Parents of kids as young as 7 or 8 are asking for Ashley Eckermann's help. Most of them are grappling with fear of failure.

Eckermann, founder of Maximize the Mind Mental Performance Coaching, asks for lots of detail about kids' worries and goals so she can tailor her suggestions to each young athlete's situation. She also avoids using the term "be positive" because she thinks it creates high expectations in kids.

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It's possible to speed up young athletes' thinking and reaction time, says Dr. Ryan D'Arcy, a sports dad, professor and president of NeuroCatch, a medical device startup that evaluates cognitive function.

For example, he recently used red light therapy to speed up a football player's cognitive processing by 70 milliseconds.

Speeding up processing this way can help young athletes perform better and avoid concussions, he says.

He provides sports parents tips for optimizing kids' brain health.

Email Dr. D'Arcy at ryan@healthtechconnex.com

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When kids make mistakes or are struggling during a game in youth sports, it's not easy to quickly switch to positive thinking.

Instead, young athletes should embrace neutral thinking first. This involves focusing on improving one skill. This gives kids something positive to focus on, rather than filling their minds with negative thoughts.

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Rather than telling sports kids how to play, parents and coaches should help kids develop their signature style, says Craig Lambert, former chief sports writer at Harvard Magazine.

Kids should begin with strategy, and build their game around that. Technique should follow, he said. Parents should let kids experiment and improvise to develop their own style. This will help them build confidence.

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Carter Hogg, a 20-year-old college football player and inventor of a neck guard to help athletes avoid injuries, discusses the fear of getting injured and the challenges of coming back after an injury.

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Sports kids face a number of challenges when their identity is wrapped up in sports, said Dr. Becca Wallace, a clinical pediatric psychologist at Children's Hospital in New Orleans.

When they get overly involved in sports, their identity becomes closely tied to being athletes.

If they're injured or have to stop playing sports, it can be devastating for young athletes whose identity is too tied to sports, she said. She suggests that parents help young athletes create more balance in their lives.

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There's so much goodness that can come from participating in youth sports, but ensuring kids experience that goodness requires teams to establish team cultures based on clear expectations of players, parents and coaches.

Team agreements and ethical coaching can help create the opportunity for sports kids to benefit from all that sports offers.

That's the word from Katie Steele and Dr. Tiffany Brown, co-founders of the nonprofit organization Athletes Mental Health Foundation.

Brown and Steele describe how coaches and leagues can forge team agreements and focus on ethical coaching.

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Kids get emotional in street hockey. They might throw their hockey sticks because they missed a shot, for example. Coaches with the Charlotte Street Hockey League deal with such behavior by inviting kids to express their feelings, and then trying to help them find more appropriate ways to communicate. The coaches also focus on teamwork and equal playing time, all the while searching for teachable moments, said Josh Greco, the nonprofit organization's youth director.

For more information about the league, visit Joshuargreco.com.

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