Parents Need Coaching Too: Parent Pep Talks Book Review”

Parent Pep Talks: The 10 Mental Skills Your Child Must Have to Succeed in School, Sports, and Life
By Justin Su’a, M.S.
Cedar Fort, Inc., 144 pages

We discovered Justin Su‘a through The Pure Athlete Podcast, where the mental performance consultant who’s worked with NFL players, Olympians, and MLB teams shared insights that sent us searching for more. What we found was this compact playbook for the sidelines—not the X’s and O’s kind, but the mental game coaching that happens in the car ride home.

Su’a’s premise is straightforward: elite athletes don’t just train their bodies, they train their minds. And parents, as the first coaches in their child’s athletic journey, need the same tools. The book delivers 10 mental skills—confidence, focus, resilience, motivation, emotional regulation—packaged as ready-to-use pep talks for the moments that define youth sports: the benching, the bad loss, the pre-tryout jitters, the mid-season slump.

For basketball parents navigating AAU pressures and constant evaluation, Su’a’s strength lies in his specificity. These aren’t platitudes about trying your best. They’re tactical responses to disappointment and doubt, honed from years working with athletes who perform under scrutiny. When your child questions their abilities after riding the bench or doesn’t make the team they wanted, Su’a shows you how to build resilience without dismissing their pain, how to restore confidence without inflating it artificially.

At 144 pages, the book respects your time. Su’a writes with the economy of someone who’s spent years in locker rooms where attention spans are short and stakes are high. Each chapter targets a specific mental competency, offers context from his work with elite athletes, then provides the language parents actually need.

The book’s limitation is also its strength: it’s narrowly focused on youth sports. Don’t expect deep dives into parenting philosophy or child psychology. Su‘a stays in his lane as a performance consultant, which makes the advice actionable rather than theoretical.

Basketball parents invest thousands in training and travel. Su’a argues convincingly that without investment in the mental game—both the child’s and the parent’s ability to coach it—those dollars miss their target. The mental side isn’t 90% of the sport, as the cliché goes. It’s the difference between a child who quits at the first setback and one who develops genuine resilience.

The bottom line: If you’re coaching your child through the emotional landscape of competitive basketball, this book equips you with language that works. And if you’re not already listening to The Pure Athlete Podcast, hosted by former MLB player Jeff Francoeur, add it to your queue—it’s where serious youth sports parents are getting educated.


Available on Amazon and major retailers. The Pure Athlete Podcast streams on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Perfect Game TV.


LEGACY Basketball Journal

“Yo, legends ain’t made just by what they do on the court they’re made by how they think about their journey every single day. Your Legacy starts in your mind before it ever shows up in your game. The greats didn’t just work on their handles and shot they worked on their mindset, mental toughness, and ability to stay locked in when everything got chaotic. Every champion you look up to had to figure out how to think like a winner before they could play like one. Your Legacy is being written right now – in how you handle the pressure, how you bounce back from mistakes, and how you stay focused on what really matters. Lock in mentally and watch your Legacy unfold differently. Stay locked, stay focused, and let your mental game build something that lasts long after the final buzzer.”

-Hoopwrld

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