Six months ago, I talked to a player who truly made me sad. Her father, she told me, had tried different ways to motivate her to improve her results. Amongst other harebrained schemes, he’d offered her concert tickets if she reached certain rounds. When that hadn’t worked, and the player wasn’t able to achieve the results that he’d wanted from her, he’d threatened her with not being able to travel to a few key tournaments—something she’d wanted to do desperately so that she’d be able to continue growing her ranking.

Getting into a big-name school through tennis was key for this family. Yeah, that’s not a lot of pressure at all. And, put another way, what he was communicating to her was: “Unless you start winning, we’re not going to play in tournaments anymore; winning is incredibly important.”

If you’ve read my last piece on why junior players quit and Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory, you’ll already be shaking your head… maybe thinking, “What is that tennis dad thinking?”

You may, hopefully, also be wondering what that has to do with today’s piece.

Let’s introduce the concept of motivational climate.

Motivational climate refers to the psychological climate created by significant people which signals what is valued, how success is defined, and how mistakes are treated. This is based on what the athlete perceives.

In sport psychology, there are roughly two types of motivational climates that coaches and parents can create. These concepts build upon Achievement Goal Theory, which we have covered before when I spoke about choosing mastery over ego.

As an aside, a lot of the literature actually revolves around how coaches impact and influence these climates, but I think this is an under-explored area in the research. Parents, I believe, are the most influential regarding the motivational climate that they create. They spend the most amount of time with their children when they’re young and have the highest level of interaction with them during their tennis journey. How they behave with their children is extremely consequential.

In tennis, a sport that is individualistic, harshly-evaluative, and rankings and UTRs dominate the conversation, the motivational climate is often what impacts:

So if you’re a parent reading this (or a child who had a tennis parent experience) ask yourself this: which of these two climates am I creating?

This sounds exactly like it is. An ego-involving climate is one where an athlete perceives above all that winning, comparison, rankings, and status are what’s the most valued. Success in these climates is often based on normative comparison i.e. “Did you win?” “Did you beat him/her?” “The ranking is the most important.” “Can’t believe you didn’t win—you should be beating that player.” Punishment or withdrawal or approval is often seen in ego-involving climates. Anger. Frustration. Lectures. Cold-shoulders. You get the idea.

Ego-involving climates are generally associated with increased anxiety and a fear of failure from the athlete. Why, you may ask? I hope the answer is obvious. If you know that’s the most important thing, whether you win or lose, you’re going to be under a decent amount of pressure. They are also associated with confidence being unstable, avoiding challenges, and more importantly: a higher risk of dropping out of a sporting environment.

These types of climates don’t automatically destroy an athlete’s motivation but they do make it more fragile and unstable. How do we see this in tennis players? It might materialize in playing not to lose, emotional spirals during the match, and their athletic identity being tied to UTR, rankings, or tournament results. “Oh… she’s an X UTR and I’m only a Y UTR.” That kind of thing.

On the other hand, we have a much more long-term oriented climate. Task-involving climates emphasize to the athlete or performer that what matters more is playing and competing the right way. This entails concepts like effort, learning, skill development, persistence through challenges, and self-referenced standards (“Are you playing better tennis today than I was a year ago?” N.b.: not: “Are you beating kids that you were beating a year ago?” Success is defined by progress, skill acquisition, improvement. Not purely on outcomes.

Research in sport psychology consistently links task/mastery-involving climates with higher intrinsic motivation, greater enjoyment, better emotional regulation, adaptivity and coping after losses, and long-term resilience and sporting participation. What’s not to like with these?

Before I sound like I’m bashing tennis parents across the world, I should be clear. It’s not as if they set out to create pressure-filled environments in which their children are guaranteed not to thrive. It’s not as if they wake up one day and say, “I’m going to make it really hard for my child to succeed.”

But what your intentions are doesn’t matter.

The motivational climate and the impact you create does.

As a parent, it’s important that you pay attention to post-match conversations—what are you emphasizing? Resist the urge to have emotional meltdowns based upon your child’s tennis performance. Resist the urge to overemphasize rankings, UTR dips and bumps, or high-pressured scholarship talk.

It’s also key to understand what kind of message you’re sending your kids when it comes to sport participation and tennis in general. In the every day conversations that you have around tennis, are they understanding that all you care about is winning? Are you being a harsh tyrant to a young child? Or are you doing your best to be emotionally stable, understanding, and emphasizing that you care more about how they play their tennis at age 21 rather than beating them beating little Timmy or Lisa, their 14-year-old arch nemesis?

Emphasize long-term progress. Convey to them that you care more about how they carry themselves, how they fight, how they stay present, how they manage themselves, and the skills that they demonstrate. One of my favorite questions to ask young players before matches: “What kind of tennis and decision-making will help you to become the kind of player you want to be in 3 years from now?”

There’s a lot more toward building task/mastery-involving climates but I think that you get the general idea. It’s not that parents should be neutral robots when it comes to competing. It’s that when approval, emotional outbursts, all of these come and go based on winning and losing, the player starts to understand what is valued.

Over time, players start to internalize the messages they are receiving from parents.

A player raised in an ego-involving climate understands that winning and losing are the benchmarks upon which they will be judged. Play amazingly, compete hard, and stay engaged all match? Doesn’t matter as much as winning. You’ll still get a cold look or an emotional meltdown from your parents. Losing is associated with being a failure. Self-worth is tied to performance.

Let’s flip it: a player raised in a mastery-involving climate understands that losing is part of the tennis journey. It’s not that winning is not important, but what matters more is the kind of intention and effort that they bring onto the match court. Intentions like: “Did I follow my process goals even though they were challenging?” “Did I use that new skill in my match?” “Did I play the kind of tennis that I can be content with—win or lose?” “Did I grow and learn today?”

I understand that to some tennis parents, verbiage and this dichotomy seem cheesy. “Oh… this guy’s just trying to say play tennis and have fun and that it’s all sunshine and lollipops.” If that’s your takeaway so far then I can’t really help you.

What I can say is that I’ve seen this play out in so many athletes and with their parents. The end results are usually not good. I’ve also seen athletes who’ve been raised in growth-oriented climates continue to improve and succeed well into their late teens and early 20s.

So, I ask again, what kind of motivational climate are you creating?