Create a Productive and Stress-Free Athletic Experience This Fall for Your Child

PARSIPPANY, N.J., Sept. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- With the school year approaching, many parents will be confronted with the predicament of how to best guide their child's involvement in the youth sporting scene. These days, even youth sports have become big business and adults often feel the push-and-pull of the process. How, then, can parents make the right choices and create a low-stress and productive athletic journey for their kids?

According to Garret Kramer, author of STILLPOWER: The Inner Source of Athletic Excellence, "The first step a parent should take is to avoid the trap of following someone else's 'how-to-parent' blueprint." Instead, Kramer insists that successful decisions are made from clear mind-sets, while disastrous decisions are made from bound-up, insecure, or anxious mind-sets. Kramer suggests that it's less important to analyze whether a sports decision is right or wrong, but rather examine the state of mind from which the decision is made.

Parents can and should play an important and supportive role in their child's athletic activity. However, simply involving children in athletics will not automatically guarantee a productive outcome or create a competitive, self-disciplined, or resilient child. Yet, when parents guide their children from clarity or inspiration, and not confusion or desperation, odds are that any experience (athletics included) will play an empowering role in their future development.

Kramer recommends the following three simple, but essential, reminders for guiding your family through the fall sport season:

1. Parents make productive choices for their kids when their actions are based on intuition, not an outsider or expert's opinion.  

Don't assume that because your children are the number one priority, you will always make the proper decisions for them. Kramer believes that proper decisions are made from proper mind-sets. "If parents feel uneasy or an 'off' feeling in their gut when pushing their child too hard -- or not hard enough -- it is an instinctive sign that they are headed down the wrong road and other option should be considered."

2. Do not worry about the current accusation of living vicariously through your children. This only exacerbates this common concern.

Many sport parents are accused of living vicariously through their kids as they overwhelm them with activities. However, Kramer points out that living vicariously is only the symptom of parents acting on thoughts and feelings that occur as their own insecurity or ego kicks in. Instead, he suggests that one look toward their state of mind before they act, not the behavior after the action.

3. When parents are feeling "low," overwhelmed, or not at their best, they should avoid making any parental decisions.    

While this may seem obvious, it is often overlooked. The fast pace of life and overuse of multi-tasking has numbed us against the ability to gauge if we are truly in the right frame of mind for certain activities. It is vital for parents to appreciate that errant thought and moods are normal -- especially when the subject of their loving emotions is their own child. Instead of questioning self-worth or sanity, Kramer recommends to simply distrust the content of your thinking when a wayward mood occurs. In fact, acting from this low place is the number-one reason that parents continually find themselves in the bound-up level of functioning where effective choices are scarce.

Garret Kramer, featured on ESPN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and more, is the founder and managing partner of Inner Sports, LLC (http://www.garretkramer.com). His revolutionary approach to performance has transformed the way players, coaches, professional teams, and even parents view the athletic and life journey. Contact Garret Kramer directly at [email protected].

For More Information
Contact: Garret Kramer, [email protected], 979.401.9097

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SOURCE Inner Sports, LLC