3. Colin McLaren: Reframing Success in Youth Sports

On today’s episode of Youth Sports United, I sit down with Colin McLaren, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Experiential Studies in Community and Sport at Cape Breton University, and the Associate Director of the Research Institute for Community, Sport, and Health. Colin and I discuss in detail the importance and lasting impact of creating positive sports experiences for our kids. We examine the benefits of embracing mistakes and how, as coaches and parents, demonstrating a growth mindset can teach our children resilience. We explore the connection between resilience and risk-taking and how enabling the latter helps kids extract more fulfillment, joy and fun from their athletic pursuits. We also discuss the importance of intentionality when communicating with our young athletes and how everyone benefits when we reframe what success looks like. 

As parents, it’s easy to get caught up measuring the return on our youth sports investment in terms of our kid’s performance and wins. But what if we reconsidered the equation and measured our return in terms of our children’s personal growth, their joy and instilling them with a life-long love of movement? Colin and I explore the benefits of tweaking our expectations and thinking longer term about the role youth sports play in our children’s development.   

Episode Sponsor:

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To learn more or connect with Colin:

• Website: Resilient Youth Sport and Community Research Lab
• Instagram: @coli.nmclaren
• X (Formally known as Twitter): @colinmclaren13
• Facebook: Colin McLaren

To connect with Jason:

• Website: jasonmagennis.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmagennis/
• Instagram: @youthsportsunitedpod or @jasmagenni

The best way to support Youth Sport United is to subscribe or follow, leave a rating or review and share your favourite episodes with friends and parents dedicated to creating healthy sporting cultures for our kids. If you’d like to learn more about my coaching practice, head over to jasonmagennis.com/coaching.