Ep.12 What a joy it was to have Eira Parry on the podcast! A former GB Rowing coach, teacher, founder of High Performance Parenting and stepmother to an Olympic athlete, Eira has seen the life of young athletes from all sides and has so much wisdom to share with anyone involved in the lives of young athletes, whether as coaches or as parents. She has also, excitingly, just been appointed as one of GB Rowing's seven new selectors, a role for which she will be brilliantly suited.
Eira and I had a wonderful chat about:
- Lockdown life and why it's suited her
- Her own early rowing history and how failing to achieve what she wanted has shaped her career
- How the best athletes have come through adversity
- Eira's career history as teacher, rowing coach and coach at the GB Start Programme as a Talent ID coach
- How she came to found High Performance Parenting, supporting parents of young athletes
- How young people benefit from sport - the benefits beyond just the physical and how that can carry through to later life
- What schools can do to engage those children not interested in sport
- Concerns about levels of physical inactivity in lockdown (and the positives in the increase in walking)
- How to make the most of lockdown and turn it into something positive, even if you can't row or do your usual sport
Eira also answered questions from listeners about:
- Coping with the daily demands of being the parent of a young athlete
- Helping your young athlete build resilience and cope with disappointment (and the value of asking the coach for feedback)
- How to help your young athlete build their confidence and deal with competition nerves
- How to get the balance right as a parent between communicating too much and too little with the coach (and how coaches can help with this)
- What to do if your child isn't selected for a crew or team
- What to do if your child wants to give up sport and you think they may live to regret it
- How to help your child juggle all the different demands on their time
- Helping your young athlete to have a healthy attitude towards food and nutrition and body image
- Advice for coaches on helping young athletes to develop a healthy attitude towards winning and goal-setting
RESOURCES
You can find out all about High Performance Parenting and what Eira does here.
You can buy Frances' Houghton's book here. It gets a mention in so many of my interviews - and rightly so - it's brilliant!
The Women's Sport Network Mojo manuals that Eira referred to can be found here.
And looking ahead to next week, you can read all about Race the Thames here.
