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"We spoke to sports psychologist Dr. Carlin Anderson, a Licensed Psychologist and certified consultant for the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), who specializes in sport/performance psychology and counseling psychology. Dr. Anderson offered some useful tips for the adults closest to high-achieving youth to foster healthy self-esteem and life-skills to manage stress and anxiety. Be Curious & Focus on the Process Students are well-aware of their academic and athletic performance scores. They also know when they put in full, half or partial effort to achieve those results. Try to help your student athlete measure and evaluate them self based on the effort they put in, rather than the results they achieve. Take inventory of the tasks they did before the test or game to see if there is a pattern. What worked? What didn’t work? If your student feels like they gave their best EFFORT both in their preparation and performance, then as a parent, reinforce them f...

Anderson surmises the kicker's problems come from the fact there's no new mountain to ascend. "… As a NFL rookie or when he was coming into college, he was sort of climbing the mountain, and he had a lot less to lose," he says. "For smarter guys than say the stereotypical 'dumb' jocks, it's about climbing the mountain. My guess with him is he's a smarter guy and as he's become [more successful in his career] he thinks he's got more to lose. He's already climbed. He's already got the millions of dollars and so now he's on top of the mountain and he doesn't have to climb anymore. The thing about confidence is that it's so fragile. As soon as you start to think 'Do I have it? Do I not have it?' doubt creeps in." Anderson agrees the pressure will only prove more suffocating in the coming weeks: "He's in a bit of tailspin now and it's only going to get more heavy." Read more: Instead of a Lynching, Maybe Blair Walsh S...