Beyond the Score: Helping Young Athletes Build Confidence & Resilience
Help your young athlete go from hard on themselves, afraid of mistakes, and overwhelmed by pressure to building confidence, resilience, and a healthier relationship with their sport.
Help your young athlete go from hard on themselves, afraid of mistakes, and overwhelmed by pressure to building confidence, resilience, and a healthier relationship with their sport.
A FREE Virtual Workshop for Parents of Young Athletes
Sports can give kids incredible opportunities to build confidence, friendships, perseverance, and a sense of belonging.
But being a young athlete can also come with pressure.
Maybe your child loves their sport—but one mistake seems to overshadow everything that went well. They compare themselves to teammates. They get extremely nervous before competitions. They expect themselves to perform perfectly. Or they struggle to bounce back when things don’t go the way they hoped.
And as a parent, it can be hard to know what they need from you.
Do you reassure them? Give them space? Encourage them? Push them a little? Say nothing at all?
In this free one-hour virtual workshop, we’ll help you better understand what’s happening when pressure, perfectionism, performance anxiety, mistakes, and fear of failure get in the way.
More importantly, you’ll learn practical strategies you can use to help your young athlete build the confidence and resilience to navigate the ups and downs of sport.
Does This Sound Like Your Young Athlete?
You may notice that your child:
- Has difficulty bouncing back after a loss, mistake, or disappointing performance
- Gets extremely nervous before games, competitions, practices, or performances
- Is incredibly hard on themselves after making a mistake
- Constantly compares themselves to teammates
- Avoids challenges or trying new skills because they’re afraid of failing
- Becomes angry, tearful, frustrated, or withdrawn when they don’t perform the way they hoped
- Believes anything less than their best means they failed
- Is beginning to lose confidence or enjoyment in a sport they once loved
Sometimes the hardest part is that your child may be talented, dedicated, competitive, and genuinely love their sport.
You don’t want to take away their drive.
You want to help them develop the skills to handle the pressure that can come with
What You'll Learn & Walk Away With
This workshop goes beyond simply understanding performance anxiety, perfectionism, and pressure in young athletes. You’ll leave with practical strategies you can use in the moments when your child is struggling most.
You’ll learn how to:
- Build confidence that lasts beyond scores, rankings, wins, and individual performances
- Bounce back from mistakes and setbacks with greater resilience and self-compassion
- Manage nerves and perform under pressure without becoming overwhelmed by anxiety
- Develop a healthier mindset around effort, mistakes, competition, and taking risks
- Maintain their self-esteem and sense of worth, even when their performance doesn’t go as planned
- Keep the joy in sport while developing ambition, perseverance, and healthy competitiveness
The goal isn’t to make your child care less about their sport.
It’s to help you support them in becoming an athlete who can work hard, take risks, handle pressure, make mistakes, recover from setbacks, and keep going.
FREE Parent Workshop
Beyond the Score: Helping Young Athletes Build Confidence & Resilience
Date: October 8, 2026
Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm
Location: Virtual
Cost: FREE
This workshop is for parents and caregivers of children and teens involved in sports, from recreational athletes to highly competitive young athletes.
All sports are welcome.
Parents are welcome to listen and learn throughout the workshop, with opportunities to ask questions about the challenges you’re experiencing with your own young athlete.
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Facilitated by two clinicians with a background in competitive sports.Â
Charlene Forde-Smith, MSW RSW
Alex Brown is a master’s level student from Yorkville University. She is a Registered Psychotherapist (qualifying) and is part of our Clinical Internship Program.Â
Interested in Bringing 'Beyond the Score' to Your Sports Community?
At Acorn Counselling, we’re passionate about supporting the mental and emotional well-being of young athletes—and the parents and coaches supporting them.
We partner with local sports clubs, teams, gyms, studios, and athletic organizations to offer complimentary mental health and wellness workshops for their communities.
Workshops can be tailored for:
Parents — Learn practical strategies for supporting confidence, resilience, emotional regulation, performance anxiety, perfectionism, and a healthy relationship with sport.
Young Athletes — Build skills for managing pressure, recovering from mistakes, strengthening confidence, regulating emotions, and developing resilience.
Coaches — Better understand the emotional needs of young athletes and learn practical strategies for creating environments that support both performance and well-being.
Workshops can be adapted to the age, sport, competitive level, and specific needs of your organization. Connect at groups@acorncounselling.org to discuss your needs and individualized program.Â
Helping Young Athletes Build Confidence & Resilience
Please complete this brief form, and we will send you a link to this live virtual workshop for Parents.
Not sure if group will work for you right now?Â
We continue to offer individual child, youth and parent counselling. Get in touch to discuss what services will best meet your needs.Â