Navigating the emotional highs and lows of fall school sports
Updated: August 22, 2024, 5:20 PM EDT
For this young person and all young people. Well. I’m going to give you five things tonight about your mental health. The end of August is tryout season for school sports. It’s also rejection season. And it’s really tough. I’m going to help you figure out what to do. Dr. Khadija Booth Watkins and Dr. Booth Watkins, psychiatrists at the Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at MGH, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Booth Watkins. For many students, sports is just a way to be active. It’s more than that. It’s their life. How damaging is rejection for these teenagers? Yeah, thank you for having me again. Being rejected by a team is really devastating for kids. They’ve put in so much effort and they’ve had so much hope. So some kids experience a loss of identity, self-esteem, confidence, and they can feel embarrassed. Some kids feel excluded from playing sports, and others lose the social connections they thought they were going to make. So, as parents, what we need to remember is that our kids take their cues from us, and not to overreact when they are going through a range of emotions and feelings. It’s hard for parents to see that disappointment. What can we do to ease that pain? It might be hard to ease the pain, it might be a little bit hard to find the right words. But acknowledging, being warm and nonjudgmental really helps. Praise them for the effort and the risk they took. It’s really, really important not to define them or judge them by the sport they’re playing. So some kids might really appreciate hearing, “I’m so proud of you,” or, if they’re older, they might prefer the conversation, “Why do you think you didn’t make the team?” But ultimately, don’t they need to know that they’re loved unconditionally? That’s the bottom line. Rejection scares everyone to go out there. How do we help our students feel confident that they’re going to pick themselves up and keep going, even if they get rejected? Again, that comes from us. So, it might be scary, but we have to encourage them not to give up. It might mean helping them find ways to continue practicing and enjoy the sport in a different way, through local recreational leagues or playing with family and friends. Sometimes, if the sport they want to play doesn’t fit their abilities, it’s like helping them find another sport or helping them get familiar with a sport, but in a different way. But ultimately, it’s up to us to set the tone, to give them time to grieve, to really help them bounce back, to encourage them to build resilience. Great advice. Yeah, great perspective.
Navigating the emotional highs and lows of fall school sports
Updated: August 22, 2024, 5:20 PM EDT
Late August means tryout season for school sports. It’s also the season for rejection, and Dr. Khadija Booth Watkins, a psychiatrist at MGH’s Clay Young Healthy Mental Center, tells us what to do.
Late August means tryout season for school sports. It’s also the season for rejection, and Dr. Khadija Booth Watkins, a psychiatrist at MGH’s Clay Young Healthy Mental Center, tells us what to do.