Healthy Sports Parents

Youth sports motivation for parents - intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation - playing for yourself vs playing for the team - practical ways to support your athlete without adding pressure. Mental performance coach Lindsey Nadler joins us to unpack what truly drives kids in sports and how parents can lead in a way that fuels growth instead of shutdowns. We cover internal motivation vs external rewards,...

Youth sports should be about more than pressure, performance, and early specialization. In this episode of  Healthy Sports Parents , we sit down with Jonny Martin, cofounder of Football Fun Factory , to explore how parents can help their kids  fall in love with sports first , before worrying about competition or skill development. Drawing from years of coaching experience and working wit...

Former MLB outfielder  Travis Snider  joins us to talk about one of the biggest challenges in youth sports today: identity. When our kids start believing their value comes only from performance, stats, or wins, it sets them up for anxiety, burnout, and a shaky sense of self. In this conversation, Travis shares openly about his own struggles tying his worth to baseball — from being labele...

What happens when a world-class athlete becomes a youth sports parent? In this episode, former professional runner and NCAA champion Sara Slattery joins us for a real, vulnerable conversation about the shift from elite competition to everyday parenting. We talk about what it’s like watching your child navigate sports, how early pressure can steal the joy, and why stepping back is sometimes the mos...

What does  healthy support  actually look like in youth sports? In this episode, Louisville volleyball head coach Dan Meske joins us to unpack what truly helps young athletes thrive — and what might be unintentionally holding them back. We talk about early specialization, burnout, recruiting myths, the rising cost of club sports, and the one thing every college coach looks for that doesn...

What happens when everything you worked for suddenly feels like too much? This week’s guest, Jackie Reyneke, opens up about the emotional rollercoaster of being a Division I athlete at Princeton — from high expectations and identity struggles to injury, loss, and the quiet moments when she questioned if it was all worth it. In this powerful episode, Jackie shares: What her parents did right while...

Bobby Muuss has coached at the highest levels of college soccer for nearly 30 years. But when he’s not on the sidelines at Wake Forest, he’s coaching his son’s rec team right alongside the rest of us. In this episode, Coach Muuss shares the powerful perspective he’s gained from both worlds: the high-stakes world of Division I soccer, and the joy (and chaos) of Saturday morning youth games. He open...

Jeremi Barnes didn’t plan to become a youth sports ref with millions of views across social media. But what started as a way to help out turned into a calling — not just to officiate games, but to connect with kids, model respect, and remind everyone why youth sports actually matter. Jeremi shares his own athletic journey (including how he set a school record in triple jump just two months after l...

Food is one of the most personal - and complicated - parts of parenting. In this episode, Jonathan sits down with Farrell Frankel, a Licensed Sports Dietitian who works with youth and college athletes, to talk about how we approach food, body image, and nutrition as sports parents. The conversation covers everything from fueling young athletes to unlearning harmful food messages we grew up with. F...

In this episode, pediatric orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jeff Shilt joins us to break down what’s really happening when kids grow, get injured, or struggle in youth sports. We talk about overuse injuries, how to spot red flags, and why rest might not be the thing that helps your kid recover from an injury. Dr. Shilt also shares what he’s learned from raising four kids with very different approaches to sp...

Youth sports have the potential to be one of the most powerful classrooms in a child’s life — but only if we approach them with intention. In this episode, Jonathan sits down with Jason Sacks, CEO of Positive Coaching Alliance, for a wide-ranging conversation on the real lessons kids take away from sports. They explore how character development doesn’t happen automatically, why access and equity i...

Youth sports are a gift. But they can also get real messy. In this episode, we’re breaking down the Ten Commandments of Healthy Sports Parents — the core values behind everything we do. These aren’t just rules. They’re a framework for showing up well, leading with perspective, and keeping your kid’s well-being at the center of the journey. From emotional control to encouragement, rest to respect,...

We hadn’t planned on doing any bonus episodes this summer but when you get an email saying, “Would you like to interview NBA Hall of Famer Ray Allen?” you say yes and decide to put out a bonus episode. Ray is joined by ESPN Wide World of Sports General Manager Leroy Arrington. In the episode, we talk with Ray about why the process matters more than results, how kids need to learn from failure, and...

Coach Ballgame (  ⁨@coachballgame⁩  ) is on a mission to help kids fall in love with baseball and softball so they can learn the invaluable life lessons they impact. That includes helping kids love the game, helping parents lead their kids through the journey, and supporting coaches who can redefine the win from chasing trophies to imparting life lessons through the game. All year long,...

Today’s guest is Steve Magness. Steve is one of my favorite voices in the youth sports space. He’s served as a performance coach for numerous professional teams, executives, and even artists. He’s coached at the high school and college level. And he’s written quite a few books. His newest is called Win The Inside Game and is out now wherever you get books. I can’t recommend it highly enough. In ou...

Sarah Lessig is currently a high school senior who has signed to play college basketball at Princeton next year. But recently Sarah has gone viral all over social media because she is the girl who plays literally everything. I’ll let her tell the full story, but in high school, she’s played basketball, baseball, softball, flag football, and been a good enough skateboarder to attract sponsorships....

At 15, after never playing club/competitive soccer, Nick’s stepson, AJ, made an unexpected jump to the highest level of youth soccer in America. To make the story even more out-of-nowhere, Nick and his wife Sabrina are not your typical elite athlete parents - they’re both self-described computer nerds who don’t have athletic backgrounds. In our conversation with Nick, we talk about what it was lik...

Chris Martin is the founder and owner of the Tri-City Chili Peppers. He’s also the inventor of cosmic baseball - a glow-in-the-dark version of baseball the Chili Peppers play that’s going on tour starting this week. I’ll actually be at their first game on Friday night. Before starting all of that, Chris ran - and still runs - a baseball academy called Rise Baseball outside Richmond, Virginia. He w...

One of the common questions we get asked is how to balance youth/travel sports - which play games on Sundays - with church. If you play long enough, especially at club/competitive levels, those two things will inevitably come into conflict with each other. But they don't have to compete with one another. In this episode, Jonathan talks with Pastor Johnny Pereira about how we find the balance betwe...

We are seeing a giant increase in injuries amongst youth sports athletes. The consensus is the same from all the professionals: kids are playing too much while training too little. In this week's episode, we talk to Drs. Levi Kerby and Lauren Sibley about the importance of strength training, rest, and recovery in injury prevention. We also discuss how the goal of youth sports is to create healthy,...

April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day. As people who believe youth sports should be accessible to everyone, we wanted to do a dedicated episode to kids with ASD and special needs finding their place in youth sports. Our guest this week is Eric Williams. Eric's a dad of a son with autism along with a youth sports (rec + travel) coach and a background in rec league management. In our conversation we...

As parents, most of us have never studied the brain in-depth to understand how it works. Coach Lindsey Nadler joins us this week to give us a crash course on how kids are wired, what we can do to help them on their sports journey, and why understanding these things can be a super power as a parent. We also talk about the importance of our kid owning their youth sports journey and discuss how this...

If the athlete you fanboy or fangirl over had a bad game, you would know they're better than that one performance and encourage them to shake it off before the next game. In this episode, Olympic running and NCAA All-American Edose Ibadin shares why we need to be fanboys and fangirls of ourselves as we compete. He also talks about the importance of learning to love the process more than the result...

Jen Greeny has been coaching volleyball at the college level for over 20 years. Over that time she's won over 60% of the games she's competed in, been to the Division I NCAA Tournament eight times, had six Top 25 finishes at the Division I level, and been awarded two Pac 12 Coach of the Year honors. She's also the mom to a college and high school athlete. Before all that, she was a collegiate athl...

Today's kids are practicing and playing more than any other generation. But what they're *not* doing is strength and resistance training for their sports. In our conversation with Coach Brealon Ashworth (B.S. Exercise Science, USA Weightlifting certification) we talk about how kids need to dial back on sport specific skills training while increasing strength training, how old kids need to be to st...