Raising Resilience Daily

There’s a moment every parent of a young athlete eventually faces; the moment when the sport they love stops being easy. When the natural talent that carried them through early years hits its first real wall. When the drill is too hard, the skill doesn’t click, and suddenly the game feels bigger than them.

For us, that moment came this week.

She walked through the door after dryland practice with tears already welling up. “Mom, can we talk in my room?” And when the door closed, it all came out:

“……drill was too hard and I was the only one who couldn’t do it.”

A few minutes later, I got a text from dad:

“I made the girls practice a stick-handling move that was hard to do. She felt she was the only one who couldn’t do it and got very frustrated. Only 1 out of the 12 got it.”

So no, she wasn’t the only one struggling. But in her mind, in her body, in that moment? It felt like she was. And that feeling was real.

This is where the real work of raising a young athlete begins.

The Goal Isn’t to Toughen Them Up by Shutting Them Down

I grew up in a world where being upset was something you were told to “get over.” Where frustration was weakness, and crying meant you weren’t cut out for it. That’s not the world I want for my kids.

Mental toughness isn’t the absence of emotion. It’s the ability to feel something hard… and keep going anyway.

So we sat on her bed and talked about what it means to be coached. That a coach’s job isn’t to make everything easy; it’s to stretch you, challenge you, and introduce you to the edges of your comfort zone. And she hasn’t had to work overly hard yet because so much has come naturally to her. This was one of the first times she hit something she couldn’t do right away.

That’s not failure. That’s growth knocking.

Two Mindsets, Two Very Different Futures

I told her she had two choices:

• Option 1: Be frustrated, stay frustrated, and give up.

• Option 2: Be frustrated… and let that frustration fuel her to try again until she gets it.

Both options start with the same emotion.

Only one leads to resilience. And before we talked about grit or practice or mindset, I told her the most important thing:

“Being mad and frustrated is okay. Never let anyone tell you it’s not.” 

Because if she learns to bury her feelings, she’ll never learn to use them.

The Hardest Part of Raising an Athlete Today

We’re raising kids in a world that talks a lot about mental health but still struggles to model it. We want them to be tough, but we also want them to be emotionally aware. We want them to push through challenges, but we don’t want them to lose themselves in the process.

It’s a tightrope.

But moments like this, tears after practice, a skill that won’t click, a coach pushing them harder than they’ve been pushed before, these are the moments where mental toughness and mental health can grow together.

Not by telling them to “get over it.”

Not by rescuing them from discomfort.

But by sitting with them in the feeling, naming it, and then helping them decide what to do next.

The Win Isn’t the Skill. It’s the Mindset.

She’ll get that stick-handling move eventually. I’m not worried about that.

What matters more is that she learns something far more valuable than a drill:

That frustration isn’t a stop sign.

It’s a signal.

A teacher.

A doorway.

And if she can learn to walk through it, not by ignoring her feelings, but by understanding them, she’ll be unstoppable. Not just in sports, but in life.

Raising leaders, chasing goals, and occasionally losing my mind.