Jemima won two bronze medals in race walking at the Paris 2024 Olympics and had this to say post race.

This video is standing the test of time and I encourage sports parents to watch this video with all the budding young athletes in your life.

We often talk in sessions about finding stories and narratives that can help open up conversations particularly with teenagers and this could be one of those brilliant conversation starters for sporting parents.

Conversation Starters for Sports Parents

(Inspired by Jemima Montag’s Olympic reflections)

Community & Belonging

• “What does being part of a team mean to you?”
• “Who in your sport makes you feel like you belong?”
• “How do you think Jemima’s community helped her through tough moments?”

Dedication & Discipline

• “What do you think dedication looks like for you — at training, school, or home?”
• “When have you felt proud of sticking with something, even when it was hard?”
• “Jemima talked about commitment — how do you balance hard work with rest and fun?”

Leadership

• “What kind of teammate do you want to be?”
• “How do you show leadership, even if you’re not the captain?”
• “What leaders or teammates inspire you, and why?”

Friendship & Support

• “How do your friends in sport support you when things don’t go your way?”
• “What do you value most about your friendships in sport?”
• “Jemima mentioned friendship — how can friends make training or competition more enjoyable?”

The Bigger Picture

• “Jemima said sport teaches life lessons — what life lessons do you think you’re learning?”
• “If sport wasn’t about medals or wins, what would still make it worth doing?”
• “What do you think Jemima will remember most from her Olympic experience — the medals or the journey?”

Sports Parent Tips

Use these questions as open invitations to talk, not tests.

You do not need to ask them all in one sitting either, pick the ones that may be most relevant to you in your current situation.

Listen more than you speak and let your child’s reflections guide the conversation.

The goal isn’t to analyse performance — it’s to explore values, purpose, and joy in sport and getting them communicating.

Whatever her motivation was it got me thinking about the value of our children watching sport.  Not just for the role models on show but also the opportunities it provides us as sports parents to spend some quality time with them, a shared passion perhaps and the foundation it can provide for us to have powerful conversations with our children.

I have no data to back up this statement but my gut feeling is we have far less of this generation watching sport on the TV, admittedly they may be seeing plenty in bite sized chunks via social media channels but certainly in my latter years in education and coaching when I asked youngsters if they had watched certain games or competitions at the weekend, the positive responses seemed less than 15-20 years ago.

When Liz McColgan joined us on the Parents in Sport Podcast we talked about the halcyon days of the Diamond League on a Friday evening where parents and children could recognise many of the world’s best athletes as that was standard family fare, however now I often find myself having to look up people to identify them and some youngsters struggle to put names to faces.

Sport on the TV and in the media has changed exponentially in recent times making the variety and choice huge compared to our generation growing up that had to settle for the odd sporting program on the TV each week and if you wanted your sporting fix then you were glued to it, knowing full well it would be a while before the next opportunity.

This probably included tuning into sports that you were not even particularly interested in. That is not the case today with the huge number of sports on offer to watch across different platforms, which gives us a brilliant opportunity as sports parents.

There is no doubting that there can be a real value in encouraging our young people to watch sport, or even better to watch sport with them, either at home on the TV or if possible, get to a local venue for some live action.

Why can it be so valuable? 

• Role-Models – ‘If you can see it, you can be it’.

Watching sport can help provide our children with a huge variety of role models and teach our children about sportsmanship. (DISCLAIMER: We appreciate at times that this is not always the case and can do the opposite, but these are few and far between in comparison to how much sport is being played).

Role models often embody qualities such as determination, perseverance, and teamwork that can inspire us and our children in our own lives.

Take for example the legendary basketball player Michael Jordan. His competitiveness on the court was unmatched, but what truly set him apart was his ability to remain humble in victory and gracious in defeat. Through his actions, he taught us the importance of respecting our opponents and being a good sport no matter the outcome.

Another shining example of a role model is tennis superstar Serena Williams. Throughout her career, she has faced numerous challenges and obstacles, but her resilience and grace under pressure have been truly inspiring. Whether it is giving credit to her opponents after a tough match or using her platform to advocate for important issues like gender equality, Serena shows us that being a good sport goes beyond the game itself. She demonstrates that sportsmanship is about treating others with kindness and respect both on and off the court.

In addition to individual athletes, team sports also provide remarkable role models who teach us invaluable lessons about teamwork and camaraderie. The New Zealand national rugby team, known as the All Blacks, is a prime example of this. They are renowned not only for their exceptional skills on the field but also for their strong sense of unity as a team.  The players are driven by leaving the jersey in a better place than which they found it and always putting the team first above any individual achievements.

We must use the powerful narratives that our children may watch and see as a great opportunity to talk to them about why certain athletes are good role models and how being a good role model is so much more than simply being the best player.

These conversations with our children about identifying what makes these top performers good at their craft as well as what is good about their character can be doubly impactful.

• Help our children to develop critical-thinking, problem-solving and analysis skills

Analysing strategies employed by teams, coaches and athletes during a game can help our children to fosters a deeper understanding of decision-making processes under pressure. This analytical approach allows them to appreciate the intricacies of various sports.

Who can remember the days of watching TV and then going outside to copy what we had just seen and bring it to life with friends in our communities. I cannot recall how many times I was John Barnes, Ian Botham or a member of ‘The A Team’ growing up.

I remember vividly watching live the first ball that Shane Warne ever bowled to Mike Gatting and spending the rest of the day trying to duplicate it, admittedly with not quite as much success.

Watching games and individuals can help our children to paint pictures in their own minds. The more they see these pictures the greater chance of them taking them into their own sporting performances.

We have more analysis and insights into sport than ever before.  By actively listening to commentary and observations, our children can develop their own critical thinking abilities. They learn how to question assumptions made during gameplay and evaluate alternative approaches that could have been taken.  We may need to help them understand a bit around context as not everything will simply ‘copy and paste.’

• Enhance their Physical and Mental Well-being

Watching sport can greatly contribute to enhancing physical and mental well-being.

We know that engaging in physical activities is essential for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and the watching of sport allows our children to vicariously experience the thrill of competition and athleticism.

As our children watch athletes push themselves to their limits, their own motivation and desire for physical activity may become more ignited. We must try and be ready to jump on these moments and try to facilitate these moments of enthusiasm where we can. Anything that encourages our children away from technology and towards physical activity can only be a positive.

Moreover, watching sport can also have a positive impact on their mental well-being. When they immerse themselves in a sporting event, they experience a range of emotions: excitement, joy, frustration, and even disappointment. These emotional roller coasters stimulate their brains and release endorphins that uplift their mood. The sheer unpredictability of sport keeps them on the edge of our seats, creating an adrenaline rush that can boost their mental alertness.

Encouraging our children to watch sport can be a valuable and enjoyable way for them to learn and grow for a wide variety of reasons. We have covered several in this blog but are sure that you will have several of your own.

My daughter did manage a goal in her game, I am relieved to say the shirt did not come off and she did attempt to hit a shot as hard as Chloe Kelly but on this occasion, it did not find the target. Oh well, I wonder who she will be next week!

However, I cannot help feeling that the motives behind the original messaging have become severely misinterpreted, just like a very poor game of ‘Chinese Whispers.’

Encouraged by this latest video with Steve Hansen, we finally decided to put pen to paper. Steve immediately dispels the myth around No. 2 ‘work ethic’ on the list based on his experiences in coaching. He reflects on how it is an important skill but acknowledges that it needs to taught and developed.

My guess is that the original message was very much based around 10 things that we perhaps have a greater control over than some of the things that we can’t control.

In our workshops we talk to parents about investing our energy on things that we can really control and not on those things that we are not in control of. We cannot control if our children are going to become professional sportsmen or women as there are too many factors so far out of our control.

Both parents and children are not really in control of injuries, selections, genetics, how we go through puberty, peer pressure within a group to name but a few but can perhaps influence the environments that nurture some of the skills that have been listed above.

The problem is that all of these skills that so call require ‘zero talent’ need effectively nurturing by parents, teachers and coaches and are supported by the environments that they create for young people. No one doubts that all of these are extremely valuable skills that we would all want our children to have and would allow young people to thrive in whichever walk of life they choose to go and are vital in performance programmes to ensure that we are creating multi-faceted individuals.

Our initial reaction when reading the list as parents or coaches is that this makes sense, but do they require talent? Of course, they do.
Anything learned is a skill both physically and mentally and if people think they are easy to learn, why does everyone not possess these traits?

Neil Warnock the Middlesbrough manager in the press when discussing bright hopeful of current Tottenham Hotspur player Djed Spence said, ‘Djed could end up playing at the top of the Premier League or in non-league.’ He says the full-back has “all the tools” to play at the top, but “application and dedication” will determine how Spence’s career plays out. Yet we expect young players to just instantly possess these traits.

We would all like to see young people with a great attitude but what does that mean to them? Have we ever spoken to them about it.
Everton manager Sean Dyche discusses his views around attitude here and what it means to him and for those that he may coach.

Sport undoubtedly provides one of the safest and best opportunities for a lot of these skills to be developed if the emphasis is also being placed on them by coaches and reinforced by positive messages around them coming from home. Many of these skills may fall by the wayside if everything is too results focussed and not enough time is invested in the processes making up the performance.

‘First ask how much passion and perseverance you have for your own life goals.  Then ask yourself how likely it is that your approach to parenting encourages your child to emulate you. Your children will be watching you.’ (Grit by Angela Duckworth)

We often talk about how parents on the whole have the biggest influence over their children and their behaviours, whilst recognising the impact that can also be made by teachers, coaches and relatives.  We also know that the biggest achievements made by young children are when coach/parent or teacher/coach are working together to deliver the same consistent messages and behaviours.

If this is the case, the responsibility we have as parents around our children’s sport is huge as our children will be watching and listening to us.

All of the behaviours that we exhibit, what we value, what we say and how we deal with situations will be taken at face value by our children and likely repeated.  How many times in sport have we heard statements come from a child’s mouth and we think, ‘you can’t have come up with that, who has put those words into your mouth?’

Children inherently take their cues from parents.  We help them develop how they should feel about the world and others, the manner in which they interact, and the beliefs they carry. We shape their system of thought and action with our own.

Think about what you want your child to see and hear, how you want them to behave and how you want them to perceive the world.  Remember they will be watching and listening to you for their cue!

As our children grow, become teenagers and end up in sporting environments, some in performance pathways or in the professional game then we would hope to see a lot of these traits on a regular basis. However, even then it can be more complicated than that as we will not see it from everyone every day.

Dan Abrahams a sports psychologist sums this all up beautifully,

‘Don’t you know these things require zero talent? How dare you not adhere to this list every day. How dare you experience low mood, anxiety, a drop in confidence, self-consciousness, perfectionism, vulnerability, frustration, doubt, worry, confusion…come on, you MUST do these!

As coaches you can certainly expect them but due to their complexity you won’t see them every time. You’ll see them more when players develop the skills (eg life and mental skills) that improve their ability to demonstrate them.’

We are often asked by parents, ‘how do I know if it has all been worth it?’

Well we have finally come up with the answer that if our children are equipped with the following set of skills and that is our focus as parents during the sporting experience, we will have certainly raised some very well-rounded individuals.

In our workshops we discuss how we can help support these skills as a parent and that is a blog for another day but the reality is that as parents as we watch a week of training and a performance in a competitive situation that if we see these skills more often than not there is a good chance that their performance will have been of a really good level regardless of the outcome.

I challenges parents, coaches and teachers that the next time you see this list ‘10 things that require zero talent’ and think children should just have them to spend some time and explain what they are, what it means for them in their context and how by developing these skills it may have a positive impact on their life, well-being and what they go on to achieve.

Most importantly, model these behaviours on a regular basis and when you see your children or the people you coach display them, reinforce and celebrate them from the rooftops! These young children will then know that these ‘talents’ are important and that you truly value them and see their importance as a key part of any sporting experience.