importantly, she uses
examples from her unnamed young clients that apply to
everyday life, such as the ride home in the car after
competition/practice/games, training for competitions
and games, etc etc….written purely from the perspective
of young and teen athletes.
Hopefully, this book can be mentioned at
some point in the future as I bet other parents would
be really interested. Its sort of a free look into how
your young athletes mind is working…and how she feels…
Keep on updating the site! We love it!
Regards
Paula M. Platero B.A, J.D.
This and many similar books can be found
on Amazon.com or click on the link
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312261632/inktomi-bkasin-20/002-1638424-6563229
