ADM Kids

Q: Why does my kid play tentatively?

A: There are many possibilities, but often it’s a confidence issue, and there’s nothing that crushes confidence like being over-coached and programmed to have a fixed mindset. This fixed mindset can be a real enemy of development, not only in hockey, but in life skills, too.

Carol Dweck, a Stanford University psychology professor, led the examination of this topic with her 2006 book Mindset, in which she explored how a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset can impact a child’s confidence and success. Applied to youth hockey, this research clearly indicated that it’s not only important to allow players to make mistakes, but also teach them willingness to risk, to do something beyond what they can already accomplish.

According to Dweck, constantly rewarding players for being talented or punishing players for being weaker can significantly define their success within sports. Here’s an example: a fixed-mindset player wants to win and look good. They believe that they’re gifted, and when they blunder, which all players do, they believe their coach, parents, and peers will decide they aren’t talented after all. These kids fear failure, fear mistakes (which are proven to be a vital part of learning and succeeding) and fear challenges because they’re focused on protecting their supposed giftedness.

Players with a fixed mindset don’t deal well with failure and they often play tentatively and conservatively, which prevents them from growing and excelling in hockey. Some will quit due to their inability to deal with adversity.

Contrast that with a growth-mindset player, who also wants to win and look good, but their primary focus is on the process of learning and improving. This attitude gives them a purpose and they embrace challenges, value perseverance, effort and opportunities to develop. They aren’t afraid to fail. They know failure is merely a step toward improvement and achieving their full potential.

It’s easy to see how a growth mindset positions people for more success, both on the ice and in life as a whole. As Dweck said, “the hallmark of successful individuals is that they love learning, they value effort and they persist in the face of obstacles.” 

We need coaches to be role models and use a growth-mindset approach to educate players. Within this methodology, it should be a priority to focus on the process rather than the outcome.

For coaches, it’s important that they consider their value system. How do they define success? Every coach must live and coach according to the culture they want to build in their team.

Some kids will arrive on a team as early developers and succeed often. These players don’t always invest in the process because they’re bigger and faster and their parents and previous coaches praised their success (outcomes) instead of praising their work ethic and effort (process). Down the road, these early developers often disappear from the sport, but the late developers, and those who appear to have less skill but who put in the effort and focus on the process are still there, still competing, still improving. They’re better off in the long run, especially if they are given the right environment and encouragement. They are learning how to motivate themselves, building confidence and competence as hockey players and as human beings. 

George Karl, a retired NBA player and coach said, "Players should be as free to make mistakes as they are to succeed. If you tighten that rope around mistakes, it leads to failure."

And remember, a player’s prime window of trainability for motor skill learning is between the ages of 7-14 years old, so this is an especially important time for them to have the freedom to try, fail, learn and develop fully. Players must be granted ample time to learn and discover essential skills and awareness on the ice in a safe and supportive risk-taking environment. This is critical to their development at this stage.

Ultimately, we want kids to play freely on the ice and have the confidence to shoot for the upper corner, to step up and close the gap on a fast opponent, to maintain possession and regroup, to try a unique deceptive move on a breakaway or wheel around their defensive net and try to break the puck out up the middle of the ice, or maintain puck possession just outside their offensive blue line instead of dumping it. We want and need more risk-takers who have coaches who encouraged this type of skill development. Playing it conservative and giving up the puck are the actions of a fixed-mindset player or coach. Parents or coaches who pay their kids to score goals are focused on results and not the process. Kids start to think they come to the rink to score goals, not to learn and develop. These rewards send the wrong message. You get the same negative effect when you make kids do push-ups for missing the net in practice during a shooting drill. It instills fear, a lack of creativity and it encourages them to hit the goalie in the chest or leg pads. Bag-skating a player or team because they made mistakes in a game has zero positive effect on development. Punishing kids for not executing a skill correctly will only make them fear failure and discourage them from learning and being creative. Ultimately, this holds them back from reaching their full potential. 

Instead, we should frame mistakes as learning opportunities and emphasize effort. Perfectionism stifles fun, confidence and creativity. Let’s train ugly instead. Coaches and players equipped with a true growth mindset are better able to deal with the struggles and difficulties of learning. If you’re a coach or parent with a growth mindset, then you don’t punish performance mistakes and you focus on the process instead of over-valuing performance outcomes. You help children through guided discovery. You embrace mistakes and empower children to make lots of them, but have them learn from them as well.

One of the best ways to see confidence blossom is to give the game back to the kids. They must fail, fail and fail again to succeed.