Start With Curiosity Instead of Conclusions

Issue 004 - Fall Lead-In Series

The waiting is almost over. For many families, the next couple of weeks are when the season starts to feel real. Practices will start popping up on the family calendar. Team group chats are getting more active. It's time to break in the new equipment.

After weeks of anticipation and offseason work, everyone is eager to see how the next season unfolds. The back-to-school period can bring a wide range of emotions, from excitement to anxiety, and it's also when one of the biggest temptations in youth sports quietly shows up:

1 Idea

The beginning of a season is for learning, not judging.

A new sports season has a way of changing the rhythm of family life almost overnight, and it doesn't take long before we start trying to answer questions that don't really have answers yet.

Those questions are natural, but they often arrive long before there's enough information to answer them well.

One of the easiest traps in youth sports is assuming the first few practices or games tell us where the rest of the season — or even our child's athletic future — is headed. They rarely do.

Every athlete is starting from a different place. Some come in confident after a summer of training. Others need a few weeks just to settle in with new teammates, a different coach, or a higher level of competition. Coaches are still learning personalities, experimenting with lineups, and figuring out how everyone's strength's fit together.

After years of coaching and working with student-athletes, I've lost count of the number of kids who looked overwhelmed in August and were thriving by October — or the ones who started fast before encountering new challenges later in the season. That's one reason I've learned to be cautious about early conclusions.

Just think of how you feel when your favorite team starts 2-0 vs. 0-2. Small sample size. Large impact on expectations.

The healthiest sports families don't ignore what they see. They simply resist the urge to turn every moment into a verdict. They notice progress, celebrate effort, and trust that growth often reveals itself over weeks and months.

As parents, one of the greatest gifts we can give our athletes is the freedom to grow without feeling like every day is a final exam.

1 Resource

📰Article: Before He Was Scottie, He Was The Sixth Man

I was reminded of this while reading about Scottie Scheffler recently.

Long before he became the No. 1 golfer in the world, Scheffler wasn't even a starter on his high school basketball team. He was the sixth man. If someone had tried to predict his athletic future from that snapshot alone, they almost certainly would have gotten it wrong.

That's true for elite athletes, and it's even more true for kids who are just beginning another season. Today's performance is only one page in a much larger story.

1 Conversation Starter

Instead of asking how practice went or whether they played well, try asking:

It gently shifts the focus from proving themselves to learning, reinforcing that growth is measured over time, not by one day's results.

Worth Remembering

Don't mistake the first chapter for the whole story.

From Rising Athlete Project

While writing the Rising Rookie Field Guide, one chapter practically wrote itself. It's called "You're Reading a Book That Hasn't Been Written."

It explores why parents naturally assign meaning to early successes and setbacks, and why those those first impressions so often prove incomplete. If you've ever found yourself wondering, "Is my child falling behind?" or "Is this season a sign of things to come?" I think you'll find that chapter encouraging.

It's part of the Rising Athlete Collection, practical field guides designed to help families navigate each stage of the youth sports journey with greater confidence, perspective, and purpose.

If you missed last week's issue, you can read it here: Use the Rest of Summer Wisely​

--

Stephen Anderson

Founder, Rising Athlete Project

P.S. Know a parent, coach, AD, or youth sports leader who would appreciate this? Feel free to forward it along.