Dr Douglas Casa

Welcome to the 43rd Monday Reset for Sports Parents — a short reflection inside The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe. Each Monday Reset brings you one word, one idea, and one mindset to help you start the week calm, clear, and connected. This week's word is Tension. Not the kind that announces itself. The kind that builds slowly. It creeps into households after a practice that landed wrong or a conversation that didn't go well. Everyone manages everyone else's mood. No one says anything. And your child carries it onto the field — in their shoulders, in that half-second of hesitation before taking a risk. The most expensive performance problem in youth sports isn't physical. It's emotional. Tension is normal — it means you both care. But left unaddressed, small misunderstandings become patterns, and patterns become walls. A simple "things have been off between us and I don't want that" is enough to crack one open. This week, ask yourself honestly: is there tension between you and your athlete right now? If there is, don't wait for the right moment. Find a quiet minute and name it. Take a breath. Reset. Show them the relationship matters far more than being right. Subscribe at hernanchousa.com

Dr. Douglas Casa's story starts in 1985, when he was a 16-year-old athlete who collapsed mid-race from a life-threatening exertional heat stroke. The quick action of an athletic trainer saved his life — and that moment became his life's mission. Today, Dr. Casa is one of the most respected voices in sports safety in the world. As CEO of the Korey Stringer Institute at UConn — named after the Minnesota Vikings player who died from heat stroke during training camp — he has dedicated his career to ensuring that what happened to him, and to Korey Stringer, never happens to another athlete. He has personally treated over 325 cases of exertional heat stroke with zero fatalities, published over 400 peer-reviewed papers, and presented more than 600 times worldwide on heat illness, hydration, and sudden death prevention in sport. Connect with Dr. Casa Korey Stringer Institute: ksi.uconn.edu Heat Safety Performance Coalition: heatsafetycoalition.com LinkedIn: Douglas Casa Subscribe at hernanchousa.com

Welcome to the 42nd Monday Reset for Sports Parents — a short reflection inside The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe. Each Monday Reset brings you one word, one idea, and one mindset to help you start the week calm, clear, and connected. This week's word is Silence. Not the uncomfortable kind. The intentional one. We fill every gap — practice drives, walks to the field, and post-game rides — with advice, corrections, and breakdowns. We mean well, but all that noise robs our kids of the chance to hear themselves think. Real growth doesn't happen in the deep debrief. It happens in the quiet after it. Sports are intense. Wins, losses, and mistakes need space to settle. Rushing in with words interrupts their process and turns their experience into ours. Silence isn't absence. It's presence without an agenda. It tells them: "I'm here, and I trust you." This week, give them 10 minutes of pure silence after the next game. No questions, no commentary. Just be there, and let them break the silence when they're ready. Take a breath. Reset. Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can say is nothing at all Subscribe at hernanchousa.com

Gayatree Dipchan is a registered British Psychological Society psychologist, NLP coach, hypnotherapist, and behavioral consultant with over two decades of experience working across NGOs, international organizations, and private consultancy — in the Caribbean, the UK, Norway, and the United States. Her work spans trauma recovery, leadership development, and behavioral change, with a particular focus on how our early experiences shape the way we respond to pressure, relationships, and challenge throughout life. She is also co-author of How to Survive and Thrive Vol. 2, alongside Reebok founder Joe Foster and a collection of global leaders — each sharing the lessons that have defined their path. In this episode, Gayatree walks through her professional journey, her areas of expertise, and the behavioral patterns she sees most in the people she works with. For parents raising young athletes, her perspective is a quiet reminder of how much the emotional climate at home shapes everything else. Connect with Gayatree Website: gayatreedipchan.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/gayatree-dipchan Book: How to Survive and Thrive Vol. 2 — onegoldennugget.com Subscribe at hernanchousa.com

Welcome to the 41st Monday Reset for Sports Parents — a short reflection inside The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe. Each Monday Reset brings you one word, one idea, and one mindset to help you start the week calm, clear, and connected. This week's word is Consistency. Not theirs. Yours. We expect it from our athletes — show up, do the work, perform on the hard days. But there's another consistency that rarely gets talked about: who you are as a parent, game to game, win to loss. Are you the same person after a bad game as you are after a great one? Is your love something they can count on, or does it shift with the scoreboard? Children don't need perfect parents. They need predictable ones. A parent whose mood, words, and presence they can rely on regardless of the result. That predictability becomes safety — and safety is where confidence grows. This week, pick one thing you want to be known for, game in, game out. A phrase, a gesture, the drive home. Whatever it is, commit to it every time. Who you are on the hard days — that's the parent they'll remember. Take a breath. Reset. The most powerful thing you can give your child isn't a perfect performance — it's a predictable presence. Subscribe at hernanchousa.com

Dr. Kelli Uitenham is a nationally certified medical speech-language pathologist, Certified Brain Injury Specialist, and Assistant Clinical Professor at Northeastern University. As founder of Brain Talk Foundation, she has dedicated her career to raising awareness about concussions, TBI, and CTE in athletes — bringing that conversation into schools, athletic programs, and families nationwide. We talk a lot about performance in youth sports. We don't talk nearly enough about what repeated head impacts can do to a developing brain. Dr. Kelli is here to change that. In this episode, she breaks down what concussions really do to a young brain, the warning signs parents often miss, and how families can make more informed decisions about contact sports — protecting their children's future without taking away the sport they love. Connect with Dr. Kelli Brain Talk Foundation: braintalkfoundation.org Instagram: @drkellibraintalkslp Podcast: Kandid Konversations with Dr. Kelli If today's conversation resonated, I will send one idea every Friday for sports parents.  Subscribe at hernanchousa.com

Welcome to the 40th Monday Reset for Sports Parents — a short reflection inside The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe. Each Monday Reset brings you one word, one idea, and one mindset to help you start the week calm, clear, and connected. This week's word is Sacrifice. Yours. And whether they know about it. You wake up early, miss dinners, and spend money you sometimes don’t have on gear, travel, and camps. You do it without thinking twice because they love this sport, and you love them. But when sacrifice becomes currency—when it gets mentioned in arguments or after a bad game—it stops being a gift. It becomes a debt your child never asked to carry. Sentences like "after everything we've done for you" don't motivate. They suffocate. The sacrifice is yours to make freely. The moment it becomes their emotional responsibility, we’ve crossed a line. This week, check your language. If sacrifice comes up, ask yourself: Am I giving freely, or am I keeping score? The greatest sacrifices are the ones made quietly—and never mentioned again. Take a breath. Reset. Give everything you can, and release them from the weight of carrying it. Subscribe at hernanchousa.com for one idea every Friday for sports parents.

Dr. Indira Couch — or "Indi," as she likes to be called — is a globally recognised expert in leadership, engagement, and culture coaching with over 30 years of experience helping individuals and organizations achieve peak performance. As CEO of ActionEDGE TT and a certified ActionCOACH, she has built a reputation for simplifying complex challenges and unlocking the potential in the people she works with. Her core belief is simple but powerful: too many people settle for mediocrity when they are capable of so much more. That philosophy doesn't stop at the boardroom — it carries directly into how we show up as parents and the environment we create for our children. In this episode, Indi brings her wealth of experience in leadership and human potential to the conversation, exploring what it means to raise children with purpose, how parents can lead by example, and why the principles that build great leaders also build great families. Connect with Dr. Indira Instagram: @indiracouch LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/indiracouch If today's conversation resonated, I will send one idea every Friday for sports parents.  Subscribe at hernanchousa.com

Welcome to the 39th Monday Reset for Sports Parents — a short reflection inside The Youth Sports Parenting Tribe. Each Monday Reset brings you one word, one idea, and one mindset to help you start the week calm, clear, and connected. This week's word is Words. They last longer than any game ever will. Your child is collecting words right now, building their inner voice sentence by sentence. The sentences spoken by the people they love most become the voice they hear when things get hard. High-performing athletes often share one thing in common: someone who saw something real in them and named it out loud before they even earned it. Not empty praise, but genuine recognition. This week, name one real, specific thing you see in your child as an athlete and say it out loud. Not to motivate them before a game, but simply because it’s true. You are building their inner voice whether you mean to or not. Make it one that lifts them up. Take a breath. Reset. The words you speak today become the voice they trust tomorrow. Subscribe at hernanchousa.com for one idea every Friday for sports parents.

Miro Gladovic's journey in sport is anything but ordinary. Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, he began as a professional soccer goalkeeper before his playing career ended prematurely — leading him to reinvent himself in a way few have. In 1997 he became Australia's first accredited FIFA Players' Agent, and at the time the youngest in the world, going on to broker international transfer deals worth tens of millions of dollars and represent players at clubs like FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Since then, Miro has moved into coaching, working within the youth systems of clubs including Tampa Bay United and the New York Red Bulls, and most recently at the college level in the United States. That wealth of experience is now channeled into SoccerFamilyAgent.com — a platform built specifically for families of young soccer players, helping them understand the recruitment world, avoid common pitfalls, and give their children the best possible chance at a professional career. In this episode, Miro brings a rare perspective — player, agent, and coach — to the conversation about what youth soccer families really need to know, and how parents can best support their child's journey without getting in the way of it. Connect with Miro SoccerFamilyAgent: soccerfamilyagent.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/miro-gladovic If today's conversation resonated, I will send one idea every Friday for sports parents.  Subscribe at hernanchousa.com