Hi there,

Last week, I was watching the figure skating competition during the Winter Olympics. 

Before one of the skaters performed, they shared her entire amazing story. She talked about how she really struggled with internal pressure, trying to be perfect, chasing those perfect scores that you can never really achieve.

Four years of training for 90 seconds, and if one thing goes wrong, it's just done.

My thought as a mom was:
How do you raise kids who can handle that kind of pressure without crumbling?

It's not about raising Olympians

Now, I’m not saying to raise them as Olympic champions. 

But how can kids build that kind of mental resilience to try, fail, and try again?

You want pressure, a little challenge to push them to get better, but not so much that they can’t perform.

Some kids naturally want to try new things. They're like, "Sign me up for everything!" Other kids are resistant, usually because it's unfamiliar. It makes them nervous.

You know your kid best.

If they are generally resistant to trying new things, give them a way out. Something like, "Hey, we're just going to try it three times. If you still don't like it, we can stop."

You can introduce them to different things what they stick to should come from them.

And that's the balance.

What to point out when you're watching the Olympics (or any competition)

Most athletes don't build that resilience on their own. They have coaches. Sports psychologists. A whole team of people helping them get there.

As parents, we are their team. If you watched the Winter Olympics or any match- here's what’s worth talking about with your kids: 

1. Point out the achievements

All these athletes are at their best, achieving the highest level in the world.

It's aspirational. It can motivate kids to find what they're passionate about and try to achieve at their own highest level.

2. Also, point out the failures

Talk about the mistakes, the falls, and the people who didn't win. As we all know, most Olympians don’t win, and only a few get medals. For kids, there’s so much to learn from these athletes about how to bounce back from the loss (or their own expectation of achieving). 

For those athletes playing a lesser-known sport that people watch once every four years, they usually have to work other jobs because they're not making money from it.

They're literally doing it because they're purely passionate about the sport.

That's the lesson: for kids, finding and KEEPING that passion is important.

If your kid is showing promise in something and you start thinking, let me sign them up for more coaching, get them more help, take them to tournaments, that's when you have to be careful.

Sometimes, as soon as it starts becoming a job to them, the fun can go away and that’s the moment when they may lose their love for it. 

Note for My Fellow Laid-Back Parents

You're not raising Olympians but individuals who can handle pressure, bounce back from failure, and keep going even when it's hard.

And they can't do that alone.

They need you to introduce them to things. To push a little when they're scared of the unfamiliar. To back off when the fun starts turning into a job.

They need a team and you're part of it. Your job is to help them find their passion, not to decide what it should be.

See you next week,
Lakshmi 💛