Jeff Greenwald

For the past 17 years I have worked with parents and high-achieving young men and women helping family members, the children and their parents, deal better with the steadily intensifying anxieties which afflict them these days, including, not the least, the very intense pressures on student athletes in every sport in which they participate, from soccer, to golf, basketball, tennis, swimming, track. Millions of students, at all levels of the educational landscape, participate in sports; a great many, far too many, drop out, discouraged, thereby robbing themselves of the many life lessons their participation can provide. There are lots of reasons why they drop out – the fear of failure, the disappointment which comes with loss, and injury due to early specialization before they are ready. Coaches, who have the children only part-time, can do only so much to keep their players playing until the benefits kick in and the kids come to love and appreciate it. Enter: the parents. They know their children best, know best the fire that burns within, know best how to motivate their student athletes to persevere. They need to understand their importance, fully, and be equipped to help.

The U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado utilizes a questionnaire which helps trainers understand fully the strengths and vulnerabilities of aspiring Olympic athletes – their motivation, their physical and psychological response to stress, their readiness to compete and their ability to manage the many life pressures they will encounter on their road to excellence and achievement.

I have incorporated this questionnaire, with permission, into a one-of-a-kind presentation for any adult audience, whatever its gender, affiliation, occupation, or age. All they need to be is...parents. Parents have the most central role in the development of their children – their motivation, their confidence level, their approach to adversity, their perseverance against odds, their relationships with peers, their handling of criticism, their response to competition, and a whole lot more.

The presentation works like this. I put the questionnaire in the hands of every invited member of an audience, in advance, which their children will complete. I receive the results immediately, analyze them, codify them so no single child can be identified, compare the results with results obtained from world champions or other high-achieving groups, then present those results and comparisons to the audience when they come together. Once parents understand their children’s responses under pressure, I then teach them specific skills they can use to help their children navigate the pressures they face every day on and off the athletic field.