Olympic Mom on How to Keep Club Sports in Check | Lauren Regula

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Dr. Lisa Damour:
One of the best parts about my job is that I’m around a lot of parenting advice and I get to pick up great pieces and share them with you. So one of my favorite pieces of parenting advice I ever got was never to be more excited about a kid’s win or more disappointed about a kid’s loss than they are. Okay, why?

Well, if we’re more excited about their wins than they are, it starts to become about us when we really want it to be all about them. So I think in these moments we can say things like, “You should feel so proud.” And if we want to throw it in there like, “And I’m proud of you,” but we want it to be theirs. Okay. On the losses side, this is about emotion regulation. When our kid has a disappointment, if we are more disappointed, we actually make it seem like an even bigger deal.

If we can take it in stride or appear to take it in stride, we help our kids see that yes, disappointment’s are part of life, but they are things that we can handle and move on from. Now today, I have a really interesting conversation with Lauren Regula, three-time Olympian and Olympic medalist, about kids’ wins and losses and all sorts of other things that happen in the context of youth and sport. And so today we’re going to tackle a letter from a parent asking how and even if they should try to navigate today’s youth sport culture. Let’s get into it.

Lauren, friend of the pod. So glad to have you back.

Lauren Regula:
Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
All right, my friend, let’s start with the fact that some congratulations are in order in your house. There’s been a lot going on.

Lauren Regula:
Yes, that’s- a lot of sighs of relief, I think, just of it being over.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. Tell us what happened.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah. So we have a daughter. She just turned 17 years old and really wanted to play college volleyball and has gone through the whole recruiting process. And over the past week, she committed, verbally committed. It’s quite early. She just started her junior year, but it is the process. So she is committed and she’ll be working towards the admissions process at Princeton University.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. And she is, to be clear, a junior.

Lauren Regula:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
A junior.

Lauren Regula:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So fall of her junior year committed to play sports at Princeton?

Lauren Regula:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Play volleyball.

Lauren Regula:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. But you actually, the first thing you said is, “It’s a relief.” That was actually the first thing out of your mouth, not like, “Yay!”

Lauren Regula:
It’s a relief.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
A relief. Okay.

Which is why I have you here. I have a letter that as soon as I saw it, I was like, “Get me Lauren. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

Lauren Regula:
Let’s do it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay.

“Dear Lisa, what do we do about club sports? My 11-year-old daughter is a gifted soccer player. Coaches and programs have flagged real talent. She loves it. And having played high level soccer myself, my gut says that this is the real thing. My wife and I are middle of the road sports parents for a fairly sports obsessed area. We have three kids, a fixed budget, and try to stay levelheaded about where we put our family’s time and money. We believe competitive sports add real value, but are wary of where youth sports culture has gone. We’re looking for balance. Right now she plays on our town’s rec travel team, practices twice a week, a weekend game against nearby towns, has decent but inconsistent coaching.
She could move up to a more competitive program, but this means four practice nights a week, far more intense and expensive travel, a different level of commitment for the whole family, often splitting up over the weekends, and a price tag with an extra zero on it. My wife and I disagree about whether her potential athletically, academically, and socially is worth what a serious club program would cost our family. We don’t want to miss a real opportunity, but we also feel enormous pressure over what is at bottom a sixth grader soccer ‘career.’ What do you recommend?”
Okay. I feel like you could talk about this for 400 hours.

Lauren Regula:
I think we’re living the same life.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
You’re like, “Who is this guy? I think he’s my doppelganger out there somewhere.”
You also have three kids.

Lauren Regula:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So you’ve got your older daughter who’s still in club sports, yeah?

Lauren Regula:
Yep.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And-

Lauren Regula:
We have two boys. So our daughter’s 17 and then we now have 15 and a half year old and a 14 year old and they’re both in club soccer as well.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So you are like triple clubbed up here?

Lauren Regula:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. But I’ve asked you to join me because you are the most reasonable human being I have ever spoken to on this topic, and that is then doubled down by the fact of your own extraordinary history as an athlete and knowledge about what it means to compete at the highest levels. So this dad has asked this question. What do you say to him?

Lauren Regula:
I’m listening to the letter and the fact that we’re even talking about 11 year old and pressure and the end game, my first thought is sports provide so much. And we know this and I’m not going to get into it because we’ve heard it all. Sports provide an opportunity for accountability, camaraderie, grit, but I think we can easily get in trouble. And I’m going to be the first to say I am not immune to being the parent who looks back and is like, “Oof, I could have handled that differently.” Even within sports. And I would consider myself a pretty well-rounded sport, I won’t say expert, but I’ve been in sports.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think that three Olympic runs, three times at the Olympics makes you a sport expert. I think if it doesn’t, I don’t know what does.

Lauren Regula:
Okay. So I feel like I know the sports world well and I still have found myself caught up in this exact situation of, what can we do to make sure it’s the best? And I think number one, understanding what is of value to your family because every family is going to be different. What is valuable to me might not be valuable to somebody else. And if family time is valuable, how can we still put the same amount of emphasis on that as sport? Because now that I do have a daughter, she’s committed, she’s going to play.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
You got the dream outcome, right? This is the outcome people think they want when they sign up for this.

Lauren Regula:
That’s exactly it. But that’s the end game. And I think when you’re eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, it’s really hard to play for the end game because we don’t know how it’s going to play out and making decisions hoping that that’s going to be the outcome while giving up the things that matter to you. I personally, I’ll speak from my own personal experience, my husband and I wanted to make sure that we put as much emphasis on family as we do on sports.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So how did you do that with three kids in club sports?

Lauren Regula:
Yeah. So actually I’m really excited about this letter because I’ve lived this exact situation where our daughter was pretty talented. She went to –

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Clearly she is talented.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah.
In third grade there was a coach who was like, “Who’s the parent of the third grader?” Because she was the youngest at this camp. And I raised my hand and he brought me over and he was like, “What do you feed this girl?” He recognized this talent, right? And I have no idea what I’m watching. And where I’m going with this story is he invited her to be, she was nine years old. He invited her to be on his 12 year old volleyball team.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Wow.

Lauren Regula:
And the first thing I did was ask, “Where do you practice? How many times a week do you practice and where do you travel for tournaments?” And so what we did with Grace is we actually put her in the same position as more of an elite level, but we did it just by having her play up.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So you didn’t actually take him up on what he wanted?

Lauren Regula:
No, we did because it was only two days a week, 10 minutes away, one day tournament.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. He gave you all the answers you were looking for, which is you can actually bump up within this without having your entire family life be organized around your kids’ volleyball.

Lauren Regula:
100%. And there are moments as a parent that I think in the moment we made a really good decision. Hindsight’s always twenty twenty. I would say this is probably the best decision we ever made with youth sports is our daughter was, she was talented for our area and we could have chosen to go to a very club heavy tournaments, really high expectations.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
There was a higher version of this you could have done.

Lauren Regula:
In every sport starting at eight years old. You can be in serious club sports or you can be in rec club sports. I would say the best decision we ever made for our family and for Grace, which is that’s what we want, we want the best for everybody, was having her stay locally, but she just played up.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So by, “up,” mean in older group?

Lauren Regula:
Older age group.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Older age level.
Okay. That’s super interesting. And maybe not available to everyone everywhere, but that’s a really cool call.

Lauren Regula:
But for this particular letter, if you recognize a talent and coaches are saying, “Wow, this athlete is amazing at this age,” people get very caught up in being in the highest level. I look at it as how can we surround our kids with kids who are just like them ability wise? And sometimes that doesn’t mean going to a higher level, higher commitment. Maybe it means finding a rec team. And Grace was nine, she played with 12 year olds, 10, 12. And then when she turned 11, she played with 13 year olds. At 12, she played with 14. So we had a family rule, no phone and no travel- travel, travel sports like overnights until they were teenagers. That was our rule.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And teenager 13, 14.

Lauren Regula:
13.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So you kept a governor on it-

Lauren Regula:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
at least until that point. So why 13?

Lauren Regula:
Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s a pretty arbitrary number. I think our thought… Well, I’ll actually, I’ll give you the real answer. We were trying to hold out to no phones on the phone aspect. And my daughter came home from a volleyball practice when she was 13 and a quarter and said, “Mom, I am the only person that doesn’t have a phone and I don’t know where to go for practice.” And so she became the benchmark. We were like, “No phone, no phone, no phone, no phone until she had to have one.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
For volleyball.

Lauren Regula:
For volleyball. So that became the benchmark of where the no phones came from. For the no sports before 13 –

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Or no traveling.

Lauren Regula:
No traveling sports, no high level of commitment. To be honest, it was kind of the happy medium that we found. We saw kids traveling as young as eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. And I just remember having this conversation with my husband and I’m like, “They’re not even a teenager yet. They’re not even going… Can we be at least going into high school, getting into that timeframe?” And like we talked about, there’s just not a lot of space. There’s just rec or there’s super high level sport and that thought does creep into your head like, okay, at some point you don’t want your kid to be left behind and for whatever reason, 13 felt at least –

Dr. Lisa Damour:
The longest you could maybe hold off.

Lauren Regula:
Felt like we made it pretty far, at least from what we’ve been seeing from the rest of the world of crazy youth sports.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That makes sense. Is there a point where you felt like you had no choice but to go all in or were you able to sort of find in between solutions for the whole time?

Lauren Regula:
I feel like we did a good job finding the in-between solutions. I think we were really looking for it. Our daughter did try out for a “high level” team at 11, but the thing is, is my husband and I were more excited about her to show up to the tryout to kids that she didn’t know, have to pick a partner. We looked at it as this is an opportunity for her to get out of her shell. When they gave us the tournament schedule, they said, “We’re overnight. You can only play volleyball.” She was 11. We said, “Absolutely not.” And we stuck with the regional where it was two practices a week and tournaments that were within one hour. And we did that because at 11 years old, our philosophy and what we wanted for our family was we didn’t want to be apart every single weekend.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
You wanted to be able to stay together.

Lauren Regula:
We did.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Now, I know there are some families who, whatever level they’re at in this, turn it into family time. They’re like, “Our family time will be club sports.”

Does it work? Does it not work? What have you seen? I feel like you’ve kind of seen it all. And what I love about this letter is this is a parent who’s sort of stepping into this world. And I feel like you are deep in this world, coming at this world from a lot of different angles. What have you seen where it’s working great that it becomes family time? What have you seen when you’re like, “No, you’re deluding yourself if you think this is family time.”

Lauren Regula:
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I honestly think it comes down to what you value as a family because I personally know, I have friends and I know some of our kids’ teammates, their families, they love it and they don’t think they’re missing out on life because that’s what they want to be doing with their time.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They’re driving in the car, they’re hanging out, there’s overnighting in hotels. “This is what we’re doing.”

Lauren Regula:
And that’s what they love.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yep.

Lauren Regula:
We looked at it from what do we want? And everyone’s answer’s different. There’s no right. There’s right for your family. And so when I think of what works and what doesn’t work, if you don’t want that to be your family time and you want to have time away where it’s just you as the unit or however you want that to look, if you’re giving that up, then I would say that’s probably not working. So that wouldn’t work for us. Our family time is not time on the road for a number of reasons, but we want to have the ability to say, “Grace,” and our boys are named Jack and Will, “not on a field, not on a court. Let’s go do something else.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
You want family time to be not necessarily sports.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah, that separation I think is really important. I think, and again, this is just from a personal experience. I think we would have the ability to enter the danger zone, so to speak, if we start showing our kids that the only thing that matters is your sport.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. Okay. So that’s really interesting, right? That the intensity and cost of what club sports have become does sort of create a new danger zone, right? Does create one that was not when I was growing up playing sports, not that I played sports like you play sports, but that didn’t really exist. But now there is this huge time investment, huge financial investment, which then does threaten to suggest that what matters the most is your sports and not just the sports, your performance in the sport. Okay. So let’s picture a family who’s like, “We want to give this a shot and this may be the family in the letter where we think this kid’s got talent. We are cool with having this be our family life. That will feel like family time to us. We’re going to find the money, we’re going to find the time, we’re going to do it.” How does that family manage the performance question in the most healthy way you can think of?

Lauren Regula:
Dave and I have talked about this at length.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Dave your husband?

Lauren Regula:
Dave is my husband.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s funny. I find myself in this tension. I need to mention, did play college football, but it’s very funny because my hesitation in mentioning it is like, well, I want to mention it just to say you are both serious athletes. Also though, as a feminist, I’m like, “Well, but one of you is an Olympian three times over and one of you played college football.” So I am mentioning that Dave play college football, but I think Dave will appreciate that I’m keeping it in context.

Lauren Regula:
Oh, 100%. We joke all the time. We’re like, Dave always told me, “If our kids have any athletic genes, they’re going to just assume it’s you.” And I was like, “Yep.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
As they should. As they should.

Lauren Regula:
No, Dave and I talk about this often is the amount of self-worth that parents put into their kids’ performance. If we could just as parents detach completely from their performance and actually enjoy watching them, we have to remind each other. Again, I am not perfect in this situation. I have found myself more caught up than I would like to be. And we’ll go to each other and say, “We only have so many years to watch our kids truly love what they’re doing, playing a sport. We know they’re not going to do it forever and it’s not easy, but if we can somehow just detach ourselves from the outcome…” And I’ll give a tip. Can I give one of my favorite sport tips?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Please.

Lauren Regula:
From parents on the sidelines, if you find yourself getting really caught up in the game, I do this, I bring headphones and I put on music and I step away from everybody. So I can’t hear the roaring. I can’t hear the yelling. I can’t hear the coach. I can’t hear anything. I’ve told my kids like, “Hey guys, I’m watching you with my earphones in. I’ve got music on. It’s like I’m watching you in your highlight reel.” That’s what I’ve told them.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I love that.

Lauren Regula:
But it is a little bit of a buffer to the surroundings where when people are getting really into it or maybe too into it or maybe yelling at kids to do one thing and the coach is yelling to do something else. There’s a lot that go into sports. It has been the most helpful little hack to just create that separation so I can actually just watch them.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And enjoy it is what you said. And there’s another word in there which is watch them love playing.

Okay. Something I’ve learned from you in our conversations over the years is about the love piece and it gets lost in here. And one of the things I’ve learned from you is that’s actually essential to performance. So as much as we’re talking about do it for the love of watching your kid play, do it for the love of your kid’s enjoyment in it, you have a really interesting story, which is not only are you a three time Olympian, your brother played major league baseball for 10 years and your parents did something right, did something right. And I think it was about love.

Lauren Regula:
It was 100%. We were driving the bus. That’s what they would say.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay.

Lauren Regula:
They weren’t-

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They let you two decide-

Lauren Regula:
Yep.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
what you wanted to do and where and how much and how.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah. You know what’s funny? I’ve had this conversation with you. You’ve told me about the things that we have no control of over our kids, sleep, homework.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Toileting.

Lauren Regula:
Toileting. There was one more.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Eating.

Lauren Regula:
Eating.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
We have very little control over those things.

Lauren Regula:
I’m going to add sports to that and the desire to want to practice. We as parents can want so much for our kids. We can see something in our kids and we can put on those rose colored glasses and feel like they could go to the moon. It really is kid driven because of the love piece.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. And if there’s not love, it’s not going to be kid driven.

Lauren Regula:
It’s not.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay.

Lauren Regula:
They have to actually enjoy what they’re doing. Are there going to be moments where it’s hard and maybe there’s tears, but the overall theme should be they want to get their glove on or their knee pads on or whatever equipment they use. They want to be putting that on to go because they actually love being out there.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So part of how your family centered this around love was that they let you decide how much you wanted to practice, when you wanted to practice, and they were following your investment, and I imagine your brother’s investment in the sport because you loved the sport.

Lauren Regula:
100%. And that’s not to say I wasn’t a kid and there were moments where I was like, “Oh, practice.” Those moments are going to pop up. We’re kids. That’s going to happen. But my dad never had to drag me to do my own training. My dad will be the first to tell you. He never once was like, “Hey, let’s go pitch.” I was the one saying, “Hey dad, can we go practice pitching?” And I’ve shared this story, but even in my third Olympics, as a three-time Olympian in the moment –

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And a medalist just throwing that.

Lauren Regula:
And at the Olympics that I actually won a medal, my mental performance coach came up to me because I was stressing a little bit and he just goes, “Lauren, you don’t work softball, you play it. Go have some fun.” And I thought –

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It just gave me chills.

Lauren Regula:
But I’m like, I’m a three-time… I was almost 40 years old, the three time Olympian. And I tell that to everybody I can share with because if that’s good enough for a three-time Olympian, it’s good enough for a 12 year old, 14 year old, however, 10 year old. And the love of the game, and I know it sounds cliche, but I think it really is important because one of my favorite psychologists, actually sports psychologists is Dr. Michael Gervais, and he talks about getting better and the road to mastery. We want to master our sport. Well, think of it like a train stop. You have to get through stop one, two, 200, 500. If you’re on a train that’s going to the 2000th stop and you’re miserable, you’re probably going to get off on stop 500. So that piece of actually wanting to stay on the train and wanting to practice, that’s going to be key.

When someone says, “Hey, Lauren, how can my kid get better?” My first answer always is keep them on the field.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And if they don’t love it, they’re not going to stay on the field.

Lauren Regula:
They need to want to be on the field. Otherwise, it’s a job and they’re not going to put everything into it. And if they don’t put everything into it, they’re not going to get what they want out of it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That pretty much seems to sum up so much of how we want to think about this. So I imagine you have seen families like that where the parent is more invested than the kid.

Lauren Regula:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
What are the signs? What would you do if you were in that spot? What do you think?

Lauren Regula:
I know it’s tough. Parents, it’s easy for us to put on those rose colored glasses, and it’s so interesting because you can see by body language, first of all. You can see when kids are into it or when kids are just looking off to the side. Another rule of mine with sports is I never want my kids to look at me. Again, every parent has their own philosophy. My philosophy is I’m a parent on the sideline. I am not part of the show. The show is on the court or it’s on the field for my boys. It should be all about them. And if you want to look to someone, look to your teammates, look to your coach, I can’t help you. I don’t want to help you because I don’t know anything about soccer or volleyball, and I don’t want them to look at me for approval.

I want them to figure that out themselves. I think a lot of times you see kids looking over to the side or you see just they don’t have the heart and maybe the parent’s going a little bit crazy on the sideline. At the end of the day, it’s just like eating. You can want someone to eat so bad, a certain healthy, nutritious snack and you can’t make them do it. Over time, it’s just dragging the kids out the door.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So if that’s happening, it’s probably time to revisit the whole thing, club or no club, right?

Lauren Regula:
Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Maybe the kid has a different interest.

Those moments when a parent is very, very activated on the sidelines and maybe yelling and maybe giving direction, or there’s enough of a history with that, that when the kid’s out playing, they’re checking the parent. When you describe this, I get this kind of, “ugh,” feeling as a psychologist. I worry that this has become more about the parent’s investment than the kids, but I also want to think about like, okay, but this is a parent who is putting down really significant sums of money and organizing their lives around this. So I want to give some grace around that, right? Because it’s a little bit of a setup. Now that sports has gotten so expensive, how do we not become sort of invested in this way?

I don’t know how to even wrap my mind around this, but I’m going to assume you have a way. How does a parent spend that much money and that much time on a kid’s sport and stay as agnostic as you are describing?

Lauren Regula:
So that’s a good point. I think the system is broken. I’ll just say that the youth sport system is broken because you have two kind of levels and there’s really nothing in the middle. There’s the rec and the kids who might show up or might not show up because it’s really not that important to them. Or you’re paying a ridiculous amount of money and you are traveling and you are on the road and practices are, like the letter said, up to four nights a week, so you’re missing out on family meals. I think the system itself is broken. I think that’s where, as a parent, I know from my experience, we just were really investigative is a good way to say it. I don’t want to just listen to what someone says. I want to talk to the people. I want to talk to the clubs.

I want to understand what I’m getting myself into.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So you’re not just… If somebody says, “Try this club, do this thing,” you don’t just sign up?

Lauren Regula:
No.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
You do a lot of research.

Lauren Regula:
Yes. Even with our boys, for our daughter, we kept her on a regional level, which was very manageable for a family, but we had her play up, so she was with her level, made sense. And then with our boys, we specifically chose a club who allowed multi-sport athletes, who allowed us to say, “Hey, it’s December now. It’s basketball season. You’re going to see Will or Jack until February or March.” And they said, “Okay, good luck to them.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Which isn’t always what happens.

Lauren Regula:
Right.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Right, that there are some clubs that will be like, “You can’t be in it or you’re not allowed to go have family time.”

Lauren Regula:
But that’s where I think the investigation part comes in. We could have signed up for clubs that were a lot closer to our place. It is quite far for us to drive, but that was the thing I was willing to give on was it’s further to practice, but they give us more flexibility within us saying RSVP yes or RSVP no, because there are clubs who are, if you sign up, you go and you don’t miss tournaments and you don’t miss anything. And we’ve just found the clubs. I know for those out there listening, it might be like, “Well, I don’t know where they are. That’s where I’m saying just investigate. Exhaust all your options before you start pulling your hair out.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I love that. I love that.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah. Because there was a couple clubs that we were looking at and they just wouldn’t have fit our family. They would have fit logistically to get to practice on a day-to-day basis a little bit better, but it just wouldn’t fit how we want our family to run. But back to your question about how to just stay… I’d say chill.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Detached.
Sort of detached even while investing so much.

Lauren Regula:
Yes. I think just focusing on why you have your kids playing sports.
Our daughter just committed. Never once did we have her in volleyball thinking we’re doing this because she’s going to play volleyball in college.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So really the path, not the destination.

Lauren Regula:
100%.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Path every day as much as you can.

Lauren Regula:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
When you look back on your folks and how they raised you and your brother, are there other things that you can point to of they really got this right or this was so smart of them?

Lauren Regula:
They got a lot of things right. I’m going to be honest, which at the time we had no idea. They let us be the leaders. They were not dragging us places, number one. Number two, they encouraged us to do everything, everything.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So not just your one sport?

Lauren Regula:
No, everything. And this is something that I was actually thinking about recently is I grew up in British Columbia. We live on 20 minutes away from one of the greatest ski mountains in Canada. I grew up skiing and even now, I know a lot of volleyball players who parents wouldn’t let them ski even when they were 12, 13, 14.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Because of risk of injury or something?

Lauren Regula:
Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay.

Lauren Regula:
And I’m like, “Buckle up, let’s go.” Because skiing’s something you can do for life. And they really taught my brother, they taught myself, “You got a whole life to live. Let’s widen and broaden your scope of what that is, and you don’t know what you like until you try it.” So they were so encouraging. They were also realistic. My dad had no problem telling me. He always used the grading system. He called me Bozo. So he’d be like, “Hey Boz, that was your C+ game. It made sense you lost.” Or he’d say, “Yeah, you had your C+ game and the fact that you won with your C+ game is a pretty big deal. Good job.” But he never sugarcoated it. I appreciated that because I never showed up thinking I was different than what I actually was.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Like he gave you a pretty good yardstick for how you were doing.

Lauren Regula:
100%.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Even if it was hard to hear.

Lauren Regula:
Yep.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
But it sounds like it was also done in a loving way that it wasn’t like, “And we’ve put all this time in and so how could you underperform?” It’s just like, “This is yours and I’m going to hold up a mirror just so you got a clear sense of where you’re at right now.”

Lauren Regula:
Yes. And I appreciated that. We try to do that with our kids. I always tell our kids, “You’re not going to have your best game all the time because if that was the case, it wouldn’t be your best game. That would be your average.” So yeah, you’re not going to have your best game all the time and it happens. I mean, that’s sport, that’s life.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
But I love the tone, right? The kind of matter of factness, the honesty, but without any heat to it or any disappointment in it. I mean, I think that’s such a beautiful thing you do.

I really appreciate your parents’ investment in you and your brother doing a wide range of things, and there’s two things I’ve seen clinically. One is, if all identity is built around a single thing, sometimes an ACL gets blown out and it’s off the table, or I have seen kids who were sworn ballerinas who then hit puberty and their body no longer is made for ballet in the kind of high level they thought they were going to do. So identity gets derailed by an injury or just typical development. And I think it’s a little bit of a risky thing to have all your chips in one basket.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean with the danger zone. If we revolve- personally, Dave and I have talked about, if we revolve our entire family around our kids’ sport, what happens when it goes away? Who are they? And what do they contribute? And what else do we do that’s fun together? Life has to continue to go on. And it’s just really important I think for every kid to understand that one, their sport isn’t who they are, it’s what they do. And two, taking a break from your sport and finding something else you love to do. It could be another sport.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Even if it’s another sport.

Lauren Regula:
Yep. Even if it’s another sport.
I look at it in two ways. People talk about burnout and I think there’s physical burnout where you see –

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Especially if there’s a lot of practice and a lot of –

Lauren Regula:
Oh my gosh. I never knew a kid who blew out an ACL. And now I feel like it’s just you –

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Oh yeah. It’s kind of like standard fare.

Lauren Regula:
Yep. You wake up one day and you’re like, “Oh, here’s another one and another one.”

It just wasn’t the case because we did a lot of different sports, so we moved our bodies in different ways. But I also think there’s the mental burnout. That’s the one thing my parents were really awesome about, “Hey, put your glove away. Don’t look at it for three months. Go grab your basketball. Go grab your volleyball. Be excited.”

I want to pick up my sport and be excited to be there, not, “Yeah, fine.”

The soccer ball’s at my feet 365 days a year. It might not be as exciting. And maybe for some kids it is, but I still think a break is healthy in every way, mentally, physically, emotionally, all of it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So you got talented kids, certainly one who has already distinguished herself as extremely talented. I also know there’s a lot of kids who are in these systems who are maybe of average talent or even below average talent. And maybe they’re enjoying it, maybe it’s worth it and working really well. I also know, having cared for lots of adolescents, that sometimes they’re like, “No, I actually am really very, very good. That’s why I’m in this club. And I have high aspirations of playing in college or playing professionally or playing,” that kids can be very ambitious in this way. How do you think about those kinds of things? When we’re putting kids in expensive high-end sports scenarios, but that kid’s a perfectly fine athlete who will not play in college.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s probably most people. Not a lot of kids go on to play college. That’s just the reality.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, very rare. And way less money involved than people think is going to be involved almost always.

Lauren Regula:
Yep. And the reality is kids are more talented today than they were. I know a lot of my teammates who are like, “Oh, I don’t know if I’d make the team today.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And is that because we’re cultivating them at such younger ages and so much more intensely?

Lauren Regula:
Yes. And kids are bigger, faster, stronger right now. They have access to lessons and think about YouTube, just something like a YouTube video. When I was growing up, I mean, I just went to the backyard and kept doing a bunch of things differently and felt, “Did this feel good or not?”
They have access, parents have access to so many more, what’s the word? Parents-

Dr. Lisa Damour:
More resources.

Lauren Regula:
Resources, thats-

Dr. Lisa Damour:
to cultivate our athletes. Yes.

Lauren Regula:
So I look at kids now and I’m like, “Dang, those kids are talented at a young age.” So the reality is, is even with all these amazing talented kids, still single digits will go on to play college. I know I’m probably beating a dead horse, but if I were to have a kid, and I have no idea what’s going to happen with my boys, I’m simply in it to just enjoy today. And there’s going to be days they ride the bench. There’s going to be days where they have great games. There’s going to be days where they can’t shoot a ball into an ocean. That’s just like, welcome to sports.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Welcome to sports.

Lauren Regula:
And I just look at it, I try so hard to think, “Okay, what can this teach my kids?” Even on the bench.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I love that.

Lauren Regula:
What is this teaching the kids? Because it sucks to ride the bench.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yes, it does.

Lauren Regula:
And you want to get in and not every kid gets in. And so I would look at it through a lens of, “What is this teaching the kids?” And if they want to continue to play and they have this idea that they’re going to be the next Michael Phelps in the pool, the only thing we can do is sign them up for the races, sign them up for the team. The chips are going to fall where they may. There’s nothing we can do as parents, as frustrating as that can be. We can’t turn our kids into the next Michael Phelps. And eventually as time goes on, and I’ve seen this with my own eyes now, as time goes on, you see the kids who do separate from the pack. They do.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
But you threw something in that I don’t want us to lose, which is yeah, chips are going to fall and there’s learning at every location of the chip. So if you as the parent can say, “You’re on the bench today, what did you learn about what it’s like to be on the bench and what it means to be on the bench and how you support your team from the bench? You had a great day, what did you learn? You had a terrible day.” I love that. And that is so path, right? “You’re on this path. There’s learning every step of the way.” Okay. Michael Phelps.

His body does not look like anybody we’ve ever seen in the grocery store. And this is something I am somewhat fascinated by. Occasionally I will interact with professional athletes, like my world puts me in contact with them and they just look so different. One time I was at CBS in the green room and Derek Jeter was there and we were chatting, perfectly nice guy. You could take 50 guys, same height, same fitness level, put bags over their heads and you could pick him out as the professional athlete. And I don’t know why, but the construction of his physical self, entirely unique.
Okay. You have been in three Olympic villages. What is it like in the Olympic village?

Lauren Regula:
It’s honestly my favorite part of the Olympics. I actually called my husband the last Olympics because I went to the 2004 and then 2008 Olympics and had a huge break. So when I went back to the 2020 games, played in 2021, I called my husband and I said, “I forgot how much the village fascinates me.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’m fascinated. I’m with you.

Lauren Regula:
You just don’t see a high jumper, for example, the body type of a high jumper who is –

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s like 90% legs.

Lauren Regula:
Yes. I’m like, okay, how are you 6’2″, you probably only weigh 120 pounds, but you’re all muscle, but you’re also tiny, but you don’t see people like her walking around. Or I get in the elevator and I will never forget this. I got in the elevator and I saw her, but then I turned my head and I looked up and I was like, oh, I’m with one of our beach volleyball players who is 6’6″.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And you’re how tall are you?

Lauren Regula:
5’8″. Okay. So I’m not short, but I’m not tall, but you see people or you’re walking along and you’re like, well, there’s a rowing team because you see the coxswain and then you see a bunch of 6’6″, 6’7″, 6’8″ guys. It’s fascinating to see the body types of athletes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
At that level.

Lauren Regula:
At that level.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
At that level.

Lauren Regula:
And it is real. And I’ve said this, my kids know this. There’s just going to be someone that shows up and they might be bigger, faster, stronger than you.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And they might not even work hard at practice. They’re just built for this. And I think that that piece is so important because even if you watch pro sports, you can’t perceive it because they’re all together. They all look like average size because they’re average for one another.

Lauren Regula:
Yep.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And I think this piece is so important. We don’t want to damage kids’ hopes and dreams, but I do think there is a level and you’ve seen it when you start to get into aspirations at the highest level, a lot of it’s genetics.

Lauren Regula:
Yes, yes. It’s funny. I have a story. My brother went to Gonzaga before he played baseball. He played baseball at Gonzaga and my dad, they had courtside seats and my dad’s like, “God, these guys aren’t very big.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
This is it for basketball.

Lauren Regula:
This is for basketball. As the team was walking by, my dad just did the whole stand up and stretch and he was like, “Oh, they just don’t look big because everybody’s 6’8″.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah. So they’re all together. So they look like average guys.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah. So the 6’4″ guy looks like he’s six feet maybe, but you just don’t get an appreciation for how athletically gifted they are physically.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
There’s sort of a God given piece here that you just can’t get around.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah. And it happens and you’re right. There’s going to be kids that show up that just don’t work as hard, but they’re going to be bigger, faster, stronger and get a better outcome than you. That’s sport.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That’s sport. But that, again, you’re kind of matter of factness about that, I think is really often what’s missing when this isn’t going well. That kind of like there’s going to be somebody, I’ve learned this from you, someone who’s better, someone who’s worse all the time. And that’s just going to be how it is going to be. When you think back on your parenting journey, what are the things you are most proud of? What are the decisions that were hard to make that you are most proud of having made?

Lauren Regula:
All right. When I think back on how we’ve approached sports as a family, I am so proud that we kept family time in our definition of what we want as important as our kids’ sports. And I’ll give you an example. We’ve taken the family vacations. Our daughter’s missed the beginning of season for club and I basically told her, if you got to earn your spot back, you got to earn your spot back, but I’m not forgoing a family vacation because you’re going to miss a practice. We went to South Africa as a family in probably the least ideal time in recruiting for our daughter. It was not a good time to go, but every parent can relate to this. There’s never a good time to do things. And so we wanted to put an emphasis on our family time. We have taken our family vacations.

We have RSVP’d “no” to things. Not the important things. We wouldn’t miss nationals or these tournaments, but if I ever saw pockets of time, and this is what my husband and I do, we look for pockets of time where the kids have decent spaces where I think, okay, if they’re just missing a practice here or there, we’ll take that. And I’m really proud that we’ve done that. We’ve taken so many trips together with not a sport in our minds and we need that as parents as much as the kids need it themselves.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So you’ve really divorced yourself from it at times. And I know from our conversations that hasn’t been easy. It’s not like you made these decisions lightly. You kind of sweated through them, but in retrospect, you’re glad you made them.

Lauren Regula:
Yes. The South Africa trip in particular, it’s easy to speak and say, “It’s easy to say no, just RSVP no or don’t go.” There were moments where we’re like, eh, and that wasn’t enough for us to override. I never want to be like one person’s sport should override the entire family. So I think we’ve done a really good job at that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And then regrets. Is there something where you’re like, “We made a bad call here”?

Lauren Regula:
Yeah. Let’s go back to that letter. I thought when they were younger, a lot of things mattered more than they did. And I found myself caught up in like, okay, well maybe we have to be on the best team now, right? She’s 14. We went to a different club at 14, like the most serious club in the area. And looking back on it, my husband and I say to each other all the time, almost nothing matters that we thought was a big deal in the moment. And I’ve gotten caught up in moments where under my breath, I never say anything out loud, but under my breath I’m upset and then I have to catch myself or my husband. He’ll call me out. You need somebody to call you out to say, “Hey, why are you so up in arms? Who cares?”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Sports are for fun. This should be fun.

Lauren Regula:
Sports are for fun.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
This should be fun.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah. And there’ve definitely been times where I look back and I’m like, man, I thought that was a huge deal and she was 14. Nothing matters at 14.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. That’s huge. That’s hugely helpful.

Lauren Regula:
Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Give us a takeaway. What have I not asked you about?

Lauren Regula:
I think for a takeaway when I’m thinking about youth sports, I did probably touch on it, but I think it’s the most important piece for a family because it can tear families apart. You can have three weeks go by without family dinner. I think just looking at an overarching view and asking what matters in the long run as much as what matters today, because yes, our kids, especially once they get older, yeah, they’re not going to miss high school practice. And yes, there are going to be things that are expected of them, but in today’s day and age, sports never ends. And there’s no club, there’s no coach, there’s no one out there that’s going to look out for you and your family and say, “Hey Lisa, you probably haven’t had family dinner for a while. Why don’t you take today off?” That’s never going to happen.

We have to be the ones that create our own boundaries and protect the time that we feel that as time goes on that we knew, “Hey, yeah, sports were important. They’re a big part of our lives and they still are, but I created some boundaries and also made time for other things in our life that really mattered to us just as much.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That’s awesome. Lauren, man, thank you for being here. So grateful for you.

Lauren Regula:
Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
For parenting to go today, I actually want to share some research with you that I came across when working on my book, “The Emotional Lives of Parents”. And it has to do with how do we support our kids in healthy ways? How do we not go down the unhealthy road while still being present and supportive? The research actually includes a really key piece of information. The healthy way to do it is not to focus on winning or making sure that your kid is beating out other kids, but to focus on the question of whether or not your kid is improving, right? And this of course can apply across sports, across arts, across all sorts of things, that it’s about your kid growing within what they are doing, not about them being out ahead of other kids. Now, I love what Lauren said about love and kids loving sports.

Well, love is actually going to be the thing that helps them improve. So here we get two things at once. If we focus on kids loving things, they are likely to improve and their own improvement is what we want to focus on, not how they’re doing relative to other kids.

Be sure to join us next week. I am joined again by my dear colleague, Dr. Tori Cordiano, and we are going to get into a very tricky, not so treaty topic, which is Halloween group costumes. They are really thorny. We’re going to help you sort it all out. See you next week.

Thanks for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to the Ask Lisa podcast so you get episodes just as soon as they drop and send us your questions to [email protected]. And now a word from our lawyers.

The information provided on this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute or substitute for professional psychological treatment, therapy, medical advice, or other professional intervention. Views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dr. Lisa Damour or Ask Lisa. If you have concerns about your child’s wellbeing or your own, please consult a physician or mental health professional. If you or someone you know is in crisis, contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. For additional resources, visit drlisadamour.com.