After winning gold at the Olympics, athlete Gabby Thomas has shared a brilliant piece of advice that every parent will want to share with their teens to help them through tough times.
The Paris Olympics has demanded the attention of families across the globe, with the exciting competitions sparking some brilliant conversations between parents and their children as they watch athletes compete.
They’ve also inspired a lot of kids to take up sports they never knew existed. But, inevitably, even if you’re not competing to try and get a spot in the Olympics, training sessions and even just friendly matches between local sports clubs can weigh on kids’ minds and leave them stressed, upset, and even wondering if they want to carry on with their sport at all.
But should that moment arise, gold medalist Gabby Thomas has a brilliant piece of advice to help kids keep going and trying their best – and it’s a great phrase to say to kids and teenagers who are struggling in any aspect of their lives.
The Team USA athlete, who just won gold in the Women’s 200m race, took to Instagram to celebrate her win, posting a photo of her beaming alongside the silver and bronze medalists and writing in the caption, “Every second of hard work, missed parties, and scary races was worth it.”
While it can be hard for kids to see a positive end in sight when they’re struggling after a loss or particularly hard sports lesson, the words are sure to remind them of the bigger picture and larger goals they are striving for.
As a parent, it can often be hard to know when a child wants to quit because they truly want to, and when they’re giving up because they’re feeling disappointed and unmotivated but still, deep down, want to do better and are quitting out of frustration.
A great piece of advice to navigate this came from another Olympian, gymnast and gold medallist Nastia Liukin, who shared the advice her own mum used to give her when she felt like she was at the end of her tether for GoodToKnow‘s piece on the game-changing words to use when your kid wants to give up a sport.
“She would always say, ‘That’s totally fine. You can quit, but not today,'” Nastia revealed. “She would make me go back to the gym the next day and the next day until I had at least one good day. Then she’d say, ‘OK, now you can quit; we’ll enrol you back in the public school and find another activity you want to do.'”
The trick is a great one to test why your child is thinking of quitting and, if Nastia’s sporting record is anything to go by with the gymnast winning five medals in the 2008 Olympic Games when she was just 18-years-old, it’s sure to keep their spirits and interest in sport up.
However, when speaking to GoodToKnow previously about how to know when quitting is ok and when to encourage a child to stick it out, psychologist, family educator, and author of Discipline Without Damage Vanessa Lapointe revealed that there are times when quitting is the right thing to do. In that situation, she says, the most important thing to consider is your child’s age.
She explained, “Young children do not yet have the neural architecture and emotional maturity to understand the exchange of time and effort for an outcome.
“Somewhere around age 10 they come into that understanding, and from there it makes more sense to have discussions about commitment and seeing something through, and about training hard and pushing yourself further.”
In other family news, Team GB’s Amber Rutter wins silver medal at the Olympics – just three months after giving birth and a new study reveals that joining local sports clubs can benefit more than just kids’ physical health.
