When my work first focused on helping young athletes reach their potential in sports and in life, I was told by a business coach that I had to “brand” myself. He said my brand should be about the benefit that those who work with me receive. I thought long and hard about this before landing on “Mental Toughness Trainer,” and only went with it after defining what mental toughness means as I teach it.

Mental toughness is being focused, confident, determined and resilient, especially under pressure.

Sometimes parents react negatively to the term mental toughness, until I give them that definition, which is really about life skills that we need to grow. This is why we want our kids to play sports, right? Because it's the vehicle that helps our children learn these skills.

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Here are my top three ways parents can help their young athletes with mental toughness:

1. Prevent and dispel fears at every opportunity

Honestly, this is the bulk of my work, as none of those qualities can grow in the soil of fear-based thinking. The No. 1 thing parents can do is speak and show unconditional approval and love of their children regardless of performance. Disappointing the parent is what many children fear the most, and parents convey this in subtle ways they may not even be aware of.

When a young football player makes a mistake on the field, looks over at Mom or Dad and sees the disappointed facial expression, that creates fear. When fathers tell their young athletes on the way home from the game what they should've done differently, it instills more fear.

The solution? Just smile, cheer and tell your child how proud you are and how fun it is to watch. Period. Easy.

By the way, except for the rare individual, this goes for exceptionally talented kids, too. Coaching your own kid is like walking a field of land mines.

2. Remind your children of their strengths as often as possible

Humans have a fantastic ability to look at themselves and find what's wrong or lacking. It’s actually a survival mechanism. We need to balance that by conditioning our minds to be aware of our strengths. This breeds confidence and allows for focus and determination.

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Speaking of focus, do your kids play video games? How about commenting regularly about how well they focus for such long periods of time?

Think that might be useful to remind them right before game time?

3. Ask, don’t tell

As a parent, there's a strong temptation to offer our children advice when you can clearly see what they're missing or doing wrong. When we do that without first asking them if they even want the advice, we deprive them a golden opportunity to learn resilience and the ability to figure things out for themselves, which is the whole point of parenting.

Now, having said that, I've run into plenty of kids who'll turn inward on their problems, let them fester and create more issues for themselves. You have my permission to continue to ask if they want help, especially when you notice little signs of discontentment.

But do this very carefully. Remember, it’s your kid’s job to pull away from you as they get older and establish independence, so there's a huge block to receiving advice from you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from parents that I teach the same things to their children that they've taught, but the child only seems to get it from me.

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That’s simply because I’m not the parent.

If you want to get through, deliver your advice – about anything –with zero judgment. Children know they have this from me, and that’s why they listen and it sinks in.

Be specific and consistent. More than what you say, children pick up on what you do. Model what you want them to emulate and give them the space to learn it.

Football will do the rest.

Craig Sigl’s work with youth athletes has been featured on NBC TV and ESPN. For free training and visualization techniques to help young athletes perform under pressure, visit MentalToughnessTrainer.com.

This is an updated version of a blog that originally published March 2, 2015.

Are you the parent of a youth, middle school or high school football player who’s looking for more tips or resources? Check out our Parent Guide, Parents 101 course, nutritious recipes and more.