Question: Best way to handle competitive kid in youth soccer? | DadHQ

Question: Best way to handle competitive kid in youth soccer?

6d ago1 min read

My 8yr old son is talented but gets really upset when his team loses or when he makes a mistake. Last Saturday he literally threw his shin guard across the field. The coach handled it well but I'm wondering how other dads deal with this? He's not usually aggressive about other stuff, just seems to happen in sports. Do I need to pump the brakes on travel teams or is this just a phase? Looking for real talk, not the 'build resilience' speech.

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Comments(5)

PPete L.Regular6d ago

Has he always been like this or is it new with soccer? If he's talented he might be frustrated because he has a vision of what he can do but his body can't quite do it yet. That's actually fixable - teach him the gap gets smaller over time

HHank C.Regular6d ago

Real talk: kids who get upset about mistakes are often kids who care a lot and also have decent self-awareness. That's not bad! You just need to teach him that professionals also mess up constantly and it's about the recovery, not the mistake. Show him clips of Messi missing penalties or whatever his sport hero is

NNolan J.Regular5d ago

At 8 he's learning that his actions have social consequences. Throwing gear gets you attention (bad attention). Some kids need to learn this once, some need it repeated. Either way it's not a personality defect, it's just development. You're handling it right by noticing it

TTim K.Regular4d ago

What did the coach say after the shin guard incident? That matters more than anything you do honestly. If the coach shut it down with zero drama, your kid learned the lesson. If it became a whole thing, might need to talk to coach about approach

WWyatt C.Regular4d ago

The shin guard throw is actually age-appropriate competitive frustration, not a character flaw. The question is whether he can learn to manage it. Some kids are just naturally competitive and that can be great if channeled right