Ep3 - Your Kid is Opting Out

Betsy, I feel like you're on a roll right now. I'm on a roll. I think you're on a roll. Always.

Always on a roll. Dave, you're doing a great job. Shout out to Dave. It's also, I think, a

legitimizer to have a mysterious off-camera person that you reference. Like,

a lot of Dave work on that. Welcome to Raising the Resilient Athlete, the show that uses youth

sports as a window into one of the hardest and loneliest jobs there is, parenting. I'm your host,

Rob Carmichael, and in each episode, I sit down with a cognitive behavioral therapist and an expert

in parent training, as well as the CEO of one of the largest youth sports organizations in the

country. We tackle what you see on sidelines everywhere, the nerves, the meltdowns, the self

-doubt, the conflict with others, and we give parents practical tools to better support their kids.

Consider that youth sports and activities are perhaps the most common vehicle kids have for

building resilience skills.

Welcome to Raising the Resilient Athlete. Today we're talking about opt-outers. These are the kids

that maybe they don't want to get in the car, maybe they don't want to take the big shot, maybe

they don't want to go in the game while they're on the sideline. Carl, what's the last thing you

have opt-outed of that you wish you didn't? The last thing I opted out of was jogging.

Jogging? Okay. I'm grateful every day for it. The last thing I opted out of was video games.

Okay. I just wasn't good at them. And I looked at the landscape and realized I was never going to

catch up and that there was nothing for me there.

I think you need a reframe there. I mean, you're never going to catch up. That's a, that's a tall

order, right? Of course you're going to opt out. Yeah. I watched this video the other time that was

like this girl that ran a hundred meter race and she was dead last, you know, and she came over to

her coach and her coach said, you weren't dead last. You just had a personal best. And that by

changing the goalpost, it turns into little wins. That's one of the biggest things I've taken from

Betsy in all of this is like, where do you find these little wins? And the question for me is, when

are things categorically a loss and we need to let them alone versus when are we building back

towards, hey, you still lost the race compared to everybody else, but you said a personal best. I

think both things that you said were perfect. You lost the race. And then you said about a personal

best, but I'm going to change the word in between. You said, but, and I want it to be and. He does

both things are true. You lost the race and you said a personal best. That's cool.

Yeah. I think the problem is that the personal best part still feels like a moral victory and it

feels like this construct. And they're like, yeah, I know you're saying I got my personal best. I'm

still the worst athlete here. And so I think a lot of it comes down to belief is how deeply. does

that child receive that, hey, this is your personal best, keep working, versus how much are they

looking at the mountain head and feeling like it's insurmountable? One of our kids has had some

struggles with being very frustrated with how he's doing relative to others.

He's doing well for him, but he knows he's not where the other kids are. And we used to say things

like this to him, hey, you did well for you, and I realize it's not where you want to be. And he

kept getting upset about it. Finally, I had to really pause and say, what's going on?

What is so uncomfortable about this for you? When you hear me say that, like you're doing well for

you. And he said, I don't want to hear that part. I want to just hear acknowledgement of what I'm

saying. He only wanted the validation of how he was thinking. So I switched to that and that was

better. And I think that goes to show that sometimes I use blanket overall strategies we can say

for parents. And with that said, there's no one size fits all. I think we lead with our general

guidelines. And at the end of the day, it's how is your kid responding? And how do you adapt and

personalize for him or her? Because everyone is going to receive feedback differently. My wife was

a Division I college All-American. And she's the type of athlete where she wants negative

feedback. She wants to know, where can I improve? Give her a moral victory. Hey, this was your

personal best. She hates you for saying that. So it has to be individuated. And it's not a one

-size-fits-all. approach yeah and what do you do as a parent if you're like is that enough right

i'm speaking of our child it's like okay there's validation but where are we going what do you mean

if it's not enough like it doesn't seem to have necessarily improved the situation with him right

well so the second part of that is what would be helpful and then is it just if they're like

nothing yeah so okay kids say all the time right like nothing and so when that happens my

suggestion is always to float a few possibilities. Well, you know,

sometimes I hear parents say this and this. Sometimes I hear parents say this.

And I don't know, maybe one of those things. You kind of step back and play dumb a little bit. And

then it's sort of like you're giving your kid the word bank, you know, and they can. Oh, yeah, that

one is would be helpful. Yeah, I think, Betsy, that's such an important perspective to come to this

from, because the most powerful words the kids can say to you when you're coaching them or you're

parenting them, you're trying to get them to move forward on something is, I don't care. Because it

just jacks the entire situation. It takes the power away from the coach or the parent,

or that's what it feels like, at least. And then the parent or the coach becomes desperate. And

they say, well, what are you talking about? You know, they do it harder than your kid.

You've lost. Yeah. Man, I think you could set 50 times and still it will be under communicating.

When you're working harder than your kid, it doesn't work. So what is the move? What does work at

that point? I don't care. I think we need a specific example to talk through. Well, all right,

I've got a kid at practice running through a drill. Eleven of the kids are working super hard. One

kid's going through the motions. Body language is terrible. And then you challenge them on it or

you say, hey, I've noticed this. What's going on? I don't really care. First of all, do not say

anything to this kid, even on the porcelain, because everybody knows this kid's attitude has been

bad. Everybody knows you are talking to this kid right now. And it's super embarrassing. All the

kid wants to do is get out of that situation as quickly as possible and go be like everyone else.

You wish you told me that a couple months ago. That's right. Unless you as coach make a routine of

pulling kids aside, then that's okay. Because you've established this is the norm. Right? That's

good. I totally agree with you, Betsy. We use this analogy with the closed fist, right? With the

thumb and the fingers wrapped over it. And that the thumb is the amygdala, right? And that's the

kid's fight or flight reflex. And the fingers wrapped around it are that frontal lobe that's

processing, making executive decisions. And that when a kid has flipped his lid, like the fingers

are up, right? And they're thinking in that fight or flight mode, there's very little progress to

be made in that moment, right? And so when I think about your tools and what I've learned from you,

it's that The tools need to be taught in a calmer moment, right?

And it's difficult, even as a parent, it's so difficult that in this moment of crisis, in the

moment of breakdown or the tantrum or the I don't care, throwing their jersey away, the storming

back to the car, it's very difficult to think that there's nothing to be done in that moment. But

is there nothing to be done? I know a lot of these tools also from coaching teachers, you know,

because obviously there's courage in the classroom, but the kids. opting out in the classroom, it

can be helpful to do something like send the kid on an errand. Like, oh, can you bring us to the

office for me? Or, oh, I need some help organizing these papers. Switch it up. In a practice, maybe

it's, oh, I need someone to keep score in this moment. Or can you go put these cones over here?

Something different can be really helpful. There's a couple reasons helpful. One is that the kid's

taking a break from what he's doing. Second, you're giving the kid something that feels valuable,

that they are offering something in that moment. I say to... all the time make up some random...

test on a piece of paper. Do nothing with this. Fold it up and give it to the kid. It doesn't

matter. Right? Just something. And just to get to Carl's point, it could be that doing nothing is

better than calling them out in that moment in front of everybody when everybody already knows

that. So doing nothing is kind of an option here. Next level up would be just switching it up.

I like that a lot. Right. If the kid's saying, I don't care, instead of you as coach having a big

conversation about it, you would just say, Okay. I would just say right back. I'm okay. I hear

they're in this right now, in this moment, you don't care. And I hear what I did is instead of that

global, I don't care. I said in this moment, right now, temporary package for the kid that it's

okay right now. I hear you. And there will be another moment to come. That's really helpful from a

coach's standpoint. How about from a parent's standpoint, the car ride home, right? After they

observe that sort of opt out of the effort. And then they might see the I don't care attitude,

at least. That's it. Here would be my professional opinion on that. Even the car ride home in that

moment when the kids are having the crisis, you don't teach kids the multiplication tables when

they're having a tantrum and crying, right? And even afterwards, is that the best moment that they

need to talk about it? Or do they need to talk about lunch and then get away from it and actually

have a whole clean slate later? when they're more separate from it. Like,

is the ride home a constructive time to talk about those things? Right. So what you're teeing me up

to say is, no, Carl, that's a terrible time. And I'm not going to say that. No? Okay. Back to the

first time. And if every kid is different, sometimes the absolute best time to talk to kids is when

you are not face to face with them because a lot of overwhelming stimuli, the car ride,

the side to side, even when a younger kid is in the back of the car, that can be really good.

That's why everyone loves going to a baseball game because there's something going on out there. I

didn't want to talk. You can talk. No pressure. No pressure. Conversations are great. So sometimes

the car ride home is fine. Now, obviously, you're going to take the lead from the kid and you'll be

like, that seemed hard. Just float something out and just see where it goes.

Sometimes it lands. And so you're just reacting to what you get back. Do they want that discussion?

Do they not? Yes. What they see. When you say something is that you are not afraid to go there if

they want to. It's kind of like when a parent to their kid about sex or about suicide, big topics.

And the parent's like, you know, you know, this is kind of a big topic.

I don't want to upset anyone or you do anything wrong here. Or divorce. Like there are some of

these things that parents like to. Taboo. And it's too much. I don't want to upset my kid.

So then what the kid is hearing is, oh, my parent. can't handle this discussion. It's too much for

them. They've seen me just like screw up on the, you know, on the field. Even though that's not the

intention of the parent, that's how it's coming across when parents say mute about it. Yeah,

I mean, it almost feels like coaxing a timid animal out of its hole. It's like you need to keep the

door open and see what happens because there's something unbelievable about getting a kid talking.

And it can happen so rarely, but giving space for it, I think, is obviously tool number one.

And then I just, you know, I love a case study. I feel like I've learned how to build a business

just by case study, case study, case study, right? And so a lot of this is a reflection of just a

parent's openness. Someone on our staff committed suicide a couple years ago, and we had a mobile

event for him. We had a shirt for him. And my kids are asking me, oh, what happened? And so I'm

going to talk to you. I'm going to show you how I respond to the situation by being calm and open

and curious about it, right? I try to practice in all forms of my life is just radical acceptance.

Radical acceptance of whatever's happening right now. We were just working with a grief counselor

with some of our coaches and she was talking about grief. So much of what we're learning in therapy

and so much of what we're learning through sports is how to tolerate distress, right? And she said,

sometimes you've got to just sit in the suck. I always tell the kids, you know what? Sometimes you

got to be bad at things because you can't be okay at them before you're bad at them,

right? And you can't be pretty good at them before you're average, right? And so sometimes you just

have to have a starting place. And I think if you believe in general, like practice over time

improves your skill building, like you have to be bad at something, you know? We have this thing at

Flagstar where we talk about 10,000 drop balls. And I'm always preaching this to kids where I have

this belief that once you drop, 10,000 balls, you will never drop another ball in your life.

And you got to get these failures out of your system and just accept where you are and whatever

journey you are, and then just slowly build from there. So I would reframe as not getting the

failures out of your system because you will obviously always fail. But what you are doing is

desensitizing to the failure. So it becomes less activating for you.

It controls you less. It can happen and you... can move on with it right it's you will always fail

and you will get better at failing yeah like that is the bigger point is that you will always fail

and they will be there and just addressing kids where they are maybe that's more helpful than 10

000 ball theory so you get a kid on the sideline on your flag star team and the game's tight and

it's time for the rotation the sub to come in and we're trying to get everyone playing time and

they don't want to go in They say, no, I'm good. Let Josh stay in. I don't want to go in. What's

the line between forcing and encouraging? That's a struggle that I've actually had.

You know, generally, I'm of the sense of you can believe kids, right? And when they don't want to

go in, that's not my time that I want to talk them into going into the game. You know, I can think

of a situation where we had showcase teams at the Junior Olympics and we had a key pivotal player

who was just totally clamming up on the sidelines and he said, I don't want to go in. I don't want

to do it. I can't do it. And I never believe that forcing a kid into the game in that moment is

going to help. You know, and in that particular instance, we said, OK, and we let the next man go

up and we let him put himself on emotional injury reserve and sit the rest of the game. Right. We

had just a sit down conversation, an honest conversation about how you're feeling. What are you

worried about? OK. You're going to feel that way before the next game. What are some tools that we

can go through? And we went through what the warm-ups looked like, how it felt in his body when he

felt nervous, what he was going to do to respond to that situation. They don't all have Disney

movie endings, but that same kid the next day stepped in and played a huge game for us.

And I think that almost the ability to opt out in that individual moment gave him a sense of...

what that felt like, working through tools for what he would do the next time so that when he came

into that same situation, he could respond differently. So I'm hoping, Betsy, you disagree with

that. Just for fun of the podcast. Yeah. You know,

Carl, I would really go back to the developmental age of the kid.

And I use the word developmental age and not age because, you know, sometimes you have an ADHD,

you know, 12 year old who's maybe is at the emotional age of nine emotionally.

So if there's a kid who's never wanting to go in, you're not going to never play them.

Right. And yeah, you need to have the conversations ahead of time. But when you're little, it's

helpful to prepare. Now that we're talking about ADHD, especially for an ADHD-er, the moment is

always now. So that conversation you had might as well have been like, you know, prehistoric times.

So in that moment, I would say maybe you could put the kid in the classroom, have them do.

something else put the kid in a different position than normal one that has lower stakes or

something i always think betsy for your gradual approach to things where it's like we come from a

collective base and then we try to do something and push ourselves a little out of our comfort zone

a little bit further a little bit further a little bit further i've just seen so many examples of

parents literally pushing their kid onto the field, ripping their arm away. They've just never

really seen it go well. Yeah, absolutely. But as a coach, you know, if it's not giving them another

position, maybe just having him be one, just say, just one play and I'm going to take you out. And

even if they do awesome on that play, take them out and then say, hey, do you want to go back into

the next break? Let's follow through. Yeah, and I'm sure there's no black and white,

like Carl, I'm sure you had a relation with that kid. And that goes back to knowing the kid. and

kind of small baby steps along the way. It depends on the stakes of the situation, right? Like if

this is a kindergarten to first grade practice and your kid's just nervous about trying it, I think

it's really okay to encourage and try to get them running with the herd, right? But I think the

higher stakes, the situation, I think it can't really be forced, right? You have to go back to,

hey, I want to play quarterback in the game where it's like, okay, have we tried quarterback in

practice, you know? Or like Betsy said, putting some... boundaries around it where it's like,

okay, you know what? Let's have you play this for two plays only. We're going to take you out and

just see how it goes, right? But I think it can't just be all or nothing. We're trying to throw

them in the river because they're trying to stay out of the river because they're scared of

drowning. For the real young ones, the parent can just do it with them. The kid's not embarrassed

when they're very young around that. It's like a lot of those soccer programs that you are...

running alongside your kid, that the whole model is parent and kid. Doing it together so you feel

incredibly supported around a thing that's very new. How do teachers do things? I always joke with

my coaches all the time where it's like, hey, how would a teacher approach this? How do they do

school? When you put a kid in a new school, you have an orientation day where the parent walks into

the classroom and the kid gets to, it's like exposure therapy. They see the classroom, they see

what it looks like, now we're going to leave. Right? And then the next time they come to school,

they're coming in for a half day. And we're catching them, good or bad, we're catching them in the

middle of doing something, and we're actually going to take you out now. And so I think creating

some constructs, and even if the league can't accommodate your kid, just creating constructs of

your own with your kid, where it's like, hey, you know what? You don't want to go back to the

field. Well, we're going to go to the field. You don't have to participate. But we're going to go

to the field, and we're going to count that as the win. It's funny you mention teachers because I'm

just reading a book, Teach Like a Champion. Doug LaMoff, highly recommend, Carl. You'd love it. And

one of the tactics is no opt-outers. And by that, he means when a kid says,

well, I don't know, and they clearly haven't given an attempt. And there's some tactical strategies

in there, which maybe we can add in later, that I highly recommend for coaches in general. Carl,

what did you just say? The parent says, next time you're going to do this, next time you're going

to do that. I would be careful about... as a parent dictating the steps.

I would have that be a more collaborative conversation with the kid. Hey, you know, what I do all

the time is build ladders with kids and parents in session, you know, these gradual steps. But the

kid is involved in the break. What step feels comfortable right now? Then what do you think you

could do next? And then often those ladder steps and wins with those steps are accompanied by

rewards. And this is a really controversial issue with parents because what parents were,

you guys know, what do they worry? Oh, aren't I just, it's a B word. Aren't I just, what do they

say? Bribing. Bribing.

That is the B word, but that's another B word. Aren't I just, aren't I just bribing my kid? I'm not

going to bribe my kid. Okay. So the response to that is rewards are planned in advance.

and not acted in a moment of desperation. Brides are in the moment of desperation.

Oh my God, if you just go on to the field, I will buy you burritos afterwards.

That's a bribe. A bribe versus a reward. I really wish I'd had the language of a bribe versus

reward even two weeks ago. But like if I'm telling my kid, hey, I just want you to try this. You

know, we've gone to the field. We've seen this. I want you to go in. I want you to do half the

practice. And then you're going to come out and I'm going to get you. How much of the practice do

you think you could do? I want them to be invested. Otherwise, it's just like I'd say do this.

Yeah. And that's when it becomes a bribe, right? Where it's like, I'll give you readers if you do

half the practice. versus a kid-driven, how much of the practice you think you can do, what do you

think you should get as a reward for doing that? Yeah, what do you think would make sense to,

I know this is going to be really hard for you, what do you think makes sense to look forward to

after you do this hard thing? And it could be, oh, I stay on the field 10 extra minutes and throw a

pass with dad, right? And you could maybe offer that as a possibility. But Carl,

you know, getting to know you a little more, I can see that probably... you, you're a fast talker.

You want to kind of get to it and do all the right things. And there is great value in being

patient and pausing and giving space for your kid to speak their own thoughts.

Yeah, I was talking to a great educator a couple weeks ago. And the thing he always keeps saying to

his coaches and to his parents is, who's doing the talking? And it feels like the idea of bribe

versus reward. A lot of it comes down to who's doing the talking, right? And I think in all of

this, just literally thinking about who is occupying most of the wavelengths is important.

Brags often come up because parents, after a bad situation where their kid doesn't want to play or

doesn't want to get in the car, and then they go through the event and they're just relieved that

practice is over, that game is over. Oh my God, thank God. Like, that sucked. That was terrible,

right? And they just... bury it until the next time it comes up. And then the problem is next time

it comes up, then it would become a bribe again. So it is on us as parents to bring up those

moments proactively, which is kind of the theme of all we've been talking about. I would just say

for parents that are experiencing a child who has opted out of something and they're thinking about

how do we reintegrate my child into this activity and what's my role as parents.

The New York Times did this documentary. It was called A Swim Lesson. by Bill Marsh. Rashida Jones

is one of the producers on it. And it's this beautiful short form documentary about a swim

instructor. It's a wonderful piece about how much the child needs to sit in discomfort,

what's the role of the parent in enabling or supporting that child. And it's a beautiful little

anecdote for a lot of what we're talking about. I don't totally agree with everything that the guy

is doing. And yet there are ways in which I completely agree. I think a common thing What's

happened to us is maybe it's a new summer camp that they're nervous about. They're trying out a new

sport for the first time, and they don't want to get in the car. I'm wondering if you can give some

sort of overarching picture, right? It's not they don't want to get in the car that morning of. We

know they're nervous. We know they've kind of reluctantly agreed to do this lacrosse camp or this

flag star camp, whatever it is, because they've never done it before. Maybe you could talk through

how you might approach that. Getting them in the car? Getting them to the camp, to attend the camp.

I was saying before, we're talking about the baby steps. I would go to the field before the camp

starts, check out the surroundings, get acclimated. One of the best strategies is to not drive your

kid, to have a friend pick them up. Kids do not refuse to get in the car when their friends come in

and go, hey, you know? Doesn't happen. Is this where optionality comes into play?

When I have really young kids, I remember it's like they don't want to get in the car and you

options. I see that you don't want to get in the car right now. Do you want to walk into the car or

should I carry? Yeah, that's great. And I think the adult version of that is I'm going to work. I'm

not. going to leave you home alone. You're going to go to their camp and you can choose when you're

there if you want to play or not. Anytime we're driving to the camp, you can listen to what you

want to listen to. I will not put on my talk radio. It's all you. They'll probably choose raising a

resilient athlete. I'm sure. Betsy, just one last thing that I feel like is lingering. You're

talking about localizing the indifference of I don't care. And I can see that you don't care in

this moment. I think that there's no data behind this, but the kid cares. They're there because

they care. They've signed up because they care. And I saw a lot of this when we used to run this

thing called strength training. We could run it with a group of kids in Anacostia. And I had kids

every week that were most of the time bad at something. And then they'd say, I don't care.

And even as we sat down to record this, I got a text message from one of the girls in that program

that I hadn't talked to in eight years asking if I'm still doing it because she wants to hop back

in. And so I think localizing I don't care to in this moment,

this is how you are feeling and giving them a chance to localize that is really powerful because

the truth beyond that, I think nine times out of 10 is they do care. And it's actually they're

acting out this way because they care so much. Because they're anxious and they're worried.

They're worried that they're going to mess up. They're worried they're not going to perform like

they want to perform. So sometimes it's just easier to say I don't care. because if they don't try,

then they're not at risk of failing. That is their version of controlling it,

right? Oh, it's totally in my control. I just don't do it. But if I do do it,

then I feel like I'm losing, you know, they've lost some control because then it's up to the other

people on the field. So it's scary.

That's it for today's episode of Raising a Resilient Athlete. If anything we talked about today

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your questions, and yes, your sideline moments. So until next time, keep showing up for your kids

on and off the field and they'll show up for you. We'll see you next episode.