The Western Cape Provincial Sport Confederation’s Women and Girls Commission recently hosted yet another online session.
Dr Debbie Alexander, Clinical Psychologist and SASCOC head of high performance, was joined by Dr Denise Bouah, author of the recently released book Sport Psychology for Children.
The meeting took place on the Zoom online meeting platform and Sunette Marais, president of the Women’s and Girls Commission, was elated with the outcome of the meeting and the support it garnered from women administrators.
This was the second such meeting, with the first one attended by just more than 90 women sports administrators from provincial and district federations across the Western Cape.
This time the meeting took place during the week and Sunette said approximately 59 women attended. The speakers were warmly received Sunette says they received a great amount of positive feedback.
As a result of this meeting, Western Cape Netball invited Dr Denise Bouah to help their two teams with their mental preparation for the national netball championships that will be taking place soon.
Our athletes prepared for a lot of events that were postponed because of Covid-19 and Dr Bouah just gave them tips on how to get mentally ready again for tournaments. Dr Debbie Alexander focused on our athletes and para-athletes that are going to the Olympic Games and it was a really useful session.
Gender-based violence is a big issue and Dr Denise spoke about the need for mothers to prepare their sons mentally when they are young in order for them to grow into balanced adults. It was okay to lose and it is not the end of the world if you do lose, was one of her key messages.
Dr Denise Bouah is a counselling psychologist who specializes in Sport Psychology. She also touched on subjects such as Why Sport Psychology for Children, How can we teach children good habits in sport, Mindfulness and breathing, Teach children to focus, Handle setbacks and teach our children to deal with it, Teach our children to make it better for other children when they are disappointed and Why is mental preparation important for children
Sunette says they are planning a last Zoom meeting before the end of the year and a topic that they consider is self-defence that could be applicable to athletes as well.
