The 5 Sweet Words Your Athlete Needs You to Say

I am not an athlete. I do not run unless someone is chasing me. But God has given me athletic children and I am learning what it means to be a good soccer mom/gymnastics mom/cross country mom, etc. I think the most important lesson I’m learning is that there are very few things it’s acceptable to say to your athlete after a disappointing performance.

This lesson was reinforced to me this last week when my son didn’t do as well as he wanted to at a competition. I tried what I thought would be affirming statements. “You did your best!” “I loved watching you out there!” “You worked so hard!” All of these statements were met with irritation, eye-rolling, and heavy sighs. It turns out that if you feel like you didn’t do your best, you don’t actually want to hear someone else say you did. If you’re embarrassed of your performance, having someone say they loved watching you just feels patronizing.

So I went another direction and tried giving some “wisdom.” “Next time let’s be sure you’re better hydrated.” “You probably needed to rest more instead of being outside running around beforehand.” “If you had stretched more, that might have made a difference.” BAD IDEA. Nobody wants advice from their nonathletic mom in their moment of defeat.

Then I tried questions. ALL the questions. “What do you want to do differently next time?” “How do you feel about that performance?” “Do you think you need to eat something more carb-heavy ahead of time?” “Do you need to talk to your coach about that?” Also, not helpful.

What I’ve learned is that there is just about NOTHING your child wants to hear after an athletic competition where they didn’t perform the way they wanted to (even if you thought they did awesome). But if you must say something, make it these five words:

“Do you want a donut?”

Subpar performance? Donut. Winning play of the game? Donut. Celebratory donut or eat-your-feelings donut, it doesn’t matter. Everybody likes a donut. Or maybe they don’t, in which case find your child’s donut. Pizza? Cherry Limeade? Ice-cream cone? It doesn’t matter. Just something that tastes like love and is a worthy consolation prize for whatever just happened. And let’s not forget that moms like donuts too. We need a little reward for that sinking feeling when you realize you basically just paid money to watch your precious treasure get their self-worth trampled on, so this is BASICALLY ALL YOUR FAULT. Moms are good at adding unnecessary guilt to any situation. Donuts help.

And donuts for the Sidelines Siblings are a worthy reward for the time spent sitting in a smelly gym or freezing under a blanket at the field or standing endlessly during a race only to have your big sibling totally ignore you while they process their emotions about their performance.

Donuts for all! For the parent that coached and the mopey classmate that carpooled with you and the mom friend that watched the whole debacle go down next to you. Instead of trying to offer words of consolation or tips or some post-game counseling, I think donuts are the way to go. And if they don’t fix his attitude, at least they’ll fix mine.

I don’t ever want my kids to feel like my love for them is dependent on their athletic performance (or grades, or what choir they get into, etc.). I don’t want to try and live vicariously through their successes or find myself personally grieving their failures. Life is hard enough without carrying the weight of unnecessary parental expectations. I don’t want to give them emotional burdens. So I think I’ll just give them donuts instead.