36. Building Grit and Character through Sports with Brian and Jen Harbin of Grit.org

Do you want to learn strategies to help kids develop grit and character through sports and LIFE? We talk with Brian and Jen Harbin of Grit.org about how they use sports to help kids become more physically, emotionally, and mentally resilient. They share strategies about :
** Using mantras to help kids push through challenges
** How to shift your focus from WINNING to personal growth
**  Training kids to focus on the POSITIVE


Our Guests: Brian Harbin is the founder of Grit.org whose mission is to help kids and adults become mentally, physically, and emotionally resilient.  Jen Harbin is a former 5-year collegiate rower and helps to lead Grit Camp as well as Grit.org's non-profit foundation called Faith, hope, and Lunges. They are the proud parents of 3 boys .

Website: Grit.org

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Transcript

Dr. Elise Fallucco: 0:21

Welcome back to PsychEd4Peds, the child mental health podcast for pediatric clinicians and for all of us taking care of kids, we're helping you help kids. Today, we're going to be talking about how can we help transform our kids into more resilient, gritty kids through sports. And to do this, I'm very excited to welcome Brian and Jen Harbin from grit.org the organization whose mission is to help people become more physically, emotionally and mentally resilient and they're going to tell us how they've learned to use sports to train kids, ages six and older to become gritty and to be able to respond to life's many challenges. In addition, they're going to share with us some strategies that we can use to help kids become more physically, mentally and emotionally resilient. I'm so excited to have you guys here and so excited to welcome the esteemed Harbins of Brian and Jen Harbin fame. Also parents of three adorable little boys. So Brian, the tagline for your company, grit.org is we help people build more grit. How do you define grit and why is it so important to help kids specifically build grit? Definitely. So grit is really, to me all about preparing you for how to respond when life gets hard. Grit is important just because it applies to all aspects of life. And that's why we're so passionate about it. We call it building mental, physical, emotional resilience. What we do@grit.org is we really put it into practice and we really give kids a track to run on. And develop it and build it and grow it. The thing that I think of@grit.org is perhaps the most important, most valuable part to our family in particular. It's definitely grit camp. Grit camp is this amazing summer sports camp that you guys came up with designed to foster grit in kids. What are the ages for great camp? So grit camp is for kids age six to 12. And then we also have high school counselors and college counselors. For Jen and I, we felt like the real secret sauce to grit camp is the counselors. And it's not about having someone 10 years older than you as a mentor. Hey, who's somebody one or two years older. That's setting a good example. This is going to help lift you up. And the reverse is also true. Hey, as an eight or nine year old, Hey, who's her six or seven year old that you can really step up and help be a leader for them. So really when we have a grit camp, we have age six all the way up through college students.

Brian Harbin: 2:55

We really use sports as a teaching tool because it's really about taking what the moment is giving you and how to find a way over it, under it, through it, and then how to thrive in it. And a big part of that is, is really what you tell yourself in the moment, whether things are good or bad and how you frame those experiences. You talked about, using sports as a teaching tool and like you're in the moment and there's a challenge and you have to figure out a way over, under and through it. And so when you're training these counselors to approach things in this way, how do you help them help the kids work through these challenges in sports? That's a great question. And that's where we fall back on the grit creed. And so really the core dNA of grit camp is what we call the grit creed, which is our 12 principles that we believe. They're just time tested life and success principles. Just about every situation that you encounter at camp, there's a teachable moment in the grit creed. So we help them understand that, Hey, the answer lies in the grit creed, and by exuding that and helping reinforce that with the kids, remind them of it.

Dr. Elise Fallucco: 4:04

And for our colleagues and listeners, their grit, creed has these great principles. Things like. I am not a problem. Spotter. I'm a problem solver. And I can, I will. And I I'm going to is my mantra in the face of adversity. I will follow through with what I say I will do. I don't find an excuse. I find a way.

Jen Harbin: 4:26

To add to what he was saying, on our training day for all of our counselors, we go through all of this sort of behavioral issues that you might see at camp on any given day, by any given camper. Whether it's, not reacting well, if you don't win or not wanting to participate, or just having an attitude of kind of rebellion, there's all these different things that can pop up. And every single one of these things, we try to explain to them why they're doing that, whether it's, I'm a little afraid that I've never done this before, or maybe I'm not very active child. And so I am putting a facade on of I'm too good for this because I'm a little worried that I might stand out amongst the other kids, cause this is not my comfort zone. And so we're giving them how they can handle each one of these things that are just completely normal childhood behavior. And how they can bring that back to the grit creed. To encourage them to, work through that. So you're prepping the coaches in advance to understand that behavior is an expression of emotion. The child's behavior doesn't mean that they're a bad kid. It's just describing that they're feeling stressed, they're feeling uncomfortable. And so I love that you're anticipating here are the big issues that could come up in camp and instead of just, just saying no, that's wrong. Try to understand their motivation and what they're coming from and help them use the principles to move forward and over and under in, through it. And I wanted to piggyback one thing on that as well. And this is something that we believe in at camp, but also I think as a parent applies as well as that, you really want to find that spark, so for example, at camp, we have. Pretty much any sport and game that you can imagine we have there. And cause I'm a big believer that every kid needs to have some type of physical activity doesn't matter what it is, but find something. And I think as a parent, you want to. Be mindful and watch for what's that spark, when the kids have free time, what's that ball or racket did they pick up that they want to practice independently and that's that spark that you're looking for. You want to nurture that and develop it. Because if they're into it, then they're going to learn more from it because they want to do it. And they're passionate about practicing and getting better and they can see the improvement and they can experience more of those flow states that then can. Overlap and other parts of their life. And by exposing him to all these different things, not only are you giving them this opportunity that you described really well to figure out what makes them excited, what creates that spark inside of them, But also you're pushing everybody out of their comfort zone because the chances are not everybody has played ping-pong or you have much more rigorous sports than ping pong there. That's a big one. They love that. When you're learning something new, it's uncomfortable. And so what a wonderful way to help them work through that. Jen, you gave the example of somebody not wanting to try something because maybe they've never done that activity or picked up a lacrosse stick or, played kickball or whatever. What specific part of the grit, creed would you help them work through? so I suppose it depends on the child because we have a whole range of kids that come to camp that love every sport that there is, and that's all they want to do all summer. All the way to kids whose parents bring them to camp, because they would rather just sit at home and play video games all day and they want him to get outside and get a little fresh air. And so we're trying to meet them where they're at. And so for a child who has never played kickball or is really just not a very physically fit child We'll meet them where they're at and say, okay, listen. I know you want to do X, Y, Z. You can play this for 10 minutes and then I'll let you do X, Y, Z. After a lot of times, it's something simple. Like I want to, right where we're at, look around for some bugs. And so if you come and play kickball for 10 minutes, that you've never done before, that is pushing you out of your comfort zone, then this counselor will walk around right here while we're where we're all at outside. And you can look for some bugs for 10 minutes after that. And so just getting them to just grow a little bit more each day. And so one of the things from the creed that we would use as an example for that, just encouraging them to participate would be I will try and try and try again. We're just going to keep trying and that they say it and we just encourage them to just be accountable to that. So that would be an example. No, that's such a great behavioral modification strategy because the kids overwhelmed, I don't know what this is. I'm not good at it. And it feels a lot bigger and scarier than it is. And you're breaking it down into little bite sized pieces and saying. You just have to do this it's time limited, we'll start the timer. And then using what they want to do is a natural reward. Instead of as a way out to avoid activity. A little carrot because they can control that they can control the next 10 minutes of an activity, just like a little gold period that they can control. And what we love so much about camp. Gosh, we, four summers now, and last year we had 467 kids come through and it's what we love about it is like every kid and every week is so different. A new kid comes and you want to find what they get excited about. What's their currency? What's going to get them excited about that you can use in a way to get them to do something maybe they don't want to do. And, I know in a previous episode you talked about. Being focused on winning in sports. And I believe that sports really allows us to have all these different types of experiences, much like traveling. So for example, You know that championship season, it's like traveling to Paris. It's somewhere that you want to go back to. You enjoyed it and you want to revisit pictures and things like that. And then there's, just like the other night, two nights ago, we saw our kids lose. 14 to zero in lacrosse and it was rough. Yeah. And that's one of those experiences

Brian Harbin: 9:39

like, you know, going to the corn palace in South Dakota, you've checked the box and Hey, I've been there. Don't really want to go back to it maybe, but it's, again, one of those experiences that you take with you. You build on it, grow from it.

Dr. Elise Fallucco: 9:51

And I think naturally any time we're playing sports or our kids are competing in a game, we're thinking we want to win. And you're flipping that around and saying, yes, winning is one of the experience, but it's only one of them and you need everything from winning to getting beaten 14 to zero. And everything in between because you learned something from each of these experiences. Yeah. There's so much science behind like you become what you think about. there was a dad recently that we were talking about a football game and he mentioned, an interception that his son threw. And I said, listen, you need to control all, delete that. It's one of those things. Look, it was a mistake. It happened just it's over and done. Let's not dwell on it. Let's focus on what you did do well and build on that. Remember that, and those are the moments that you want to take into the next one. That's so good. You're saying control alt delete, erase it from your memory. And when you have a good experience, you carry it, bring that with you, carry it forward to help you motivate and keep on going. It's really important to intentionally approach these things, and the fact that at the grit camp, you guys have peer mentors and junior counselors that can help work with the kids in the moment and say, yeah, our team just lost at kickball. But we're going to forget it. And now we're going to go and play something else and we're going to have so much fun or, wow you just learned a cool new trait and you've never played the sport before. That's amazing. Now let's see what else you can do. So to recap, it sounds like you guys have been so intentional using these 12 principles of leadership as mantras, and you've trained your grit, camp coaches and your kids to use these positive phrases, to push themselves and build grit and get through hard experiences in the context of sports. So now let's shift gears and talk a little bit more about how we as parents can help support and coach our own kids or the kids on our teams to be more gritty and to have more resilience through sports. One of the really important things is your team culture. And in lacrosse when you see the kids so many of them, they're all the same height that you can't tell them when they put that helmet on. You can't tell any of them apart. And you don't know which number is which, and they're constantly rotating in and off the field. One of our team parents made a grid of all of their Jersey numbers and their name. And handed those out to parents so that I don't just have to cheer for my child. Like I know my child is number 12, but now I can cheer for 22, and so when they're out there, Whether they're winning or losing, they hear all these other parents cheering for them, even in just that one play where they took a shot, even if they missed it. And that's such a huge part of it their team culture I think a lot of those little things. Really add into it. We support everybody. And when you've got the ball, we're going to scream for you. Regardless of whether you're our kid or we know you are not, you may not even hear us, but we can hear ourselves yelling for you. And we think you can hear us. And yeah, I think that counts. Yeah. What's so great about sports is that so many times you focus on the next play, right? Something good happens. Something bad happens. What's our focus. I that's one of my mantras always ask the kid during this during the season before games said, Hey, what's our focus. And that was the next play and so much in life. It's about being grounded in the moment. and so before the game, knowing that it's going to be a lot more intense than what they were at practice, the whole ecosystem of game day, right? It's. It's very high pressure. And so what I always do in that huddle before the game is I get a buy circled around and we go through some simple breathing exercises. Getting them to take a deep breath. Close the rise. Here are the sounds here, the smells and really just ground themselves in the moment. And there's a little, a couple of tricks and trades about just how to stay cool, calm, collected on the field. How to stay grounded in the moment and stay relaxed and loose and giving them those little things that they can take with them. I just want to highlight some of the things you guys just said that we, as parents can do to help our kids. First of all, you both are reminding us to bring a lot of positive energy to games through cheering and then afterwards by helping our own kids focus on some of the highlights or the positive things that happened. And then encourage them to control alt delete some of the negative things. And then Brian, you talked about helping our kids relax before high stakes events or big games or competitions by doing deep breathing exercises. And finding ways to help them feel cool, calm and collected before they've got to start the game or perform. Virtually every season, we try to have a little end of season wrap-up party, like a team party. And that's a huge thing. I think that. It's something really small, but it just has a huge impact on them because it's a chance for the kids to all hang out, playing some fun games And I think my favorite part about that is it's an opportunity for Brian and the other coaches too individually recognize each player for their strengths and what they appreciate about each one of them, because every single one of these children are different, unique, wonderful people. I think you guys are so intentional when you're as coaches and as parents with these team sports, to be very honest. I think the majority of us parents, like if we get assigned or voluntold or volunteered to be a coach, It's like, all right, I got to show up and come up with something. Gatorade's. Yeah. I'll look at YouTube and see basketball drills and we'll figure it out, but you guys are so thoughtful about making this such a positive experience for the kids and, with the deep breathing exercises and then in a larger scale at the end of the season, making this end of season party, and we've been to these end of season celebrations and and probably the most touching part is what you just described as the speeches that, coach Brian will get up for every single player. And he has thought about what their individual strengths are and what their role is and says something very personalized about, this kid really. Really played a key role at, in defense or in flag polling or, recognizing where they, their journey across the season. And then Jen, Jen, is this amazing videographer. At every single game she's somehow managed to capture on her phone, like every play, every flagpole, every throw, every touchdown, every extra point. And. And then she'll put together this highlight reel at the end of the season. So all the kids get to see wow, This is my best drive, or this is when I scored, or this is when we kept the other team from crossing into the touchdown zone. And I have to expand on that too, because Jen is on the sideline getting all those videos, every single game. And when we get home after games and it's been a long day at the fields or the courts but what she has to do is go back and delete all the bad plays. Because so much in life, we have to do the same with those experiences. Just like we talked about, there's some experiences we need to delete. And there are some that we need to save them. She'll put a heart by them and then, she'll compile these videos and what's incredible to me. Some of my favorite memories have been, she'll when she's laying in bed with, Charles putting them down, they'll turn on a YouTube video and they'll pull up his highlight video from last season from three seasons ago, four seasons ago. And the beautiful thing about that is he is now. Reliving those experiences, seeing it, remembering, seeing the smile, seeing his teammates, seeing all these little victories that he had, he doesn't even remember any of the bad plays because they were all deleted. He's only seeing the good stuff. And when it comes to mental performance and high achieving athletes, that's what they do. And again, it's not even about sports is about doing that in all aspects of your life, but we're doing it. With sports as a teaching tool, in this example, Yeah. It's the highlight reel. First of all, I'm definitely not a professional photographer. It's, you're giving me way too much credit. I appreciate that. Part of the reason that I do like to take those video clips is so that all the parents that are there are able to just watch live what's happening on the field. And then their child can watch themselves later on to see that moment again, but their parents can be totally engaged watching it. What you're modeling is we're focusing on the positive like Brian was saying, we're saving these mini videos of us doing amazing things. And we're literally deleting the ones where we didn't do as well. And we're just taking that moving forward. We've talked about what can we, as parents do after games? And I think our natural reaction as parents, is, we want our kids to get better and so what we want to do is tell them the ways that they can improve or oh, I noticed what they could fix over there. And we really need to work on our passes on the go because we miss some of those, if and And what you guys are modeling is as parents, our job is to just build them up, show them the highlight reels, help them to move forward, build a sense of confidence and also I help them know that literally we see them a couple of things there. First of all, like one of the things that really shocked me when we first, was sewing after his very first season of whatever sport it was maybe a soccer. It shocked me. That there was no team party. Growing up as a kid. I don't remember ever having a season that a team party. And I think that's one of the things that as a community, as parents, we have to bring back the team party just for that reason, because it's something that's what the kids remember. With camp, we've done the same thing, right? The very last thing on Friday is the counselors bring up each kid individually and they talk about them and they talk about, why they enjoyed having them as a camper that week, and then they get their certificate. And again, it's just bringing that concept of the team party back to Grit Camp, because again, that's where the kids are gonna remember. Well, thank you to Jen and Brian Harbin. We are going to go ahead and pause this conversation and continue it next week. Thanks to our colleagues and friends for listening. And we hope you'll tune in. As we continue to talk about. Building character and grit through youth sports. Take care. See you next week.