Mental blocks in sports with a 10yr old

[applerose01]

Wondering if anyone had any advice.

DD is 10 and trains in her club's elite gym squad - 13hrs/week. She loves gym. She only started a year ago and has already caught everyone up who have been training for years: it's her 'thing'.

However, around 4 weeks ago she developed a block on a backward move she's been able to do for a while. She just stops - freezes - and can't go. We're tried lots of different things and some work better than others for various amounts of time, but at some point the freezing kicks in: it's like she uses up her allotted courage.

Generally she can go when me/her coach are standing right next to her. But once we move away it's a different story.

She says she's not scared but she just can't make herself go. She's a perfectionist and although school is pressured right now she swears she's not that worried by it all. She has ups and downs with friends and takes things very much to heart but everything seems ok there too at the minute.

She's struggling - comes home from practice really upset. Her other skills are going great and we're trying to get her to see the bigger picture but obviously this dominates.

We're in discussions with her coach who is being very supportive, but I wondered whether anyone had any words of wisdom. She's not mature enough yet to drill down into what's stopping her (if anyone ever can...) but I feel that if we don't work this out then all we're doing is papering over the crack.

Any thoughts or advice?

Have a (free) chat with Therese Langford of https://www.facebook.com/calmmindhypnotherapy - she works exclusively with children.

Is it something like this? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57986166

The advice seems to be to leave it for now and come back to it...

Yeah it's very similar to the twisties I think. Thanks for the link

I personally would remove for the moment that move from any training that take any pressure off. It maybe that with a few weeks of not having to do it, if the coach then slips it in she will do it without thinking. Ds trains at a high level and after Christmas just lost confidence and motivation, i backed off completely and within a few weeks he was back to it as normal. He had a wobble and that was ok, he needed some time. Removing expectations did him the world of good.

Thanks - did he continue training just at a lower level? Or did you pull him out entirely for a few weeks?

he went back full on and has just done country development training away for 2 weekends. I think he needed a reset and a mental break and he found his own way back. One evening he was just training again, i said nothing and he built it up from there. It was definitely mental and not physical.

Just say "That's fine - I am sure it will come back in its own good time." The less that is made of this the better.