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Notice when your child's sports experience is stirring up fears and struggles that belong to you.

Make who they become the real scoreboard by caring more about their values than how they perform.

Be there for the hard moments without rescuing your child from the lessons that are meant for them.

A father recently came into my office consumed with anxiety. "I'm having trouble sleeping," he told me. "My high schooler is an exceptionally talented soccer player and her ill-equipped coach is messing with her confidence. Every suggestion I make only makes things worse."

Kids in sports can bring valuable lessons and blessings, and at the same time, trigger intense stress and discomfort—for both kids and parents. The challenge is learning how to best support our kids through the stress, disappointments, and ups and downs of sports without letting our own fears and emotions get in the way.

Here are four parenting habits to guard the balance in your self and family:

1. Separate your experience from theirs

Our kids' sports can trigger big emotions in us in large part because there is so much we cannot control—from teammates to injuries, coaches to other parents, and playing time to how much your child wants this.

For the devoted father I mentioned above, the hardest part was how completely out of control he felt. The more we talked, the more he realized that mistrusting people and life was an issue that belonged to him, not his daughter. He began to see how he was merging his experience........

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