Bio

Dr. Kent A. Corso is a licensed clinical psychologist and board-certified behavior analyst. His career in suicidology began over 20 years ago, while serving in the U.S. Air Force. Dr. Corso has researched, developed, and evaluated suicide prevention programs across North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. In 2016, he developed PROSPER, an evidence-based suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention program. Dr. Corso has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers on suicide and the behavioral sciences is a leading expert in novel scientific methods and digital technologies for analyzing suicide.

In this episode of Sharpening Your Edge, Chuck and Erik sit down with clinical psychologist and suicidologist Dr. Kent Corso to discuss how parents and coaches can better support the mental and emotional development of young athletes. The conversation explores the importance of balancing high expectations with empathy, building strong connections through trust and communication, recognizing signs of struggle even in outwardly successful athletes, and creating environments where young people feel supported while being challenged to grow. Dr. Corso also helps redefine toughness, explaining that true resilience comes not from suppressing emotions, but from self-awareness, emotional support, and the confidence to navigate adversity both on and off the ice.

Takeaways:

• In this episode, we explore the pressing issue of mental health in youth sports, emphasizing the necessity for open conversations about emotional well-being among players, coaches, and parents.
• Dr. Kent Corso highlights the alarming rise of suicide rates among athletes, urging families to recognize signs of mental distress and to foster supportive environments for their children.
• We discuss the impact of societal expectations on young athletes, particularly the detrimental effects of discouraging emotional expression and vulnerability in male players.
• The episode underscores the importance of connectedness; maintaining relationships and support systems can significantly reduce the risk of suicidal thoughts and improve overall mental health.
• Parents and coaches are encouraged to actively engage in discussions about mental health and to create safe spaces for youth to express their feelings without fear of judgment.
• Lastly, we reiterate the value of seeking professional help when needed, as well as the significance of utilizing resources like the 988 crisis hotline for immediate support.

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Tim: 00:00:00

This is Sharpening youg Edge with Chuck and Eric.

In this episode, we'll be Speaking with suicidologist Dr. Kent Corso, who also runs his own podcast, One minute can save a Life where he talks about suicide prevention. But first, a quick message from our title sponsor.

Kent: 00:00:23

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And for hockey teams, it ties right into my hockey rankings to identify the perfect opponent. All that, plus the stuff you'd expect, scheduling, roster management announcements and reminders.

Roster Hub is one app that covers the full coaching job, not just the administration. Create your account at RosterHub app and download today on iOS and Android. Your first month is free.

Open the iOS app store, tap your profile, tap redeem code and enter CV31 month. Check out roster Hub today.

Chuck: 00:01:19

Welcome to another episode of Sharpening your edge presented by CB3 Hockey Development and brought to you by our title sponsor, Roster Hub. I'm your host Chuck Bertolino and I will be riding solo tonight.

So unfortunately, another former NHL player, Claude Lemieux, recently took his own life. A couple years back, Chris Simon also died by suicide.

And we see this way too often in the sports world today, whether it be professional or college athletes, or even youth athletes.

So therefore, we thought it was important to dedicate an episode to educating coaches, parents and players on the many facets of mental health and try to provide some tools for help. So to do that, we welcome to the show licensed clinical psychologist, board certified behavior analyst and suicidologist, Dr. Kent Corso.

Dr. Corso, welcome to the show.

Kent: 00:02:21

Thanks. It's great to be here.

Before we get going, I should just do the responsible thing and say that we're going to have a frank conversation here and we can't really reduce mental health or suicide in unless we speak directly about these issues.

So if anyone listening right now has any experience with suicide, either yourself or a loved one, or maybe you've lost someone to suicide, please take care of yourself first. It's sort of like they say on the airplanes, put on your oxygen mask before you do anything else.

And just for the listeners as well, even though I am a clinical psychologist, I am not Chuck's clinical psychologist or a suicidologist. So I just want to be clear about that before we jump in.

Chuck: 00:03:03

Thank you, Dr. Corso. So some listeners may see mental health and suicide prevention as a difficult or uncomfortable topic to speak about.

Still, we're unfortunately seeing an increased discussion around suicide among hockey players and athletes in any sport today, in recent years. So why is this a conversation that every hockey family, coach and player needs to be willing to have?

Kent: 00:03:35

Well, the first way to think about this is that mental health doesn't discriminate. We can't say that it's, oh, it's people who can't handle their stuff, or it's people who really have a tougher life than other people.

I think for years and years we've thought of mental health as sort of like, well, that's what happens when you're not tough enough or you can't handle it. And in all my years of working in law enforcement and military communities, we know that that doesn't really have a lot of credence.

It's not really true.

So people are more vulnerable than ever to mental health problems because of the Internet, because of devices and social media and bullying and cyberbullying. So back in the day, if you were going to bully someone, you had to get up in their face and do it.

And there was the potential that they could hit you back or someone else would hit you back. But with stuff like cyberbullying, that stuff happens over the computer. People can just fire off horrible things at other without any consequence.

And so not only are we seeing more of these behaviors, but there are fewer consequences and accountability for them. So when we're thinking of kids who are in middle school and high school, they are at higher risk for cyberbullying than obviously grownups are.

Ninth grade females are at the highest risk for cyberbullying. But it's not just about bullying. Mental health is something that's actually everywhere. And suicide is in a lot more places than people think.

But it's not really how we start conversations.

We don't go to tailgates or cocktail parties or Christmas parties and meet new people and say, hey, my name is Kent and yeah, I attempted suicide and lived through it. We don't really tell people that stuff.

And so because we don't talk about it, it leaves the impression that it's not happening in many places or that it's only happening to people who are really, really in a tough place and don't have a lot to live for. But the opposite is true.

It's really that people who are suicidal have a ton to live for and they're really struggling with trying to stay alive, even though they've got a ton to live for. So it's a lot more complex than I think we understand. And again, it's because we don't typically talk about it.

Chuck: 00:05:46

You mentioned back in the day where we were face to face.

And I remember this growing up in locker rooms and things like that, and friends just joking around saying, you know, you know, boys, you're not tough. Why, you're wussy, whatever. Why are you showing vulnerability? So don't cry, man up, be tough, don't show weakness, things like that.

So I think society created this thing called the man code, which could go to any sport. Basically the message that boys should be tough, self sufficient, like I said, not show vulnerability.

And it was taboo for a long time for men to show weakness. I'm sure it still is today. Like I said, friends and teammates would get on them for it.

But now we are seeing people being more open about their mental health. It's becoming less taboo. Specifically, professional athletes speaking up about their depression.

In hockey recently, one of the best defensemen in the NHL recently came out publicly and said he's been battling depression for a while. And that's something you didn't see in the 80s and 90s with hockey.

So I think we've come a long way with men speaking out in public about what's going on. But we do see some examples still in youth sports. I'm sure you've seen it on the sidelines at many youth sports. And I've seen it at hockey games.

For instance, flag football this weekend there was a kid crying after he gave up a touchdown and the dad yelling, don't cry, you know, man up, come on, we'll get it back.

Or I see it in the locker room after a game where a kid, devastating loss, you know, lost the championship and he feels like it's all his fault, is crying and the parents are telling him to stop crying. And I think that shows that they're committed to playing and they're all in on it.

But it might have the opposite effect, meaning that it might send a certain message. So what kind of message does it send to young athletes?

And what do you think are the unintended consequences at the time for them or maybe later in life?

Kent: 00:07:53

It's a great question. You have four hours to discuss that, Chuck.

Chuck: 00:07:57

We might be able to do a part two or three.

Kent: 00:08:01

Let me just sort of rewind a little bit and unpack some of this. So when we talk about boys not being able to show their feelings, and not because they're not capable, but because they're told not to.

Like, don't cry or don't show weakness or man up. We've done that for almost a full century. And I think there are some pros to that approach and there are some cons to that approach.

If you look at the baby boomers, they're really good at sucking it up. When you talk about rub some dirt on it and get back in the game, suck it up, buttercup. Men don't cry, just push through.

They do a really, really good job of that. And one of the demographics that die by suicide more than anyone are your elderly, your people who are over 68 years old.

So whereas the baby boomers may be super tough and gritty, once they get to the point where they feel like giving up, they do, and they do it in droves.

The younger kids may not be as gritty, the younger generations may not stick with it as much, but they're really good at raising a flag and saying, hey, something doesn't feel right. So it's interesting the way the strengths vary based on the generation.

But where nowadays there's less stigma about talking about your feelings, there's a little less stigma about seeking help. It's sort of okay to be depressed or anxious. And in fact, kids are really good at raising their hand and saying, hey, something doesn't feel right.

Can I talk about this now? What that generation tends to lack is some of that grit, that ability to stick with things and continue to grind away when something gets tough.

I want to ask you a question, though, Chuck, because you've been around these situations just as much as I have. Why do you think parents tell their kids, don't cry?

Chuck: 00:09:46

I personally think it's an embarrassment thing on the parents where the parents might see their kid crying and say, hey, you're embarrassing me. In a sense, like, hey, my kid's not tough. My kid can't go in there and play hard. My kid's not showing. He's a great player.

He's on the corner of the bench crying because he just gave up the winning goal of the game, or he's in the locker room crying.

So I think, and we see this in different facets of youth hockey today, and I'm sure across the board in youth sports, where the parents are seeing their kids reflection of themselves in their play, in their emotions. So I personally think it's. It stems from the parents and how they feel people perceive them.

Kent: 00:10:37

So. So you think what it is, is Parents are like, oh, my gosh, look at that kid crying. What a wussy. What a baby. Man, their parents must be really soft.

They must be like just that family must be pretty weak. So you're thinking that the parents see it as a reflection of themselves.

Chuck: 00:10:53

Correct. I don't think me seeing a kid cry on the sideline, I'm not thinking, oh, the parents not raising them to be tough.

I think the parent themself is thinking, what is everybody else thinking about me and how I'm raising my son or daughter?

Kent: 00:11:11

Got it. So it's not really what the other parents are thinking. It's just what that parent thinks others are thinking.

Chuck: 00:11:17

Correct.

Kent: 00:11:18

Let's unpack it a different way. Let's give parents some credit and let's say that's not the issue. Sort of Process of elimination here. Let's say it's not that they're embarrassed.

Could parents be telling their kid not to cry because they're trying to toughen them up and they just care about them and they want them to really do better at a sport that's pretty intense.

Chuck: 00:11:37

Maybe I could see that. And we've seen it with. And I was going to get to this later, but the conversation is taking it there now.

But I was going to say, a lot of guests we've had on previously in the youth hockey world have said that the biggest thing or biggest negative in youth hockey today is the lack of parent education. So I think maybe parents. This is why we're doing this episode. Maybe parents aren't fully informed on certain aspects, specifically mental health.

So I think maybe it's unintentional by the parent. They don't realize what they're doing, but they're causing harm without, like I said, without realizing it.

Kent: 00:12:22

Potentially. Yeah. I mean, so. So it sounds like parents mean well, but the way it comes out may have the opposite effect. So telling a kid not to cry.

If we play that out over. You said sort of what happens over years and years of that. We're teaching people to not manage their emotions.

And there are all sorts of problematic outcomes when children don't develop in a way that they learn to manage their emotions through the teenage years and the early adult years.

And that may look like anything from having some significant anger problems, like they just hold it in and hold it in and hold it in until they explode.

And whether that explosion looks like they beat their spouse or they get in fist fights at bars or at work or, I don't know, on the bus, on the train, in public, on A sideline I've certainly seen on the side of games. Two parents get in fights. I don't know why in 8 year old hockey we're letting it get to us so badly that we're fighting another adult.

But the intensity of the moment kind of takes over. And if people haven't learned to manage emotions, there are all sorts of problems like that. Other problems are excessive alcohol use.

So the reason a lot of people drink is because they are trying to manage negative emotions. Whether that's feeling depressed, feeling empty, feeling angry, feeling anxious. It could be any number of negative emotions.

But it's not uncommon for people who can't manage their emotions to use alcohol or even other substances to cope.

So when we think about telling our kids not to cry and tough it up and suck it up, it's not that we're going to have some kumbaya, let's catch butterflies and chase rainbows and hug trees and pet puppy dogs on the ice, that's obviously not what we're going to do.

But what many parents, I think even though they're well intended, they don't realize that the natural process of hockey being a relentlessly tough sport, that's what toughens them up.

And in fact, a parent's support after the game to say something like, you know, that was incredible the way you got knocked on your butt and you kind of got up and you just kept going. That's what matters. That's the kind of encouragement that helps them toughen up.

When they start to feel ashamed that they're human or that they have weakness or that they get injured physically, that's a problem. Then they're actually, over time learning how to deny who they are, even to themselves.

And that's not helpful because then people develop really bad habits like secrecy and lying to others and things like that. So we really do have to strike a happy middle here. It's not all or nothing. It's not, you know, don't cry at all, or cry all the time.

It's sort of like, how do we couch this in a way that works for the kid? There's one other piece to this puzzle, Chuck.

When kids are really little, like five, six years old, and you tell a child, good boy or good girl, they hear that and they try to be that, right? And if you tell them, bad boy, bad girl, they hear that and they end up doing bad things.

And so when our kids are in our eyes as parents, when we're feeling like, you know what, they're not as tough as they should Be one of the best things we can do is tell them how tough they are, even if we know they're not, because that communicates to them how much confidence we have in them. And when kids, parents have confidence in them, they feel like they can take on the world.

And so rather than telling them, don't cry after the game, you might say, you know, you started crying, and then you got yourself together. Great job.

So it's really trying to hammer on the little sparks of strength and toughness that you see, rather than trying to eliminate every single time you see weakness or hurt.

Chuck: 00:16:14

And that makes complete sense because another big topic going on in the hockey world today is burnout kids, because youth hockey is becoming so professionalized, and they feel the undue pressure from parents and coaches. You know, they see it as a job, and I have to do well every single time I'm out on the ice.

And eventually, by: 10:12

Rather than them leaving the game with negative thoughts, Spin it in in a positive way.

Kent: 00:16:52

Yeah, and timing's everything on this.

I mean, how many things is a kid wearing a helmet with the slapping of sticks on glass and on ice and the clashing of sticks and, you know, hearing, like, shoulders bump into each other, all of these noises in this echo chamber. That's a. That's an ice rink.

How many other things are they listening to between hearing their teammates try to communicate with them, hearing the coach yelling, hearing other parents yell stuff like get up and, you know, all this other stuff. I mean, kids really are very smart, but they can't process everything.

I'd much rather them hear the coaches two cents about everything going on and then process it after the game when they actually have the attention to focus on it than to try to yell at them during the game? I mean, there's this saying in some sports. They're like, coaches are there to coach, parents are there to cheer. Cheering sounds like, yay.

Cheering doesn't sound like pass, shoot, get back, get up. Right. If it's anything regarding how you play the game, it really needs to come from the coach's mouth.

And honestly, when kids are trained to listen to their parents on the sidelines, they actually make poorer players over time because they're not learning to think for themselves. They're only learning to follow directions sort of robotically. And that following directions robotically is Actually a lower cognitive function.

What I mean is that's what we learned to do in first grade and second grade. We were in grade school. Once we get to high school and middle school, we start to learn how to think for ourselves.

By yelling at your kid every five minutes to do this or do that, you're actually decreasing, increasing their ability to think on their feet and learn from their own game because they're busy following orders of others who are sort of barking those orders from the sideline. So.

Chuck: 00:18:45

So two things I got from that is that I wanted to bring up was, number one, I often see it, and I'm sure you see it on the soccer field as well, when the parents yelling at the child, they're looking up in the stands at the parent and instead of at the ice, Correct? Yeah. And that's taking them completely out of the game.

Kent: 00:19:06

Yeah.

Chuck: 00:19:07

And then another important point is maybe parents do realize it, maybe they don't, but it's important. And coaches as well.

Can you shed light on the fact that children's brains are not fully developed at 8, 10, 12, 12, even 12 years old, that parents and coaches might think they should understand something, but really they're not grasping it?

Kent: 00:19:31

Yeah. The prefrontal cortex is that front part of your brain. It's what makes us human rather than just animals.

It's what helps us plan and organize and anticipate consequences of events or consequences of our actions. Typically, the frontal lobe is not done developing till we're 24 years old.

And so in the middle school years, certainly elementary school, but middle school, and certainly elementary school and middle school, they don't really have the ability to multitask. They don't have the ability to focus on so many things at once or to follow so many different instructions all at the same time.

Nor do they have the ability to plan and organize five steps ahead. It's just not how the brain works.

And in fact, there's some school of thought out there with competitive youth sports that they are learning over 250 skills within their development. And that's just when they're younger.

And so when you think about working on 250 different skills, it takes a lot of attention, it takes a lot of time. And so what we want to do is be as precise as possible with each of those skills.

If coach says I should do it this way, my teammate tells me to do it that way, my teammate's parent yells at me to do it the other way, and my parent yells at, I mean, we're talking about four different instructions for one skill and there are 250 of those. So we so while parents are well meaning and let's be honest, we want all of our kids to succeed. I've got three kids.

I want my kids to be the best athletes that they can possibly be. But what we don't realize often as parents is that in attempting to sharpen our kids edge, we actually might be making it harder for them to learn.

They might perform well in that game or that moment, but the long game, the long term learning can be thwarted.

Chuck: 00:21:34

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Chuck: 00:22:29

Now I want to shift a little bit to depression to help parents, coaches and maybe even players understand it a little better. So individuals don't always present depression the way people expect. They may be laughing, working and functioning normally.

But what are some subtle signs that a hockey player may be struggling even if they're performing well on the ice and they're outwardly positive.

Kent: 00:22:56

So the best thing to the best way to think about this is just because someone's outwardly positive doesn't mean anything about how they feel inside.

In fact, when people are depressed or anxious, whenever you're not seeing that negative stuff, the positive stuff you see is a reflection of them trying really, really hard to overcome that stuff. So it can be really confusing because sometimes we'll think like, oh well, Johnny's not depressed.

He was just running around playing tag at that birthday party. Well, that doesn't mean he's not depressed. In that moment, he was engaged in what was going on.

And that's great because arguably his ability to engage in a game of tag at a birthday party will help him overcome this depression. Depression is a constellation of symptoms. Now this could be sleep problems, whether that's oversleeping or not. Getting enough sleep.

It's usually there's a lack of interest in doing what you typically enjoy or just lack of motivation. Oftentimes there's lower energy, lower appetite. Sometimes it's a higher appetite. But what you're hearing, Chuck, is these are physiological things.

These are in the body. These are bodily functions. They might complain that kids especially might complain of aches and pains.

They might try to refuse going to school or try to pull back from hockey or other activities because they're just not feeling the motivation. There are times where they also will have difficulties concentrating.

And we might think, oh, you're distracted, or, oh, you're playing those video games too much. But it's really a symptom of either stress or depression. And that's one of the tricky ones.

When kids can focus normally and then they go through a period where they're very distractible. They're not remembering stuff as well. They're kind of off. It could be anxiety, depression, or stress. So that's a good one for us to keep our eyes on.

The other one that we often see, particularly with males, is irritability. So when I say irritability, what I mean is they are cranky as heck. And I don't just mean like the teenage boy.

You know, teenage boys, if you're listening right now and you have one, you know that they speak in grunt. Everything is exclusively grunting. Hey, how was your day? You want some steak for dinner?

Kent: 00:25:11

Right.

Kent: 00:25:11

It's as if they've lost the ability to articulate. So when that gets more than normal, right? And you know your kids best, honestly, all of you do, who are listening right now, that irritability.

So it's getting frustrated more easily or popping off and saying things more easily that you shouldn't say. You know, we might hear kids swear or curse, right? And that might be sort of normal for them.

But then if it gets excessive, so you're really looking for a change in their baseline behavior, they might be overly pessimistic.

You might hear them say things real negative, whether they're criticizing others around them or saying things that reflect a lack of hope, a lack of optimism, sort of expecting negative things to happen. Those are the types of things you might see when the kid is depressed.

And you might see them pulling back from friend circles or doing less of what they enjoy. You could also hear them talk about wanting to die or wanting to end their life.

Suicide does happen in the context of depression, but it also happens in other circumstances when there's no mental health problem present at all.

Chuck: 00:26:13

I want to rewind a little bit.

You did mention that children have negative things going on from other places, like maybe their coaches or their parents, and it kind of brings their depression up. And we touch upon this a bunch on this podcast.

When you hear about the dreaded car ride home or the dreaded post game speech by a coach after they lose a game.

If a young player's first instinct after a game is to worry about what their parents or coaches are going to say rather than what they've actually learned or enjoyed about that game. Remember you said about that positive impact or positive words.

So what does that tell us about the overall environment that we've created, not only just with youth hockey, but across the board? You see it in travel baseball, I'm sure you see it in travel soccer as well, that this environment that we've created around youth sports today.

Kent: 00:27:13

Well, I think what, what you're tapping into, Chuck, and correct me if I'm wrong, is you're talking about this hyper competitiveness. Am I following you?

Chuck: 00:27:20

Yeah. Like the professionalism of sports today. And just that, like I said mentioned earlier, the undue pressure of the children to perform.

Kent: 00:27:30

Yeah.

Kent: 00:27:30

So I think kids are expected to sort of perform at these high, high levels, both in school, academically, and then also on the ice or if they're, you know, basketball players on the court, on the field for football, soccer, lacrosse, what have you. And what's tough is that parents have expectations that may or may not be reasonable.

We typically want things immediately, as you know, in our culture.

And so if we want things immediately and we're not willing to wait for that to develop over time, it can be really hard for the kid to have that pressure constantly. Also, whether it's the dreaded locker room speech from a coach, let's sort of target that first.

Some of the best coaches I've ever seen in multiple competitive sports, they do very little talking at the end of the game. It's only the big picture snippet.

And the reason they do that is not that they're hoping the kids are going to learn something that they'll take away and apply in the next game. It's really actually to help them pack up that game in their heads and be done with it.

Whether it's a win and it's, hey, you guys came out here and you showed this team exactly who you are. Great work, right? I mean, 10 seconds of talk. Or whether it's, hey, guys, you know what?

Sometimes you just play a team that's a lot better and that's what happened today. No worries. Shake it off and we'll see it Monday at practice. Right. So the best coaches I've ever worked with are ones who help players.

And that's really teaching the kids how to cope with their emotions.

It's teaching the kids how to look at a situation that they poured their heart and soul into and figure out how to pack it up, put it on a shelf, and move on so that they're not dwelling on losses and they're not floating on cloud nine that they won thinking they're invincible. Because there are downsides to that, too. So that's for the coaches.

But I think the other piece is how many touches on the puck do kids get in practice versus a game? You're more of an expert at hockey than I am, Chuck.

Chuck: 00:29:33

They touch the puck a lot more in practice than an actual game.

Tim: 00:29:36

Okay, so let's just stick with five. Let's go conservative. They touch the puck five more times in a practice than a game.

What that means is they have five more opportunities in practice to learn and to craft their technique and get that skill nailed down than they do in a game. So the best coaches I've worked with, they focus on all of that teaching and yelling and coaching.

When the kid has multiple chances to try it over and over and over and in the game, they just let them play.

Chuck: 00:30:07

Why?

Kent: 00:30:07

Because that's a moment to learn and to apply what they've been practicing and practice, the number of practices versus games and most. Unless you're playing on a tournament team or some sort of special sort of select team, you have way more practices than games.

And that's the time to really dive into those kids.

Chuck: 00:30:26

Why?

Kent: 00:30:27

Because the pressure is actually lower. So they're willing to learn.

When the pressure is really high and people get anxious or they feel too pressured, they shut out that adult voice, whether it's the parent or the coach.

And I do want to shift to the parent part of this because, again, just like coaches, parents are yelling at their kids because they want to see them perform really well. I get it. Having said that, just because we want that to happen doesn't mean that yelling at them will make it happen.

Chuck: 00:30:53

Right.

Kent: 00:30:54

And the whole idea of when we get in the car, we're going to have a talk that's only going to have three effects on the kiddo.

Either they're going to hate the sport and eventually stop playing, or they'll start throwing the game so that you pull them out because, you know, I'm not paying for, you know, bad Results. Right. So either they'll hate the parent, they'll hate the game, or they'll hate themselves.

And that third one is a really, really dangerous one to be playing with or gambling with.

Chuck: 00:31:24

It made me think of parents and coaches thinking about themselves. Would they want to go to a job where if they were not performing well. Right.

Would they want to go back every day or would they want to quit or would they get depressed? Right. So if you think about it that way as an adult and you see it through those glasses. Right.

Maybe you'll get better insight of what a child is going through.

Kent: 00:31:52

Exactly.

Chuck: 00:31:53

And it's not even a job where they're making money and their life depends on it for income. Right. It's a child's game they're playing. Right? Right.

Kent: 00:32:02

Yeah.

Chuck: 00:32:02

I mean, introduce me to someone who's like, I have the best boss. She yells at me all the time, and she tells me I suck. I love working for this lady. I mean, come on, right?

Chuck: 00:32:13

I want to go back.

Kent: 00:32:14

Every single day, I want to go back. Forget it. I'll take a demotion. I'll take a pay cut, and I want to go back.

Kent: 00:32:20

Yeah. I mean, it's.

Kent: 00:32:21

It is. And again, we have to be empathic for the parents and coaches here, they just want the best. The coaches are doing their jobs. Right.

And look, sometimes we all get swept up in the mom.

If you got a player on the other team who's really playing dirty, it's hard to watch your kid get their butt kicked and a kid playing dirty and not get put in the penalty box. Right. It's hard to see your kid work hard and maybe they had an off day. You know, every kid has a bad day.

When it comes to sports, that's hard to watch because maybe you hauled your butt all the way across the state to this, you know, rink, and you had to spend four hours, five hours in the car. Right? So, I mean, this, you know, these. This is all part of it.

But I think the important thing is that parents and coaches are able to keep it in perspective and remember that if we overwhelm the child, they're going to learn nothing.

It's better to try to get them to learn one or two things than to hope for 10, because with 10, the pressure may be so high that they just tune it all out.

Chuck: 00:33:14

The purpose of this episode and all our episodes is not to belittle parents and tell them, you know, you're ruining the game and this and that. And like I said earlier, it's just, I feel like, it's a lack of parent education.

And you said it as well, where we all want the best for our kids when they're playing sports. Right. But the idea here is that we're trying to educate parents and coaches to try to help their child.

Kent: 00:33:39

Yeah.

Kent: 00:33:40

And just to piggyback on that, Chuck, kids are way more critical of themselves than the parents and coaches are ever going to be. And if you're listening right now and you're like, dude, Dr. Corso, I don't know what you're smoking, dude, but that is not true at all.

I suggest you test your kids.

The next time they come out of a game that, especially one that they lost, just ask them, hey, what'd you do really well, this game, don't ask them what they did bad. Ask them what they did well.

And if they can tell you what they did well and not say, but I should have done X, Y and Z, then they're not critical of themselves.

But the majority of kids, they're going to either skip over what they did well and go right to what they could have done better, even though that's not what you asked, or they're going to tell you what they did well and then maybe tell you one or two things they could do better. So, look, you parents are in charge of their kids. You've got to test these theories out and see if they work.

And if they don't work, that's going to at least inform you about where your kid's head is and what kind of what they're thinking about themselves.

Chuck: 00:34:42

So shifting to maybe now that we've kind of talked a little bit about depression and identify what depression might look like, let's shift a little bit now to seeking help or asking for help.

So what advice would you give to a young athlete who is struggling, but maybe because their parent and coach could be a dominating figure in their life, they worry about speaking up and maybe it will make them look weak if they do. So what kind of advice would you give to a young athlete in that situation?

Kent: 00:35:17

Yeah, so this is really tough because we are all subject to the rules that our coaches and parents put on us. And if our parents and we.

We see this all the time, believe it or not, where parents will say like, well, mental health's not a real thing or depression's not a real thing. If you're depressed, it means you're weak or you can't handle it.

And so as a kid, that's really hard to hear because everything they're learning in school is Pretty much telling them the opposite. Everything they're experiencing as a human is the opposite. So it's really like telling someone that what they feel isn't real or isn't tr.

And if we flip that on its head and think about it in more positive terms, just to see how it works, imagine your kid is like, wow, I really love my mom. And someone's like, no, you don't. No, you don't. That's not a thing. I mean, we would never do that to a kid.

How horrible would it be to try to convince them that they don't love someone or something that they love? That's kind of what we're doing.

If they're saying that they're sad or they're anxious or they're fearful or they're upset, and we're like, that's not how you feel. I mean, it really does mess with kids understanding of themselves.

And if it's one thing we need more of, it's players who are very insightful and have high clarity.

Because when they're insightful and have high clarity, they're going to recognize their weaknesses and where they need to tweak their game way before anyone else will see it.

And it's because they're inside their own heads and they're inside their own bodies and they know what they're doing with their bodies and their minds throughout every practice and every game.

So it's again, it's sort of counterintuitive that if we pull back a little bit and empower the kid, we're going to get better results than if we kind of clamp down. It's not that you can't get good results. I mean, look, there are plenty of communist countries that have Olympic athletes.

I wouldn't want to see what it's like to be in a relationship with one of those athletes, let alone to be their brother or sister or their child. And so if there are kids listening right now and you're wondering, how do I go about this?

One of the things I'd say is look for support from your peers. Chances are that there's another kid on your team who feels kind of the way you do, or a kid in class, in school who might feel the way you do.

And that saying is true, that misery loves company.

Sometimes it helps to find someone who's got a similar situation that you do and you're feeling a certain way that's kind of bad, and you don't really have a lot of outlets or solutions for it. It at least helps to know that you're not alone and that you've got a friend who also feels that way. That kind of normalizes it.

It makes it feel like, hey, I'm not some weird kid. I'm not, you know, it's not just my parents who are unsupportive of this or unwelcoming of these conversations.

Chuck: 00:38:00

And now let's take a quick break to hear from our partners.

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Chuck: 00:39:13

So we, we also have a lot of NCAA athletes, whether men or women or even professional hockey players on the men's and women's side that do listen to the show.

Am I safe to assume that this goes for older people as well or older individuals as well, where the best tool would be to find someone and talk to them about it and maybe they're going through the same thing?

Kent: 00:39:40

Absolutely.

I mean there, there is something when I've done a lot of work in military and police force and first responder populations, they're sort of the famous example where they're not really going to listen to anyone unless that person has been through what I've been through. So it's your, you know, I don't Know if it's your old war vet or is like, I'm not listening to anybody unless they've been downrange too.

And you know, this sort of like ultra. They must have walked in my shoes for them to have any credibility. That can be true with NCAA athletes, that can be true with professional athletes.

And it's okay, that's not a bad thing. So the power of peer support is a real thing and I would definitely encourage folks to do it.

The other thing I would say, and this is more of like, probably more for the college age and above, with depression, we tend to develop negative beliefs about ourselves, each other, sort of like other people and sort of like the world and the future. So it's sort of these, this development of these global negative beliefs about ourselves, other people or the world and future.

And so that's one way to keep your eye on any sort of negativity you have. And any depression you have is sort of like when I start to not be able to see the positive in myself or in other people.

I'm constantly expecting bad things. It's a good idea to see a professional, whether it's a therapist. You can start with your family doc or your women's doc, your gp.

If you're on a team, start with your team doc. 80% Of antidepressants are prescribed by a non psychiatrist.

So it's part of being a primary care provider to help people with your garden variety anxiety and depression. I think also what's important, and this does have a little bit of a relationship to suicide.

So I do want to touch on it it when people lose a sense of their own identity, when people's identity shifts, that's a time when they're more vulnerable to think of killing themselves.

And I know it's probably hard to hear me say that so directly, but when someone rolls over in bed in the morning and says, why should I bother getting up? What am I living for? It tends to be that they've had a shift in, in their self identity or their meaning and purpose in life.

So for example, you're an NCAA athlete, you get to your senior year and in that first game you get an injury, you break your leg, guess what? Your career's over for that year, you're done. So that feels pretty awful.

There was a research study out of Boston University a few years ago showing that when people are out of work for two weeks, their suicide risk increases by almost three times.

And it's because being out of work sort of shifts our identity a little bit, especially if it's with an injury or an illness and we're feeling less useful, and because many of us are productive and ambitious people, if we're not able to act on that ambition, we feel kind of useless.

And when someone feels useless and there's not a lot of purpose or meaning in their life, or they're not feeling as valuable in terms of what they can contribute to this world, it's a natural thing for people to question, well, why bother living? So I would say if you're a teenager, if you're a college athlete, if you're a pro athlete, and you ever find yourself thinking, why bother?

That's a precursor, sort of suicidal thinking, you should probably share that with someone, probably your doctor.

If you are a person of faith, strongly encourage you to go to your faith community, whoever that is, a reverend, a priest, a minister, a rabbi, again, imam, whatever your faith is, it's really important that you get the support you need.

Chuck: 00:43:22

I was going to. I'll shift back to asking for help in a second, but you brought up a good point that I was going to ask later on that I want to tie in here.

You made the point that a lot of athletes, after they retire, or even anyone on a job, that if. For our audience, if you think about it, this child, their identity, from the age, whatever it is, six, all the way to the late 30s.

I was a professional hockey player. I played hockey. I was a hockey star, Right.

And oftentimes people don't understand when they're giving their retirement speech, they're crying, they're losing their identity. And sometimes we see players actually come back to play because, as you mentioned, they don't understand their life without it. That is who they are.

And that ties into another point I wanted to make, make or maybe even a correlation, is when we see former athletes struggle with mental health, former being the operative word here, we see them dying by suicide, usually after they're done playing. Public conversations often say, oh, cta, cte, cte. If they're playing a contact sport.

Well, while brain health is certainly important, are we sometimes too quick to attribute everything to CTE in your opinion, without considering the other factors, such as depression from leaving the sport, their identity, their loss of identity, the trauma.

Kent: 00:45:07

So.

So when you're talking about CTEs, you're talking about repeated head injuries, concussive injuries, and the result being encephalopathic, which is basically brain cellular death. Okay.

And whether we're talking about boxing, which is probably the sport, I think, where you have some of the highest risk as well as football, particularly acceleration and deceleration head injuries. This is definitely a problem that causes brain damage over time. It's sort of like getting repeated traumatic brain injury over and over.

Certainly it has a negative impact on your ability to function cognitively and intellectually. And it can also sort of depress all of your activity.

Meaning if you used to think of 5 million things every day, now you think of 500 things every day.

If you used to be quick about making a peanut butter sandwich, throwing it in a baggie, pouring a glass of milk, I don't know, locking the front door and running out of the house, you don't do that as quickly as you used to. So sort of just a lower level of functioning all around.

But that's probably not the majority of what drives that depression and suicidal thinking when people are in retirement. It's what you said before. I used to be a top notch, high performing, elite athlete and now it's hard for me to tie my own shoes.

And now what am I doing sitting here in this big beautiful house that all that Stanley cup money won me, you know, with all those Stanley cup wins when I was able to buy myself. And I'm sitting here and what am I doing now? What is my purpose now? And so it really does come back to more of that social stuff.

A lot of people think that suicide is a mental health issue. And 60% of people who die by suicide have no mental health issue at all. So suicide really is a social issue as well.

And we are productive beings, we are relational beings.

And when we feel divorced from those relationships in our life, when we don't really feel good about our self identity or about our usefulness or purpose here in life, then we think about ending it.

And that's something that I think, if you're talking about lots of concussive injuries over time, yeah, sure, the noodle is a little scrambled, but there's also the environmental context that we can't underestimate. By the way, that is a technical term, a scrambled noodle. Just kidding.

Chuck: 00:47:35

Earlier you said that the best piece of advice for you youth athlete or, or anybody in general, or an NCAA athlete or a professional athlete, is seek out a peer. And oftentimes recently I've heard that checking in on others could also mean checking in on yourself.

So why is self awareness such an important part of supporting others?

Kent: 00:48:03

The best way I can describe it is you know yourself best. Whoever's listening right now, whether you're 8 years old, 18 years old, or 48 years old, you know Yourself best.

You know what's inside your thoughts and your feelings, and no one else does better than you. And so it's really important to trust your gut and to really listen to what you feel you need.

And if people have not been accustomed to doing that, they'll really struggle with it and they'll ask others what they think they need.

And while that may help in the moment, in the long run, that person's probably going to struggle because they're relying on others to tell them what they need.

And what we want to try to develop in our kids is that internal compass and that internal barometer so that they have the capability to navigate any number of difficult life situations, whether it's a difficult situation on the ice, or whether it's a difficult situation in a job somewhere or a marriage somewhere, or maybe even when their parents. And so it's really important to check in with yourself and to have clarity in how you feel.

And if you're not sure about that, it's really fuzzy or it feels really foofy or touchy feely, it's worth talking to someone again. It could be someone in your faith community.

It could be just a peer who's also an elite athlete, or it could be someone like your doctor or a therapist.

Also, once people can acknowledge their own strengths and weaknesses and they can sort of accept that they're not perfect, it makes it much easier to empathize with someone else who might be struggling and to reach out to them and say, hey man, you don't seem like yourself. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?

Do you want to just go out and, you know, hit the puck around or go shoot some hoops or whatever you do to blow off steam? That kind of connectedness, number one is what reduces suicide risk, is connectedness. But also connectedness helps people live longer lives.

There's research that came out in the last two years showing that people who are emotionally connected to others live longer and healthier. And so this isn't just about the game, and this isn't just about, oh, it's great to have good mental health.

Do we want to live a long life and do we want that? Do we want to be high functioning during those later years, or do we want to be kind of a vegetable? And look, the choice is yours, it's up to you.

I would never tell someone how to live their lives, but we should know what these avenues look like and what these decision points deliver so that we can make the best decisions for ourselves and try to teach our kids to make those decisions.

Chuck: 00:50:39

And you said probably the best tool or the best thing you can do is seek out a peer because they might be going through the same thing. But what, what about coaches and parents?

How can coaches and parents create that environment where players feel comfortable speaking honestly about the challenges they're facing, whether they're kids or whether they're professional athletes?

Kent: 00:51:03

Yeah, this. Chuck, I'm not ragging on you for this, but this isn't rocket science.

Everybody who's listening right now knows the person in their life who they can approach, someone who's approachable and is not going to shame them or ridicule them or make them feel like a wussy. You all know who that is and who it's not. And so, you know, I think we do have to be kind of cut and dry about that and be fairly black and white.

And if you want to be the kind of coach that is approachable or you want your kids to come to you when they're struggling, you've got to work to be that approachable person. It's not that you can't be strict. It's not that you can't be a disciplinarian.

In fact, there are decades and decades of research showing that the most effective, adaptive, helpful parenting style is to be really high on discipline and really high on love and affection. And so it's this balance of really loving strongly and cherishing the child, but also holding them accountable.

And so I don't want listeners to hear me say that, hey, we just have to be a bunch of softies and we just have to be flimsy and whatever the kid wants, you know, we're just going to let them do whatever and bulldoze, railroad us, go right over us. You can still be a firm parent, you can still have standards, you can still have expectations.

But the key is when your kid's in a tough spot, are they going to turn to you? Are they going to turn to the coach? Are they going to turn to drugs and alcohol?

Are they going to turn to doing stupid, risky things like driving their car super fast and not wearing a seatbelt? Doing other stuff? That again, is thrill seeking. But there's a reason why kids do those kinds of thrill seeking behaviors.

And sometimes it's because there's a lot of stuff bottled up through your prosper.

Chuck: 00:52:51

Program, which is an evidence based suicide prevention, intervention, postvention program along with years of research. What are some evidence based ways?

I know we, we talked about seeking out a peer, but what are some evidence based ways to reduce risk and also strengthen resilience that young athletes can use. Or not even only young athletes, but again, like I said, we have NCAA athletes and professional athletes as well.

So what are some tools that they can use?

Kent: 00:53:24

Let's start at the adult age. Connectedness reduces risk, period. So make sure you're connected to someone and connect with them frequently.

Sometimes that's going to be a partner or spouse, and sometimes it's not going to be. Sometimes it's going to be a peer or it's going to be a neighbor, or it's going to be someone where it's just very safe and it's very.

They're very accepting. It's very easy. It works. So stay connected in various ways. That's, you know, mainly for the adults.

The other thing is the adults are much more able to see in themselves when something is shifting. Whether they're not enjoying life the way they used to, whether they're not feeling as useful or purposeful, Maybe they feel less valuable.

Maybe their identity is shifting.

Chuck: 00:54:09

Look, look.

Kent: 00:54:10

Empty nest is that time where your kids leave home and the parents are like, wow, we have an empty house. What now? That is a very normal time in human development when people question their purpose and their meaning and their role and their identity.

And in some of those cases, people may become suicidal. But not all of those cases, probably not even half those cases.

So I don't want to paint a picture that people's identity changes in some dramatic or traumatic way. Certainly trauma can change people, but some of this is just the normal life stuff.

Or if a parent dies or if a spouse dies or if you get a divorce, it changes our identity. It changes sort of how we see ourselves.

So for the adults listening, the NCAA athletes and the pros listening and other adults, keep your eye on that. When it comes to kids and adolescents, we as the adults are often responsible for helping them reduce risk. And so keep them connected.

If you're a kid right now and you're listening, stay busy, do the stuff you love and enjoy it, because that's what keeps us happy. That's what forms our identity. That's what helps us be the best whoever we're going to be. And for the adults, I think you want to listen for clues.

If your kid ever says, I want to die. If your kid ever said, or you hear another kid say, I wish I were dead. Even if they're being dramatic, that doesn't mean they're not suicidal.

So don't brush stuff off. Also, sometimes a mistake parents will make or educators or coaches will make is. They'll hear someone say something like that.

Like a kid say, hey, I wish I were dead. But they'll think, you know what? This kid has so much going for him, there's no way he's suicidal. Don't buy into that trap.

That's a mental trap, a landmine. In fact, people who are suicidal often have a ton going for them. I mean, you can talk about Claude or you can talk about. I mean, in other sports.

A few years ago, there was a goalie at UC Berkeley, and she was a phenomenal goalie, soccer goalie who ended her life. You've heard Michael Phelps talk about struggling with mental health, Right?

So a lot of the people who are suicidal, it's not that outcast who's got nothing going for them. In fact, it's usually someone who's got a lot at stake and a lot to lose.

So you do want to keep your eyes and ears peeled for that sort of stuff if you're a parent or an older sibling. And then there's 988. 988 Is the suicide crisis hotline. And it used to be national and now it's state by state.

So, for example, if you live in Nebraska and you call the number, you're going to get someone who lives in Nebraska. If you live in Massachusetts, you're going to get someone who lives in Massachusetts.

And the reason why that's important is because you want to speak with someone who understands your frame of reference, your culture, your perspective. And that's what they are there to do. They are highly trained.

If you're a kid and you're listening right now, in most of our states, if you call 988 and you're under 18, they're not going to tell your parents. So you do have full confidentiality. Now, if there are parents listening who might have concerns with that.

One thing that I'll share, I won't name this state by name, but there is a state who used to be in sort of the middle of the pack with suicides. If we look at 50 states, they used to be around number 25 and now they're number three. They went from 25 to 14 to eight to three.

Three being they have the most, the third most suicides per capita of all the states. Why is this important and what's relevant?

One of the things they did was they made their suicide crisis lifeline call the parents whenever kids called. They don't give kids full confidentiality. And while that's not the Only thing that's driven them to the number three spot, it's a big part of it.

When kids feel trapped, they're just going to implode. When kids don't really have an outlet and a way to share their problems or their distress, it's not uncommon for them to turn it on themselves.

So I do want to point that out that that 988 is a great resource for kids, for adults. It's totally confidential and they're really highly trained.

Chuck: 00:58:22

I would love to leave some parents and coaches with some specific tools again as we leave.

So we did speak about a couple things, but if every youth hockey coach listening today could do just maybe one thing differently, that would make a huge difference to support their players mental health, what would you recommend?

Kent: 00:58:47

What I'd recommend is to make sure every kiddo has one trusted adult, whoever that is.

And so if during the course of a few practices, you pull each player aside for a second and you're giving them pointers on something, whether it's technique or whatever the issue is, I would start in a group setting and say, hey, guys, just we're going to do a little bit of chatting about life stuff here because it's important that you spend X number of hours here on the ice with us.

We want to make sure we're doing you a solid, make sure we're doing everything we can to make sure you guys are happy, healthy, strong, successful kids. You need to have a trusted adult. And you say it as a group so they all hear the same message.

And then you pull them aside one by one over a series of weeks and say, hey, you have a trusted adult. You have someone, if there's something really bothering you that you could. There's someone you know, you could tell.

And the kids who say no, then you might dive in and have another conversation with about them. You might let their parents know. But that's the upstream stuff.

It's so much more effective to work upstream in those little snippets than to have to handle a catastrophe downstream. Whether the catastrophe is a kid who quits hockey altogether after all these years, a kid who harms himself, a kid who harms someone else.

And I don't mean like a fight on the ice. I mean like something pretty dangerous. So I think that's what coaches can do.

Chuck: 01:00:09

What about the parents? What about the parents listening today, too? What's one change that you think they can make and maybe how they communicate with the child?

What would that be?

Kent: 01:00:21

Yeah, I think it's helpful to start a Conversation. Parents are masterful at having these conversations over like five to ten year periods, right?

They'll start a conversation about something whether it's like, hey, always stick together. You know, blood is thicker than the water stick, you know, your brothers and sisters stick together.

Whether it's that and then it gets reinforced over 10 years, or whether it's something like, well, never trust those people who come to the door and try to sell stuff. And then over five and 10 years, your dad or your mom's always talking about that, right?

And I'm just coming up with these silly examples, but at the end of the day, parents are very skilled at hitting home. Those family values that are important to them year after year, time after time, whenever the teaching moment happens.

So one thing that's really easy to say to a kid that doesn't put them on the spot and doesn't put you on the spot, and it also kind of tests for you, the parent, what they understand is to open the conversation about mental health, depression or suicide and just say, hey, I have a question. What does suicide mean?

And see what your kiddo says or say, hey, has anyone in school or on your team, does anyone you know ever talk about wanting to die? That's a really good question because you'll realize quite quickly how many kids are talking about wanting to die.

And then the natural thought that'll come to your head as a parent is, oh, crud, is my kid thinking about it?

And you might take that opportunity to ask him about it, or you might hit pause in the way parents do and wait a few days and then come back to it and say, hey, remember the other day when I asked you if kids at school ever talk about suicide and you said yes, do you ever think about killing yourself? Do you ever think about ending your life? And if your kiddo says no, what do you think the best response is?

Kent: 01:02:03

Chuck?

Kent: 01:02:06

It's not good job, right? It's sort of like, hey, if that ever comes up, you can tell me. It's not, you're not going to get in trouble, right?

Chuck: 01:02:14

It would almost be like a safe space for the child to come to.

Kent: 01:02:18

Exactly, exactly. So your listeners don't know me very well. They've only known me for 47 minutes or whatever the time is here.

But my wife's also a psychologist, so, you know, our marital fights are hilarious, you know, but what we'll always say is when our kid is being just a, like a lunatic with their behavior, we'll remind each other that, that all of our kids need a Safe place to just totally fall apart and totally lose their cool and totally decompensate. And as long as they're able to clean themselves up and pick themselves up and kind of get it together again, then that's exactly what they need.

When our expectations are so high or so rigid, so specific that our kids can't even decompress in their own house, that's where we want to be concerned. So sometimes parents, I think, get self conscious or they get worried, like, well, does your kid act like. Like this?

My kids have, you know, like a, you know, does these things at home that they're just totally out of control. And as long as they're holding it together in public, then it's a really good sign. It means they feel safe at home.

It means they're okay just being whatever they are in that moment and feeling those feelings. So I would just sort of caution parents about that and have you pat yourselves on the back.

If you've created an environment where your kid is able to just be themselves, even if they. That's kind of wonky one day.

Chuck: 01:03:41

Makes complete sense.

I've seen that recently as well, where if the kid goes out and is great with peers and adults and respectful and they come home and they're crazy, you've done a good job. We might think the opposite. Like, like you said, our kid's a lunatic. But in reality, when you think about it psychologically. Right.

It's a safe space for them to unload and, and feel like they're not going to have any repercussions for that.

Kent: 01:04:10

Exactly, exactly. One other thing that just came to mind, Chuck, that I wanted to share.

I think sometimes it's easy to slip into this trap of, well, we never used to talk about feelings and we turned out okay. And that's a great, you know, that is a great idea.

The problem is when we didn't used to talk, I'm using air quotes, the listeners can't really see that. But when we didn't used to talk about feelings, the world was a very different place. You know, just the Internet alone has. Is a huge game changer.

Kids are learning things earlier that they previously didn't learn until adulthood. They're hearing words, they're seeing images. So, so that kind of like not talking about it worked for us.

Be careful because your kids are growing up in a really different world than you grew up in, and we don't want to underestimate that.

don't want to miss the boat.: 2026

Chuck: 01:05:15

So we touched upon a ton in this hour. Was there anything that maybe you were wanting that you wanted to talk about in the hour that hasn't come up?

That, that there's a message that you might want to talk to players, parents or coaches about?

Kent: 01:05:33

I think the only thing I'd say that we haven't discussed is invest in your child. The more you invest in your child as a person, the better they're going to be as a player.

There are player evaluations in every competitive sport and people often, coaches, often are responsible for judging kids. I'm using air quotes again. The psychological development and what the psychological development is, can they play with intensity?

Can they be aggressive without losing their cool? And you don't really want a kid to just have unbridled rage or aggression. That's really not a safe situation.

And so when you think about the more I invest in my kids development socially and emotionally as well as physically, the better the player they're going to be. We can't really divorce those things from each other.

And we don't want to over invest in the physical at the expense of the psychological or the emotional. Then we get problems. We get either college players who are unbalanced somehow or adults who are have some sort of an imbalance.

So I would just say being a parent, regardless of what you do for a living, being a parent is probably the most important job you'll ever have. It is the most thankless job and in some ways it's the most rewarding job.

And the more we empower our kids and the more we ask them what they can do better, they're going to do a much better job than if we are constantly pointing fingers and telling them how to do better. So I would just say they're raking themselves over the coals way harder than you could. So have some faith in that and trust the process.

There is a ton that they're learning every time they lose a game, every time they get knocked on their butt and slide across the ice, they're learning. They don't need the lesson reinforced verbally. Just the experience of it is enough to light a fire within them over time.

And when they're ready to really be done with getting knocked on their tail, they'll find a way to not get knocked down.

And that's a sustainable motivation because it's from within and it's their own learning process, not something that they're doing because someone's shaking a finger and demanding it.

Chuck: 01:07:47

So finally, for anyone listening who wants to dive deeper into resources and reach out for guidance, is there a way for them to connect to you? What kind of services do you provide?

Kent: 01:08:00

Sure.

Chuck: 01:08:00

Yeah.

Kent: 01:08:01

So if you want to shoot me an email and tell me this was an awful episode, feel free. I take any feedback and I mean that sincerely.

If there's something that you want to connect about, you can just go to prospertogether.net and there's a contact us button that, that goes straight to my email box. If there's something I said that was helpful, feel free to poke around on our site.

And look, this isn't about self promotion as much as about promoting healthy kids and healthy sports and healthy families. And so there are a ton of resources out there.

If you want to look in, get on Google and, or ChatGPT or whatever AI tool is your new favorite and ask it, you know, healthy parenting for competitive athletes. Whatever you want to plug in there, I'd encourage you to do it. I mean, the day we stop learning, we're dead. So we've got to keep learning.

Even if we're old, crusty parents and really think we know what we're doing, there's no harm in learning more.

Chuck: 01:08:54

And that that might bring me or that answer might bring us to our final question and you might be able to use it again. But this is something we ask all our guests being a developmental podcast. So finally, what is Dr. Corsos definition of development?

And it could be anything mental, physical, or any other aspect of the word.

Kent: 01:09:19

Development. I see development as being a synonym for learning.

And so that's the capacity to endure any number of environmental situations and become better and better, whether that situation had a positive effect or a negative effect. There's learning that happens and you evolve.

So continuing to hone that your knowledge, your skills, your abilities, your adaptiveness, your resilience, your grit, just continuing to become better and better in all facets of human functioning.

Chuck: 01:09:55

So thank you, Dr. Corso, for joining us today, giving your knowledge and tools to parents, coaches and players as well. So again, thank you for joining us. Lots of of great information that hopefully parents and coaches and players could take out of this episode.

Kent: 01:10:12

You're welcome, Chuck. Thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

Chuck: 01:10:16

No problem. So share with a friend, coach or parent player if you think they might be interested and benefit from this podcast.

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Thank you for listening to Sharpening your Edge and we'll see you next time.