TPP 145a: What Coaches Need to Understand About Their Differently Wired Athletes

If you have a differently wired child who is athletic and/or is into sports, this episode is for you. My guest is Susan Stout, the founder Own Beat Athlete, a new resource aimed at helping athletic coaches understand their athletes who march to a different beat. Susan knows from personal experience as an athlete herself, a former coach, and the parent of an athletic differently wired child, that many great athletes can be challenging to coach because of their wiring—they can be easily frustrated, disruptive, forgetful, inconsistent. But she also knows that they can be a teams’ greatest asset. Susan’s goal is to equip others with what she wishes she knew when she was a coach, and support and bring out the best in the many athletes who didn’t fit the mold, with a specific focus on athletes with ADHD, learning differences, and anxiety.

This is a really interesting conversation and Susan’s resources are a great starting point for listeners who want to bridge that gap of knowledge between their child’s behavior and their sports coach. I hope you enjoy it.

Susan Stout is an advocate for athletes who are wired differently and struggle to participate or reach their potential in sports. She specializes in ADHD, learning differences and anxiety. Susan is the founder of Own Beat Athlete, a project to provide athletic coaches with the understanding and tools they need to help their differently wired athletes thrive. She brings to the work her perspective as a swimmer, coach, teacher, lawyer and mom to an avid and talented young athlete with ADHD and dyslexia.

Things you’ll learn from this episode

• How and when parents should let athletic coaches know about a child’s wiring
• What kind of unique gifts differently wired athletes bring to their sports
• What the common challenges are for differently wired kids participating in sports
• How parents can talk with their kids about learning how to self-advocate for themselves with their coaches
• Susan’s thoughts on how willing coaches are to better understand and support their differently wired athletes
• How Own Beat Athlete supports coaches (and parents of athletes) to know how to practically support and problem solve with challenges related to neurodifferences
• What parents should look for to know whether or not they should step in

Resources mentioned for coaching differently wired athletes

• Own Beat Athlete
• Own Beat Athlete / Susan Stout on Twitter
• Susan Stout on Facebook
• Own Beat Athlete’s Coaches’ Toolkit

Connect with Tilt Parenting

• Visit Tilt Parenting
• Take the free 7-Day Challenge
• Read a chapter of Differently Wired
• Follow Tilt on Twitter & Instagram

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