Seeing Tennis Through Your Child's Eyes...

Isn’t it amazing how tennis seems a lot easier to play while watching from the sidelines. But it’s just not that easy in the heat of battle. So for your child, whose brain is still developing, it can be incredibly challenging to respond well to match challenges like nerves and frustration under stress. This is true even for world class performers. So if he/she does face difficulties in tennis that are hard for you to understand, it’s important that you begin by trying to see the situation through his/her eyes.

Responding With Empathy

I rarely work with a parent who has anything but the best of intentions for their child. But often in our attempts to help someone we can overlook their experience because we judge the situation from our own point of view.

This can lead to miscommunications...

But by being empathetic to your child’s difficult tennis experiences you successfully join with him/her in seeing the situation through his/her eyes. And you’re able to not only explore his/her experience but also communicate to him/her that you understand his/her perspective.

This doesn’t mean that you have to agree with your child’s perspective, but by taking it into account before responding you can encourage his/her self-perception of importance, and help him/her know that you understand how he/she feels.

Let’s Consider An Example...

Let’s imagine the situation of a child who is trying to win a close match. But towards the end of the match the child tightens up, starts playing tentatively, and loses a match he/she should have won…A sense of embarrassment and distress engulfs him/her.

Watching on, his/her parents experience frustration and confusion as to why their child has lost another close match. Let’s look at two different patterns of response that the parents might make:

A Lack of Empathy...

Responses that lack empathy usually take a predictable course:

Unaware- In this case the parents would respond without awareness of the internal experiences of their child (embarrassment and distress).

Interpret- They would then interpret the situation through the lens of their own experiences (frustration and confusion).

Judge- Since the parents were experiencing frustration and confusion they would likely judge their child's performance as ‘not good enough’, and possibly communicate a ‘personal flaw’.

Fix- With the intention of helping their child the parents then may try to explain what their child did wrong in an attempt to ensure he/she didn’t make the same mistake again. The problem here is that by not stopping to consider their child’s experience, these parents don’t communicate an understanding for how the child feels, likely causing him/her to feel more difficulties regarding the outcome.

A Path to Empathy

An empathetic response would look very different:

Aware- In this case the parents begin by recognizing their own internal experiences and considering their child’s experience.

Explore- But to make sure they are on the right track they check in with their child to discover his/her distress and embarrassment.

Understand- Now that they understand and can feel their child’s internal experience (rather than their own), they let him/her know that they ‘get’ how difficult it is for him/her to lose such a close match.

Join- Now, rather than trying to fix the situation from their point of view, these parents join with their child in helping him/her cope with the disappointment by letting him/her know that it is normal to feel disappointed, and offering to be there to support him/her further if he/she needs them.

What You Can Do…

So next time you notice yourself trying to help your child by fixing a difficult situation that he/she encounters, step back for a minute and first check to make sure you have considered and understand how he/she feels about the situation.

This will allow you to collaborate with your child in a way that strengthens your relationship and makes it more likely that he/she will listen and take on board what you have to say in the future.

And if you'd like to learn more crucial communications you can have with your child to boost his/her mental toughness in tennis and life, you can get our '10 Commandments of Parenting Mental Toughness Checklist' here to help guide you along your tennis parenting journey...