When it comes to playing sports and rooting for your favorite team or athlete, losing is part of the equation.

But how we react, process, learn and bounce back from losing helps us grow and develop resilience, especially for children.

Every parent knows the look — that mixture of sadness, frustration and discouragement when a child walks off the field after a tough loss. While painful in the moment, these experiences can become powerful building blocks for long-term emotional health.term emotional health.

To better understand how sports losses shape a child’s emotional resilience and how parents can help them cope, we gathered insight from Thomas “T.J.” Willard, recreational therapy supervisor at Youth Villages’ Inner Harbour campus in Douglasville, Georgia. With more than a decade of experience working with children and teens in residential treatment, he helps young people navigate emotions, build confidence and learn lifelong coping skills through structured recreation.

Emotional regulation

If you watch sports on TV, you will undoubtably see some emotional outbursts from adult athletes and coaches following a tough loss, so kids are not immune to wearing their disappointment on their sleeves either.

But there’s a big difference between shedding some tears and going on a postgame Gatorade cooler-kicking tantrum.

With the right blend of emotional regulation – the process of managing and responding to emotional experiences – children can learn to leave the frustrations of defeat on the playing field.

Willard emphasizes that emotional regulation develops best when children are challenged but not overwhelmed. Activities should be difficult enough to promote growth but not so hard they exceed a child’s tolerance. Coaches and parents should guide youth through frustration and remind them that challenges are temporary.

One of Willard’s key themes is helping kids understand that not every outcome is within their control — whether in sports, fandom or even later in adult life. This separation is crucial for preventing emotional overwhelm.

Resiliency and empowerment

Encouraging an optimistic mindset helps kids bounce back more easily.

It can be as simple as saying, “You played a great game! We’ll get ’em next time!”

Willard believes in setting kids up for success by playing to their strengths. When youth see themselves as capable, they are more empowered to learn from missteps and develop resilience instead of focusing on failure.

He teaches children to recognize their own limits and ask for support- such as requesting a break when overwhelmed. This ability to identify their needs and communicate them is a cornerstone of resilient behavior.

Also, when kids learn to process losses – identifying what went well, what did not and how they can improve – they begin to internalize a powerful message: “I can handle difficult things.”

This sense of capability is the foundation of empowerment. Kids who repeatedly experience themselves bouncing back become more confident in their ability to take on new challenges.

Reflection, empathy and sportsmanship

By encouraging introspection after setbacks in the loss column, this reflection period will help young people realize what is within their control and what is not and identify areas in which more growth is needed.

Thomas explains developing reflection in young athletes starts with helping them recognize their own emotions and understand the perspectives of others, which leads to empathy. Coaches and parents can guide kids to pause, name their feelings and process what triggered their frustration while also encouraging them to consider how teammates and opponents may feel.

“I think it’s important to help kids recognize other people’s perspectives and help put themselves in another person’s shoes,” he said. “Just because [the other team is] an opponent doesn’t make them an enemy… they’re a fellow human being – you’re just competing. It’s not personal.”

By separating their identity from wins and losses and using simple reflective frameworks — like asking what happened, why it mattered and what they can do next time — children learn to grow from setbacks rather than internalize them. This combination of emotional awareness and perspective-taking builds stronger sportsmanship, healthier coping skills and resilience that translates well beyond the playing field.taking builds stronger sportsmanship, healthier coping skills and resilience that translates well beyond the playing field.

What about kids who are fans?

Heartbreak is not limited to the field; ask any lifelong superfan who has watched a lead evaporate in the final minutes.

It can be a devastating experience for children when their favorite team loses.

Willard encourages parents to ground kids in identity: they are more than their team’s record. Help them separate their feelings from their sense of self and notice what they can control (their reactions) versus what they cannot (the game).

“Remind them who they are outside the team,” he said. “Don’t let them internalize the loss as part of themselves.”

It’s supposed to be fun!

Many successful professional athletes have marveled at and appreciated that they get paid millions of dollars to essentially play a kids’ game – and many opine that they “just want to have fun out there.”

It may sound cliché, but there is a lesson: while it entails hard work, playing sports should be fun, especially at a young age.

Focusing on building character and resilience should take precedence over performance skills, Willard said. It is more about learning sportsmanship, managing frustration and cooperating with others, not who can score the most.

Performance skills matter but are secondary until a youth is older and caregivers, guardians and coaches have helped them develop their emotional and behavioral toolbox.

“When your child’s world feels shattered after a loss, stay beside them,” Willard said. “Let them feel it and remind them their worth is not measured by the scoreboard. These moments of heartbreak can become some of their strongest moments of growth.”

Thomas “TJ” Willard is the Recreational Therapy Supervisor at Youth Villages Inner Harbour, bringing experience across psychiatric residential treatment, community mental health, adaptive sports and experiential therapy. In addition to his work at Youth Villages, he serves as an experiential therapist with Charlie Health, leads Recreation Connections Consulting LLC, and sits on the Georgia Therapeutic Recreation Association Board. Guided by both professional training and his own recovery from PTSD, he is dedicated to helping young people build resilience – and outside of work, he’s a husband, father of three, and an outdoor enthusiast who also enjoys playing the tenor saxophone.

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