Healthy Sports Parents

What happens when helping your kid reach their potential starts hurting your relationship with them?

Craig Young is the father of Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young, but he’s also spent more than 25 years working in mental health and family systems. Even with all that training, Craig admits he got it wrong with Bryce. At times, he became so focused on helping his son reach his potential that he pushed him to the point where Bryce didn’t want to be around him anymore.

In this conversation with Jonathan Carone, Craig shares how that moment changed the way he parented, why our kids need to know their value isn’t tied to their performance, how families can support talented athletes without making sports their entire identity, and why giving kids room to fail can actually help them play with more freedom.

No matter how much potential our kids have, reaching it should never cost us our relationship with them.

--------

HEALTHY SPORTS PARENTING COURSE

Get access at HealthySportsParenting.com.

--------

MORE FROM CRAIG:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cjbyoung
Growing Up Young book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2BBQ6ZK

--------

FROM OUR SPONSORS:

JAX Athletics
Coupon Code: HSP15 for 15% off
https://jaxathletics.com/

--------

Get your Healthy Sports Parents shirts or hat:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/shop

---------

Get your Weekend Playbook:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/playbook

-----------

Follow us on social:

https://www.instagram.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.tiktok.com/@healthysportsparents
https://www.facebook.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.threads.net/healthysportsparents
New episodes every Wednesday.

---------

Get your Healthy Sports Parents gear:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/shop

---------

Get your Weekend Playbook:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/playbook

-----------

Follow us on social:

https://www.instagram.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.tiktok.com/@healthysportsparents
https://www.facebook.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.threads.net/healthysportsparents
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the way we’ve been trying to build toughness in young athletes is actually making it harder for them to grow?

Megan Bartlett, Founder of the Center for Healing and Justice Through Sport, joins Jonathan Carone to talk about what kids actually need to handle pressure, take risks, recover from mistakes, and become more resilient. They talk about why feeling safe doesn’t mean lowering standards, how resilience is actually built, why different kids may need different paths to reach the same expectations, and how the emotions of parents and coaches affect the athletes around them.

They also get into what regulation really means, why repair matters when we get it wrong, and why play, laughter, and connection still belong in competitive youth sports.
If we want to raise kids who can handle hard things, maybe the answer isn’t simply making things harder.

--------

HEALTHY SPORTS PARENTING COURSE

Get access at HealthySportsParenting.com.

--------

MORE FROM MEGAN:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chjsorg/
Website: https://chjs.org

--------

Get your Healthy Sports Parents shirts or hat:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/shop

---------

Get your Weekend Playbook:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/playbook

-----------

Follow us on social:

https://www.instagram.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.tiktok.com/@healthysportsparents
https://www.facebook.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.threads.net/healthysportsparents
New episodes every Wednesday.

---------

Get your Healthy Sports Parents gear:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/shop

---------

Get your Weekend Playbook:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/playbook

-----------

Follow us on social:

https://www.instagram.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.tiktok.com/@healthysportsparents
https://www.facebook.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.threads.net/healthysportsparents
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two-time MLB All-Star Carlos Quentin joins Healthy Sports Parents for a conversation about youth sports parenting, athlete development and why kids don’t need to be great at sports right now.

After nine seasons in Major League Baseball, Carlos is now experiencing youth sports as a parent and coach. He shares how being an elite athlete affected the way he initially approached coaching his own kids, why he learned to give them more space to develop, and why parents shouldn’t be in such a hurry to find out how good their young athlete can be.

Carlos and Jonathan also talk about failure and rejection in sports, handling pressure and expectations, helping young athletes build mental skills, allowing kids to struggle, and how parents can support their child’s development without taking ownership of their sports experience.

Carlos Quentin is a two-time MLB All-Star who played for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago White Sox and San Diego Padres. He is also the founder of Before The Field, which helps athletes develop the mental skills needed to navigate competition, pressure and adversity.

--------

HEALTHY SPORTS PARENTING COURSE

Get access at HealthySportsParenting.com.

--------

MORE FROM CARLOS:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beforethefield
Website: https://www.beforethefield.com/
PROMO CODE: BTFHEALTHY3 - Free 3 months

--------

FROM OUR SPONSORS:

JAX Athletics
Coupon Code: HSP15 for 15% off
https://jaxathletics.com/

--------

Get your Healthy Sports Parents shirts or hat:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/shop

---------

Get your Weekend Playbook:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/playbook

-----------

Follow us on social:

https://www.instagram.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.tiktok.com/@healthysportsparents
https://www.facebook.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.threads.net/healthysportsparents
New episodes every Wednesday.

---------

Get your Healthy Sports Parents gear:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/shop

---------

Get your Weekend Playbook:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/playbook

-----------

Follow us on social:

https://www.instagram.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.tiktok.com/@healthysportsparents
https://www.facebook.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.threads.net/healthysportsparents
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Youth sports are getting more expensive, more competitive, and more structured at younger ages. So what happens to the kids and families who simply want a chance to play?

In this episode, Healthy Sports Parents founder Jonathan Carone talks with retired professional hockey player and Swift Hockey founder Zechariah Thomas about the growing barriers to youth sports. They discuss kids entering travel hockey as early as kindergarten, why taking a summer off can make it harder to make a winter team, the difference between formal training and simply playing, the rising cost of ice time, and why accessibility has become such an important part of Zechariah’s work.

Zechariah also shares what his own parents did to make hockey possible for him, why roller hockey could help more kids discover the sport, and the lesson he believes every sports parent needs to hear: let your kid be the one pulling you toward the game.

If youth sports are supposed to give kids opportunities to grow, learn, compete, and belong, we have to ask whether the system we’ve built is making those opportunities harder to reach.

--------

HEALTHY SPORTS PARENTING COURSE

Get access at HealthySportsParenting.com.

--------

MORE FROM ZECHARIAH:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zechthomass/
Website: https://swifthockey.com/

--------

FROM OUR SPONSORS:

Interested in sponsoring an episode?
Hello@HealthySportsParents.com

--------

Get your Healthy Sports Parents shirts:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/shop

---------

Get your Weekend Playbook:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/playbook

-----------

Follow us on social:

https://www.instagram.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.tiktok.com/@healthysportsparents
https://www.facebook.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.threads.net/healthysportsparents
New episodes every Wednesday.

---------

Get your Healthy Sports Parents gear:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/shop

---------

Get your Weekend Playbook:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/playbook

-----------

Follow us on social:

https://www.instagram.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.tiktok.com/@healthysportsparents
https://www.facebook.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.threads.net/healthysportsparents
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Healthy Sports Parents, Jonathan Carone sits down with psychiatrist and author Dr. Curt Thompson to explore why sports parenting can feel so personal and why a child’s performance can bring out emotions parents never expected.

Dr. Thompson explains how parents carry their own family history, insecurities, shame, and unfinished business into their children’s sports experiences, often without realizing it. They discuss why parents can deeply love their kids and still respond in unhealthy ways, how generational patterns show up on the sidelines, why praising effort matters, and how curiosity can help parents stay connected to their children regardless of what happens on the scoreboard.

This conversation goes deeper than sideline behavior and serves as an invitation for sports parents to understand their own stories, recognize the patterns they’ve inherited, and consider who they are becoming while helping their kids grow through sports.

In this episode:

Why a child’s sports performance can feel so personal to a parent
How family-of-origin patterns influence sports parenting
Why parents sometimes repeat behaviors they experienced as kids
Breaking generational cycles without simply blaming previous generations
The difference between praising effort and praising results
Why curiosity can be more valuable than evaluation after a game
How shame and performance can become connected
Why connection with a child matters more than the scoreboard
What parents can learn about themselves through youth sports

--------

HEALTHY SPORTS PARENTING COURSE

Get access at HealthySportsParenting.com.

--------

MORE FROM DR. THOMPSON:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/curtthompsonmd/
Website: https://curtthompsonmd.com/
Podcast: https://www.thebeingknownpodcast.com/

--------

FROM OUR SPONSORS:

Interested in sponsoring an episode?
Hello@HealthySportsParents.com

--------

Get your Healthy Sports Parents shirts:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/shop

---------

Get your Weekend Playbook:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/playbook

-----------

Follow us on social:

https://www.instagram.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.tiktok.com/@healthysportsparents
https://www.facebook.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.threads.net/healthysportsparents
New episodes every Wednesday.

---------

Get your Healthy Sports Parents gear:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/shop

---------

Get your Weekend Playbook:
https://www.healthysportsparents.com/playbook

-----------

Follow us on social:

https://www.instagram.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.tiktok.com/@healthysportsparents
https://www.facebook.com/healthysportsparents
https://www.threads.net/healthysportsparents
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.