Ever wonder how to handle those mean girls so your daughter can play with confidence without all the drama?

One mom from our Elite Competitor Program private Sports Moms community recently shared that her and her daughter have been finding so much success in dealing with tough situations, such as this. She says:

“I have been able to communicate with my daughter better. And also my daughter says my girl has so much more self-awareness and is realizing how to handle situations with confidence.”

Today we’re going to talk about how to have confidence in handling challenging situations. We know that there are going to be really tough situations in our athlete daughter’s life in her sport. Being able to equip your daughter with the skills to communicate and advocate for herself is key to navigating through these challenges. 

#1. Help her to ignore the negative people and focus her energy on positive people

“Anytime our athlete is going after big things on the court and in life, she will be met with judgment.”

Going through these obstacles is one of the key indicators that you’re doing something big. This is also a sign potentially that your daughter is on the right path. 

When teammates start to bully, get jealous, or create conflict with your daughter, the best thing we can do is teach our daughters to keep their eye on their big goals. Haters are proof that they’re on the right track.

The first thing that you can do is teach her to ignore the haters. 

This does not mean that we excuse unacceptable behavior. What I’m saying is teaching her to put her energy into something more important and bigger. 

And so if your athlete daughter is going to continue to put her energy into a person that is not treating her well, the situation is just going to get worse. 

Let’s shift our focus from those people and stop giving them our energy and shift to the people who are kind, who are her cheering squad. 

What we look for, we find as well. 

And in dealing with negative teammates, maybe you can’t change their behavior but you can learn. 

So if anything, we can learn from these people how we don’t want to interact with our teammates. 

Find the people who are supportive of you, who don’t have this negative outlook, or negative behavior, and lean to them. 

#2. Help her know her boundaries

We need to have boundaries. And this means helping her know what behavior is acceptable and what is not right. 

What is she willing to tolerate and what is she willing to not tolerate? She needs to be empowered to step up and say, that’s not okay.

What behaviors are okay and which behavior is crossing the line? 

#3. Model and shape the environment for your daughter. 

Show her how to treat other women. Dealing with mean girls springs from not raising a mean girl. 

And unintentionally, we tend to feed on the negative energy by comparing our daughter with other people. And by saying bad things about other people.

Comparing her to other people and pulling other people down can potentially raise the mean girl. 

Instead, raise her with the foundations of how you can be happy for their success. 

Help her to be happy for other people’s successes and show it. 

Be aware of how you talk about other women, and how you talk about your daughter’s teammates. Don’t point out other people’s flaws. Show how to react with empathy.

Bottomline: 

We want our daughters to be able to navigate and interact with a multitude of people throughout their lives. She’s not always going to be met with people who are supportive of her. So, we want her to have confidence in herself regardless of what other people think. 

The less their mindset is going to be pulled down by some of these outward influences, the better.

Help her hone her skills in:

• Knowing her boundaries
• Knowing her goals
• Knowing how to speak up
• Knowing what it takes to shift negative thinking herself

All of those things are going to strengthen her confidence so that she can be resilient in the face of some of these things that come up in her life and her sport. 

She needs to have these skills of confidence herself so that she can navigate these tricky situations on her own. 

You can opt to train her mental game and with that being said, you can check out trainhergame.com to get FREE training!

Don’t forget to let them know that you have their back as well. So, if a situation escalates to the point where your daughter is already feeling unsafe, maybe it needs to come to the coach’s attention. 

And then don’t be afraid to step in and speak with the coach or speak with the parent directly.  

If you come in with a calm mind then it’s going to have a positive outcome. 

But if the situation is still tolerable, there’s no need to overreact. 

Help your daughter to…

#1. Ignore the haters. 

They’re always going to be there. It’s just what it is. We want her to know how to handle those conflicts and know how to handle these kinds of people.

#2. Know her boundaries. 

What’s acceptable? What’s not acceptable? And when it’s not okay, teach them to step up and say something. 

#3. Show her how to treat other women and also advocate for her to know what to say in those situations. 

Supporting other women also includes how to handle conflict and what that looks like to hold boundaries. 

Finally, give her the skills to be confident in the face of people who are not supportive of her. Remember, she needs to develop these confidence skills herself and you have the power to help her with that.

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