Raising Resilient Kids Through Sport

Raising Resilient Kids Through Sport

From Parenting Like a M*ther by Lindsay Wolf-Owczarek

March 13, 2026 · 24 min

About this episode

Lindsay discusses how sports can help children build resilience through personal stories and insights as a child psychologist and sports parent.

In this episode, I talk about something I’m really passionate about — how sports can help our kids build real resilience. But resilience isn’t what many of us think it is. It’s not about pushing through at all costs or never falling apart. In my experience as both a child psychologist and a sports parent, resilience is actually the ability to struggle, take a break when needed, and then try again. Right now our family is deep in gymnastics competition season and wrapping up soccer, so I share some personal stories from our own experiences this year. I talk about watching my daughter return to gymnastics after breaking her arm, and my son navigating a difficult soccer season where his team didn’t win a single game — but still grew tremendously. I also talk about the ways I see parents (often unintentionally) getting in the way of resilience. Things like focusing too much on scores, blaming referees or judges, or trying to fix our kids’ disappointment can actually prevent them from developing the skills they need to handle hard things. Instead, I share some of the ways we try to approach sports in our house — focusing on effort, helping our kids hold two feelings at once (proud and…

People in this episode

Host: Lindsay Wolf-Owczarek

Topics covered

  • resilience
  • youth sports
  • parenting
  • child psychology
  • personal stories

Keywords

  • resilience
  • sports
  • parenting
  • gymnastics
  • soccer
  • child psychology
  • disappointment

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: gymnastics, soccer

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