Transform Your Approach to Supporting Your Young Athlete
Move from Pressure to Presence, from Control to Connection
As a parent of a young athlete, you want nothing more than to see your child thrive—not just in their sport, but as a whole person. Yet navigating the high-performance world of youth athletics can feel overwhelming. The pressure to say the right thing, make the right choices, and support their dreams without becoming "that parent" leaves many families feeling stuck between wanting to help and worrying they're doing harm.
What if there was a better way?
The Hidden Impact of Well-Intentioned Parenting
Even the most loving, supportive parents can unknowingly create the very obstacles they're trying to help their child overcome. Research shows that when parents focus primarily on outcomes, provide constant feedback, or allow their own emotions to rise and fall with their child's performance, young athletes often experience:
- Increased performance anxiety and fear of failure
- Decreased intrinsic motivation and joy in their sport
- Higher rates of burnout and early sport dropout
- Difficulty developing emotional regulation skills
- Strained parent-child relationships around athletics
The problem isn't that you care too much—it's that the youth sports culture often teaches us to care about the wrong things.
A Neuroscience-Based Approach to Athlete Parenting
As a licensed psychologist with 13 years of specialized experience in athlete parent coaching, I help families transform their approach using cutting-edge research from neurobiological development and sports psychology. Drawing from the groundbreaking work of Dr. Dan Siegel and principles of "whole-brain" development, my approach focuses on how your relationship and communication style literally shapes your child's developing brain.
Here's what the science tells us: Your child's brain—particularly the prefrontal cortex responsible for decision-making, emotional regulation, and resilience—continues developing into their mid-twenties. The quality of your connection and the way you respond to their struggles, successes, and setbacks directly influences their neural pathways and capacity for peak performance.
When parents understand how to support brain integration rather than fragment it, something remarkable happens: young athletes become more resilient, more motivated, and paradoxically, often perform better when they're not performing for their parents' approval.
How We Work Together
Individual Sessions
Workshops and Intensives
Individual Sessions
Personalized coaching tailored to your family's specific dynamics, your child's developmental stage, and the unique challenges you're facing. We'll work together to transform your approach using practical, science-based strategies you can implement immediately.
Group Programs
Workshops and Intensives
Individual Sessions
Join other athlete parents in small, intensive programs where you'll learn alongside families facing similar challenges. These programs combine education, skill-building, and peer support in a confidential, non-judgmental environment.
Workshops and Intensives
Workshops and Intensives
Workshops and Intensives
Focused, deep-dive sessions on specific topics like "Supporting Your Child Through Sports Anxiety," "Navigating the Recruiting Process," or "When Your Child Wants to Quit."
The Transformation You Can Expect
Improved Family Dynamics
Parents who work with me report profound shifts not just in their child's athletic experience, but in their overall family dynamics:
"I went from feeling anxious about every game to actually enjoying watching my daughter play. She's more confident, takes more risks, and our relationship has never been stronger."
"My son used to shut down after poor performances. Now he processes disappointment in a healthy way and bounces back faster. The biggest change? He knows his worth isn't tied to his stats."
"I learned that my job isn't to fix or motivate my child—it's to provide the emotional safety that allows their natural drive to flourish."
When parents understand their true role in their child's athletic development, young athletes consistently show increased:
- Emotional resilience and stress management
- Intrinsic motivation and love for their sport
- Ability to learn from setbacks and criticism
- Confidence to take performance risks
- Communication and relationship skills
Your Child's Brain Is Always Developing
Every interaction you have with your young athlete is literally shaping their neural pathways. The question isn't whether you're influencing their development—you absolutely are. The question is whether that influence is helping them build the integrated, resilient brain that will serve them in sport and life.
Research in neuroplasticity shows us that it's never too late to change these patterns. Whether your child is 8 or 18, struggling with confidence or dealing with the pressure of high-level competition, their brain remains remarkably adaptable to new experiences and relationships.
Beyond the Game: Raising Whole People
The ultimate goal isn't just better athletic performance—it's raising young people who know how to handle pressure, bounce back from failure, maintain perspective, and pursue excellence for intrinsic rather than external reasons. The skills they develop through healthy sport participation become the foundation for everything else they'll do in life.
When you learn to parent your athlete from a place of presence rather than pressure, connection rather than control, something beautiful happens: they don't just become better athletes. They become more resilient, confident, and emotionally intelligent human beings.