Expert Approaches to Mental Toughness Development in the High Risk Sport of Diving

Research focusing on mental toughness development and high risk sport is limited to one examination of elite gymnasts' perceptions. Coaches have acknowledged that mental toughness is important to performance success, while admitting they do not know effective development strategies. The aim of the current research is to address both these concerns by employing a grounded theory approach to ascertain elite diving coaches perceptions of mental toughness development and what mental toughness is. Seven diving coaches volunteered and were interviewed for an average of 49 minutes. They all coached an athlete that participated either in the world championships or Olympic games since 2008. Participants reported that mental toughness was the ability of a diver to perform a movement in a crucial moment that requires focus, extending beyond their comfort zone, overcoming fear, and never giving up. Mentaltoughness may not be the appropriate term due to its lack of multicultural sensitivity. Participants felt that dealing with adversity was something divers would have to constantly process. Mental toughness can be developed by the coach, the environment, or individual athlete. Unique attributes specific to divers were an awareness of self and a distinct level of knowing what the athlete was going to do. More research needs to be conducted to determine if these concepts can be generalized to other high risk sports. Future research could help establish a valid quantitative measure of mental toughness development.

The Caregiver–Child Relationship, Youth Mental Health, and Placement Stability in a Child Welfare Sample

Objective: Healthy relationships between adolescents and their caregivers have been robustly associated with better youth outcomes in a variety of domains. Youth in contact with the child welfare system are at higher risk for worse outcomes including mental health problems and home placement instability. A growing body of literature points to youth mental health problems as both a predictor and a consequence of home placement instability in this population; the present study aimed to expand our understanding of these phenomena by examining the interplay among the caregiver-child relationship, youth mental health symptoms, and placement change over time. Method: The sample consisted of 1,179 youths aged 11-16, from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, a nationally representative sample of children in contact with the child welfare system. We used bivariate correlations and autoregressive cross-lagged path analysis to examine how youths’ reports of their externalizing and internalizing symptoms, their relationship with their caregivers, and placement changes reciprocally influenced one another over three time points. Results: In the overall models, early internalizing symptoms significantly negatively predicted the quality of the caregiver-child relationship at the next time point, and early externalizing symptoms predicted subsequent placement change. In addition, later externalizing symptoms negatively predicted subsequent reports of relationship quality, and later placement changes predicted subsequent externalizing problems; these relationships were significant only at the trend level (p < .10). The quality of the relationship was significantly negatively correlated with externalizing and internalizing problems at all time points, and all variables demonstrated autoregressive stability over time. Conclusions: Our findings support the importance of comprehensive interventions for youth in contact with the child welfare system, which target not only youth symptoms in isolation, but also the caregiver-child relationship, as a way to improve social-emotional outcomes in this high-risk population.