This article by Bruce E. Brown helps parents recognize where their child sits on the confidence spectrum and understand their role in building it. It describes the low-confidence, perfectionist, fear-of-failure, overconfident, and high-confidence athlete profiles, explains that true confidence is based on preparation and carried quietly, contrasts confidence builders with confidence cutters, lays out six ways parents can "release" their athlete, and shares athletes' own words about where their confidence came from.
Recognizing Confidence Levels
Low-confidence athletes: submissive; low energy; sensitive to correction; worried about what others think; doubt their ability; hesitant to trust; anxious; more worried than excited; tentative and careful; negative self-talk.
The perfectionist athlete: anxious; tense; worried; seldom looks like they are having fun; motivated by fear; focused on avoiding mistakes.
The fear-of-failure athlete: guarded; pretends they don't care; constantly comparing themselves to others; ties their value to the outcome.
The overconfident / arrogant athlete: bragging; disrespectful body language; an "I'm better than you and I'm going to let you know" attitude; a front-runner.