What Youth Sports Can Teach Us About Relationships (With Guest Tessa Mcilraith of Beyond the Grind)

What if the sideline is actually a relationship battlefield — and nobody gave you the playbook? This week, Amy sits down with Tessa Mcilraith, Youth Sports Mindset & Culture Coach and founder of Beyond the Grind, to talk about something that hits way closer to home than you might expect: the relationships hiding inside youth sports. We're talking about the ones between athletes and their self-belief, coaches and their teams, parents and the kids they're cheering (and occasionally yelling) for — and how all of it is really just... relationships. Which means it's our territory. Tessa brings a wildly unique mix of backgrounds to this conversation — school nurse, UW affiliate instructor, community coalition president — and she has seen what happens when the humans in a young athlete's life get the relational pieces right. And what happens when they don't. Spoiler: it goes well beyond wins and losses. In this episode, we get into: Why the parent-coach relationship is often the most fractured one in youth sports — and how to fix it What coaches and parents get wrong in the conversations they have with kids after a tough game How to build a team culture where athletes actually feel like they belong The connection between mental health, community, and what it means to truly support a young person What it looks like when a whole community gets youth sports right Whether you've got kids in sports, work with young people, or you're just here because you know that every relationship dynamic you've ever navigated shows up on the field too — this one's for you.   amyprieb.com insta: @amypriebtherapy facebook: amy prieb lmft