The Pressure Placed on Kids in Youth Sports

SportsEpreneur Podcast Network — Parental Influence and the Mental Health of Young Athletes with Lisa Bonta Sumii

[0:00–5:00]

Why Today’s Youth Athletes Are Breaking Down So Early

– Tommy John surgery in middle school

– Parental pressure and misinformed coaching

– Mental health warning signs in high-pressure environments

[00:01:15] Eric: Yesterday, a Cleveland Guardians fan from Ohio visited me. He mentioned how the guardians were doing well, but I told him that Shane Bieber one of the best pitchers. Was out for the season with Tommy John Surgery. This led to a conversation about how young athletes, even in middle and high school, are undergoing similar surgeries due to intense pressures and overuse.

[00:01:34] Eric: He shared how parents and coaches sometimes push kids too hard, believing it’s the path to the big leagues. I’ve seen this too. Parents yelling at coaches and refs, kids playing multiple games in a weekend, and the emotional toll it takes on young athletes. There’s a lot to unpack here, especially regarding the mental health impact on these kids.

[00:01:52] Eric: I’d love to hear your thoughts as a professional in this space.

[00:01:57] Lisa: I think the lack of information and [00:02:00] perspective about what it takes to actually go to the big leagues or the professional level is so misinformed. I think that like if I was to ask anybody on the roots about how do you become a professional, like if a young man or a young boy or a young girl goes up to them and says like, Hey, I wanna be like you.

[00:02:21] Lisa: The last thing they’re gonna say is the skills. Yes, you gotta develop the talent, physical skills, but what do you believe in? What is your character? What? How do you treat people? How do you interact? Because in the end, when you get higher and higher, whether it’s transitioning from high school and club to college or semi-pro pro, each of those transitions requires another level of maturity and like emotional intelligence.

[00:02:48] Lisa: That makes you stand out and give you the edge beyond the next person who’s actually right there with you too. How you communicate, how you show up, what, like you could be the [00:03:00] best player out there and pardon my French, but you could be an asshole and you’re not gonna make it. So when parents and coaches finally realize that that’s what you should be modeling and like allowing the young person to develop into the best person they can be.

[00:03:16] Lisa: You are gonna be able to express yourself in your sport in a way that you can look in the mirror and be proud of, and not be scared about what someone’s gonna say to you. You know, it’s so important that these young people feel like they matter beyond their sport and that their parents can be proud of them for who they are, not what they do over and over and over again.

[00:03:37] Lisa: Old school parenting and coaching around the grind around, we gotta just keep doing this. We gotta just keep. Insisting and persisting without the awareness and perspective of how that could be also harmful these days. I like to talk about the difference between grinding and gritty, being gritty, having grit, grinding [00:04:00] is, you know, like I just explained.

[00:04:01] Lisa: Something that you just keep doing no matter how you feel. Gritty is being aware of how things impact you and being ready to respond and be equipped. To handle tough moments, adversity, and know what you need to be well to be good because the mind and body connection is real if you are not tending to your mind how you feel.

[00:04:29] Lisa: And I’m not saying, so there’s this big thing too of like coaches say like, well, I ask them how they feel, then am I tiptoeing around their response? Then thus they can’t play. So I had this example in a coaching training where. A coach was like, yeah, well, if I ask ’em how they feel and they say they’re like feeling unmotivated or stressed out, like, what do I do with that?

[00:04:53] Lisa: Like, I’m like, well, you support it and be curious and understand what that is. You don’t just say like, sit the bench then, because that’s how you’re feeling. [00:05:00] Our emotions don’t prohibit us from expressing ourself in our sport. They actually can help us if properly tended to. So the curiosity might become in a form of.

[5:00–10:00]

The Difference Between Grinding and Grit

– Why relentless push can do more harm than good

– Coaches struggling with emotional check-ins

– Building awareness over just ‘toughening up’

[00:05:12] Lisa: I hear you’re stressed and feel unmotivated right now. Like do you feel like, you know, on a scale of one to 10, where are you at 10 being, oh, I’m severely that, and then how do you wanna cope with it? So if you’re 10, but your coping skills are 10 also, hey, you might be cool. It might simply just be a feeling like I just, you ask me how I felt, coach, this is how it is.

[00:05:33] Lisa: I’m still ready to go. It has nothing to do with it. I think coaches feel like they have to. Tend to it or fix it or heal it or do something. Coaches are very proud about, like, I know my kids, I know what they need. I know I was like, but when it comes to emotions, there’s some kind of block. But I think ’cause coaches feel like they have to fix it, take it on, in my opinion, you know, the emotional wellbeing, mental health, [00:06:00] you are providing that and being in that by the relationship that you have.

[00:06:05] Lisa: If it goes beyond your scope and role, know that you have people around you, your athletic trainer, there’s a level of training that they have around mental health. Having a mental performance coach or a clinical professional around you, even as a consultant to ask the questions, to have the resource, and then go back and take it to your team.

[00:06:25] Lisa: I think that’s good. We all do this together.

[00:06:28] Eric: How can coaches differentiate between low level situational emotions and more serious emotional states in their athletes? And how should they respond to each to ensure the athlete can still perform effectively

[00:06:38] Lisa: or it’s low level, right? It’s like an emotional, like, I’m feeling like this right now situationally.

[00:06:43] Lisa: ’cause I have this big exam tomorrow. Like you asked me how I’m feeling. I’m telling you. But like on a scale of one to 10, maybe it’s a two or a three and I’m good. I’m just, that’s who I am right now. Let’s go. I can still play my emotions don’t. Keep me from doing what I do.

[00:06:58] Eric: There’s been a word that’s come up [00:07:00] about a lot with the CEO of Nvidia.

[00:07:02] Eric: I don’t know if you’ve seen the clip about resilience. It’s like, I wish for you pain and suffering. I can’t teach resilience, but I need resilience. I need resilience in the company. I need resilience in you because you know things are gonna go wrong. So it’s how you deal with that. What kind of resiliency do you have to then continue to go forward?

[00:07:22] Lisa: The way I think about resilience is. Adversity, discomfort, pain even are an opportunity for us to build resilience. We are gonna experience some level of that in our lives, in our sport. And so we need to have mindful and skillful responses to adversity. Those tough moments, tough seasons, and that’s what builds resilience.

[00:07:45] Lisa: So I think so many people are like, oh, this is hard. And if you can have developed the growth mindset of. Any moment of diversity or challenge is an opportunity for you to learn about yourself and then grow. That’s an important thing [00:08:00] to develop. It’s not an easy thing to develop. It’s not natural. This society, we wanna always feel comfortable and good in general.

[00:08:07] Lisa: And so that is emphasized around us in our media, in our, the way we speak, the way we intake and consume content around us. It’s such a brainwash of like you’re doing something wrong if you don’t feel good all the time. So untrue, like for our kids and our parents to expect that we are, they are gonna be perfect is such a pressure that is not needed.

[00:08:36] Lisa: I don’t think we need to suffer. I was just talking to Myra Sack this morning in a podcast interview. She’s an incredible woman, deals with grief. She says suffering is the resistance to pain, not pain itself. That’s what she told me. You trying to fight the feeling of pain. When we need to move through it, we need to experience it.

[00:08:57] Lisa: There’s value in that. We don’t wanna numb it, pretend [00:09:00] it’s not there, push it down. But I think it’s like lack of education, but arrogance around like, I’m gonna do this very comfortably and I’m gonna look very comfortable and competent in it. I think a lot of the collegiate athletes I work with, especially the women, are like, I wanna look like I know what I’m doing.

[00:09:19] Lisa: I wanna look competent. And this is an interesting thing too, in front of other players, but I had a collegiate athlete say like in front of boys who might be watching. There’s so much to think about when you’re performing and the work is making sure that you don’t let that distract you from what you’re supposed to be doing.

[00:09:38] Lisa: You acknowledge it, recognize it, and then. We move, there’s always gonna be a distraction, whether it’s outside you or inside you, your own talk, your own thoughts. But like staying locked in so important and knowing how to do that. And that varies from human to human athlete to athlete about how we do that.

[00:09:56] Lisa: But resilience is something you develop [00:10:00] and we can’t be resilient without going through the tough times. And so, and expecting that there will come. And not blaming yourself. When they do, you’re not doing anything wrong. When tough times come, what could be quote unquote wrong is not taking it as an opportunity to learn and then apply that learning next time you’re in that situation.

[10:00–15:00]

Parents, Please Stay in Your Lane

– Sideline outbursts and their damage

– Undermining authority in front of your kid

– Why kids get embarrassed, not empowered

[00:10:21] Eric: How does parental behavior and the reactions of others impact young athletes’ performance and emotional wellbeing during games?

[00:10:28] Lisa: In the end, Eric, the kid is so embarrassed and mortified by their parent doing that. The parent, I think the athlete actually gets this better than the parent most of the time.

[00:10:41] Lisa: And ’cause it’s work. Because you wanna protect, we are both parents. We wanna protect, have our kids have a smooth ride. We don’t want them to go through stuff and we realize that they need to. That’s when the shift can change and you know. In baseball, in softball, each ref is gonna have, each ump [00:11:00] is gonna have their own strike zone.

[00:11:01] Lisa: And you have to learn that and know that that’s gonna happen. Game to game. That changes even at the high levels. Every UMP is different. Every blue is different. And so to hem and haw about something that’s out of your control doesn’t do anything for anyone. There are so many, like, you know, my girl plays softball so many moments when her teammates are so absolutely mortified because it’s developmental too, to care extremely about who’s looking at them, what they’re saying about them.

[00:11:33] Lisa: Like there’s such a hypersensitivity to that, their physicality. And so it actually takes the player outside of their area of comfort to a point where they can’t perform. ’cause they’re managing like these extra set of emotions that are definitely not needed and not necessary.

[00:11:52] Eric: Does that come from watching parents on the sidelines react or minimizing what took place on the field after the game?

[00:11:58] Lisa: People need to stay [00:12:00] in their lane. They need to pay attention and worry about themselves, not anybody else. You put your kid on this team and the coach is gonna coach whether you like what they’re coaching or not. Your role is to parent. Their role is to coach. I know most teams have initial paperwork at the beginning of the season, 24 48 hours.

[00:12:27] Lisa: Cool. Off zone before or period before a parent can even talk to a coach about what they thought happened or didn’t happen. If you want a coach, then sign up to be a coach. Your kid does not need you to be questioning the authority in their sport in front of them. ’cause it undermines everything. Like just you and I laugh, but like yeah, chill out and like know who you are and what you’re doing and how you impact people.

[00:12:57] Lisa: You know what you do [00:13:00] and say matters. We don’t want our kids to feel mortified and embarrassed, like let the coaches coach and you do you.

[00:13:07] Eric: What is going on to get a parent or guardian to go to that point?

[00:13:11] Lisa: Well, in the end, I mean, at the core is we wanna protect, we want to protect our children, our dependents, and it’s like there is no space to separate how we feel about maybe a perceived.

[00:13:33] Lisa: Dis or disrespect or like them getting the short end of the stick. What needs to happen? You know, and this is key to emotional intelligence, this is key to mindfulness, to parenting in a proactive way, in a thoughtful way, in a wear away is regulating your emotions. Just because that’s what you feel initially [00:14:00] doesn’t mean that you need to act on that.

[00:14:03] Lisa: Shoot. If I acted on every emotion I had about how I felt like my kid or kids were treated, I’d be up in the office every day. But I have a right to feel my emotions. I also have a responsibility to understand them, be aware of them, and act accordingly. I have control over my kids, not them. There’s a sort of injust situation that happens with them.

[00:14:28] Lisa: I’m talking to my kid first before. Any adult in the realm of sport or school, I wanna understand what they went through, what they need. Because again, if I go into, and this is a fact, if I go into my son’s school and talk to the teacher, he will be very embarrassed by that because there’s gonna be some aspect of, oh, his peers saw his mom go in maybe over here and like, what was that about?

[00:14:55] Lisa: And it’s just, it clips ’em at the knees around giving them the, the skill [00:15:00] to navigate and communicate with these adults. That is an important skill for our kids to learn. I don’t want your first way of coping to be going to an adult. I need you to try a couple times to sort it yourself, to have a conversation with your friend and then go, if that.

[15:00–20:00]

The Real Reason Parents Overreact

– Protection instinct vs. emotional intelligence

– Why calming down isn’t weakness—it’s parenting

– Learning to pause before you act

[00:15:23] Lisa: Maybe second or third option. I don’t want them to feel like that’s the only way something external is gonna help them through a situation. But I think the parent, you know, again, jumping back to that, is they wanna protect. That’s really at the core. And so our sort of fight or flight sort of physiological reaction, emotional reaction, psychological reaction to an unjust situation is we gotta protect, okay, so anyone who’s doing my kid wrong, I’m gonna go in there and like.

[00:15:54] Lisa: Do something about it when all we need to do is kind of notice where we’re at. Not all what we need to do, but we [00:16:00] need to practice on noticing where we’re at. Taking that breath, getting some distance from it, and then doing something after that. What you do after that, it’s very different than what you would do if you didn’t take that time.

[00:16:13] Lisa: It’s not all danger. That’s what our body’s saying though. Danger. Danger. Your kid’s being threatened or like, and so it’s like, like, oh my God, oh my God. But if we’re like. Is that really what it is? Like I know that’s what I feel, but is that really what it is? And was that the intention and move from there.

[00:16:33] Eric: How can parents be more self-aware and prevent themselves from reacting impulsively during their child’s sports events?

[00:16:39] Lisa: No, for sure. I mean, I think self-awareness. I mean, if my, and he doesn’t, I’m just gonna clarify. If my husband was doing all that, I would tell him to shut the fuck up. We have to have accountability to each other as parents, guardians around our kids, and know the harm that it can [00:17:00] cause.

[00:17:00] Lisa: I think that’s important. Like you yelling is not, they don’t even hear you. You’re just embarrassing yourself. The kid doesn’t hear you. And if they do, they’re embarrassed too. And so why are you doing this? Why is that important? How can you separate yourself? I mean, I think coaches and this come up a lot.

[00:17:20] Lisa: Written expectations at the beginning of a season about not just player conduct, but parent conduct reading about, this is what we stand for, this is what we don’t stand for. You know, we can’t have this. This is not helpful, this is helpful, and then they sign it so that it can be referred back to when that happens, like at this level that my daughter plays right now, coaches don’t even, they recruit the family, not just the player.

[00:17:49] Lisa: ’cause I don’t want quote unquote drama because I know the impact of that across it becomes a domino effect. And so setting the standard at the beginning about what is [00:18:00] okay and what isn’t and what’s expected is super important. And I think back to your point about like bad calls, I would challenge, is it a bad call or is it a call that you don’t want to see because it’s against your team?

[00:18:12] Lisa: What does bad mean? And. All referees, all sports, all levels, all umpires, all officials are human beings themselves. They’re doing the best they can. They’re trying to, you know, call a game that is fair and accurate. So they’re not out there saying, oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna make like 10 bad calls today. Like, that’s cool, I’m gonna do that.

[00:18:34] Lisa: They’re not doing that. They see what they see, you know, with their team. They couldn’t corroborate. Some have VR blah, blah, blah. But like, they’re not trying to do a bad job. This is their profession. This is their living. They wanna feel proud about it, you know? So questioning, what is a bad call? Why you think it’s that and could you keep it to yourself?

[00:18:57] Lisa: Possibly?

[00:18:58] Eric: How can young athletes balance [00:19:00] the pressure to specialize in one sport with the benefits of playing multiple sports?

[00:19:05] Lisa: I think that there’s again, misinformation and a lack of value to the fact that you being. A high level elite youth athlete has everything to do with your ability to physically perform if the coaches are evaluating, just that it’s incomplete.

[00:19:24] Lisa: So true story, when my daughter, when she was in eight, she tried out for like sort of the competitive league and softball. She was the worst physical skilled player there. The girls had been playing for years at the same scenario. At eight, they’d been playing for years, so she jumped over from martial arts.

[00:19:47] Lisa: She self-selected both martial arts and softball. The coach chose her because of her effort and her coachability. She was the worst player physically [00:20:00] on that team. She did not get a hit until the last tournament of the season. She was an out The coach kept giving her chances. She bat ninth, maybe not every game.

[20:00–25:00]

She Was the Worst Player on the Team—Then Got Recruited

– A powerful story of effort, support, and growth

– Why coachability beats raw skill

– The long game of youth sports

[00:20:15] Lisa: She would be in right field where she doesn’t get the ball, but she’s out there. My girl would go to every practice, never late, keep us on time, try her hardest. Fast forward, she’s being actively recruited to play collegiate softball at high academic schools ’cause she’s high performing student as well.

[00:20:38] Lisa: She’s very clear. Softball’s part of who I am, not all of who I am. I want to be in a place surrounded by other student athletes and students who appreciate and want to learn. She needs a community to do that is what she’s saying. And so we’re not going to one, she would probably run the bench day one [00:21:00] and have softball in her life.

[00:21:01] Lisa: Too much. D two, D three, small school. That values community, social justice, all of that. My point is, and those same girls, predominantly those same girls who she started with at age eight and nine are not playing in college for whatever reason. I can’t say why, why not? But when you are given that chance, and like I could, it was painful for me.

[00:21:27] Lisa: I felt bad a lot of times. I felt bad for her. The team, she’s not contributing. But no one gave up on her. She kept doing, I literally cried when she got her first hit. I cried like bald, like I was so happy for her. I don’t think she even realized what it meant because it meant something to me that was different than what it meant to her.

[00:21:45] Lisa: She’s like, I’m just gonna run. I hit the ball, I’m run. I’m like, girl, like the work and persistence and everything you’ve done to get here is like something that’s like not something little. And so. As long as she has fun. [00:22:00] ’cause that’s the thing I wanna stress about you sports, the love for movement, the love for physical activity, the love for being around your teammates in your sport.

[00:22:11] Lisa: That is the key for us as parents and coaches to keep emphasizing. It’s not to develop, you know, a professional athlete, because what’s gonna happen is they’re gonna fall outta love of the game, get burnt out, and not see it as a space that actually includes them. The goal may use sports even when you can get, maybe if you wanna play competitively or you still gotta have fun.

[00:22:35] Lisa: You gotta love the game, you gotta love playing your game. And if you fall outta love, you can fall back in. You got to prioritize that. And you gotta play for yourself, not anyone else. And you have spaces. To be able to do that. Like for me, I want to be mom to my kid, I’m gonna put her in front of sports psychology professionals, her personal trainer, her hitting and defensive coaches, [00:23:00] her acupuncturist, her hypnotherapist.

[00:23:03] Lisa: And these are real people. Like we’ve put these in front of her over her, her lifetime, because I wanna be mom, I wanna love on her. I wanna like tell her she’s amazing no matter what she does. Like I wanna like be that safe person that’s not gonna judge her day in and day out for what she didn’t do. They don’t need that.

[00:23:21] Lisa: And so I know I’m humble enough to know and, and have the wherewithal to know that I can’t develop her by myself. I need other professionals in a village, as they say, like other people to come in behind her to help her be that person.

[00:23:34] Eric: How can we teach young athletes to focus on controlling what they can, such as their effort and attitude, while also understanding and coping with the uncontrollable aspects of sports, like roster decisions and behind the scenes politics in order to foster resilience and mental wellbeing?

[00:23:49] Lisa: This is the sum though of that control, the controllables. You cannot control how a coach picks their roster. You cannot [00:24:00] control. The politics are behind the scenes that go on in those choices. They are subjective. Coach does not ever have to explain why they cut someone or why they didn’t, so. The best lesson we can teach our kids about that is we’re gonna be dealing with this all of our lives, and we need to teach our kids that.

[00:24:19] Lisa: There’s gonna be so many situations where you’re not gonna like the decision, you’re not gonna like the situation, but what can you do about it? Not because you did something wrong, but again, how do you learn from this? How do you know what’s in your control and what isn’t? How do you move and exercise that control?

[00:24:41] Lisa: Take accountability and look inward about what you could have done differently. You’re always learning about yourself. We’re not externalizing it and blaming it on the fact that we’re black or the fact that we’re too short, or the fact that that coach didn’t like me or the fact that he liked this other person better because of their sister of the [00:25:00] body block.

[25:00–End (~27:00)]

Control the Controllables: The Mental Side of Sports

– Dealing with politics, cuts, and unfair calls

– Why mental performance coaches matter

– Every athlete, parent, and coach needs this edge

[00:25:00] Lisa: You could go on and on about like the reasons why you think it happened. That doesn’t get you anywhere. What do you need to do? To show that you are aware of what’s in your control, like the effort, like putting in the work, like continuing to train your body and your mind to learn about your own mental health and what mental health is and how mental performance coaches can also help coaches our top three clients as mental performance consultants slash coaches.

[00:25:32] Lisa: ’cause we can consult with the coach. You don’t have to. Give them mental performance coaching, we can consult on them about these are the tools and skills you can use. This is how you learn about your players as human beings first and foremost. Then they can go out and coach with that learning. But our top three clients are teams, the athlete and the coaches.

[00:25:52] Lisa: And so being able to know that everyone needs a little bit of help and understanding and education [00:26:00] about how performance and overall wellbeing. Can be implemented in a sport team. A sport ecosystem is key. It’s almost like, in my opinion now, it’s like coaching with like one arm. It’s like you’re keeping yourself from a resource that can be really helpful because you’re scared of it or there’s stigma or you don’t understand it.

[00:26:21] Lisa: Well then ask, we can explain it, but like I think when people come to it is when they have their own personal experience about. Mental health or like the clinical side, like depression, anxiety, actually we being able to have the diagnosis and still thrive within it to be healthy. But the also, like I went through mental performance crisis that led my mental health to decline a little bit through an injury or being cut or blah, blah, that.

[00:26:52] Lisa: I think people just need, everyone needs a little bit of an edge and a leveling up if that has to include [00:27:00] knowing the mental side of things.

[00:27:21] Eric: Let’s talk about your podcast joining this one of a kind podcast network on SportsEpreneur.