I watched a parent do something on the touchline last week that I have seen a thousand times. Their child got substituted. Walked off with their head down, clearly frustrated. Before they had even sat down, the parent was straight in. "You were brilliant. The manager got that wrong. You were one of the best players out there." The child nodded. Went quiet. Got back on the pitch in the second half. And I stood there thinking, we do this because we love them. But what did that child just learn? They learned that when something hard happens, someone will come and make it okay. They learned that the feeling does not need to be sat in. They learned that difficulty is something to be smoothed over as quickly as possible. And then we wonder why the same child freezes when things go wrong in a match. Why they look to the touchline every time a decision does not go their way. Why they struggle to self-correct, to adapt, to push through. Resilience is not something children are born with or without. It is built. Slowly. Through repeated exposure to difficulty in environments that allow them to grow through it rather than be rescued from it. The rescue reflex is one of the biggest things standing between a football parent's intentions and the player they are trying to raise. I have written something longer on this today. It covers the instinct behind why we do it, what I chose not to do when my own son faced one of his hardest moments in football, and a simple framework any parent can use after a tough match. Link is in the comments if you want to read it. https://coachkurtis.com/2026/06/29/building-resilience-in-young-footballers/ Get your free 5 questions guide to help ask the right questions after the game. https://coach-kurtis-artifacts.vercel.app/5-questions-tough-match

Welcome to everyone who has joined the Game Intelligence Lab recently. Really glad you're here. To get you started, I've just put together something I think you'll find useful straight away. It's called the Parent Philosophy Card. It's a free interactive worksheet built around the blog post I published this week on what it actually means to support your child in football. You work through three prompts, write your own principles down in your own words, and download a personalised PDF to keep before the new season starts. Every coach has a coaching philosophy. This is yours. You can get it here: https://bit.ly/parentcard

👋 Welcome to the Game Intelligence Lab This community exists for one reason: to develop players who think for themselves. Here’s how to get started: ✅ Watch the START HERE course in the Classroom. Three short videos that explain everything. ✅ Introduce yourself below. Tell us your child’s age, position, and what you want to develop. ✅ Browse the categories. Post questions, share wins, join the conversation. 🔒 Premium members: your GI Methodology course and monthly calls are in the Classroom (Coming Soon). Glad you’re here. Let’s get to work. Kurtis

We have built this community with the intention of helping as many football parents and players achieve the goals that they seek to achieve. For that to happen, I want the content to be as useful to you as possible, so hearing your thoughts on this will help massively. Please share with us 1 thing that would help your child develop this year below 👇🏾

Most players don't have a decision-making problem. They have a timing problem. The decision they need to make? They're capable of it. They've made it a hundred times in training. But by the time the ball arrives, it's already too late. The space has gone. The press has arrived. And what looked easy in training suddenly feels impossible in a game. It's not nerves. It's not ability. It's not effort. It's what's happening in the two seconds before the ball reaches them. There's a window. A brief moment while the ball is still travelling where everything is decided. Most young players waste it completely without even knowing it exists. In my latest video I break down exactly what happens inside that window, and what it looks like when a player learns to use it. I call it the Decision Window. Three stages. Entirely coachable. And once you know what to look for, you'll never watch your child receive the ball the same way. Get the pdf cheat sheet in the files attached