Episode 38: Lindsey Blom on Peaceful Development of Parents and Athletes
/“Behavior, any kind of behavior, is contagious.”
Dr. Lindsey Blom is an Associate Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology and the Graduate Program Coordinator at Ball State University. She focuses on the psycho-social aspects of youth sport and sport for development and peace. For the past decade, she has investigated positive youth development through sport and using sport to promote peace at the individual, community, and international levels. Specifically, her research focuses on maximizing the benefits of sport participation through a mastery and cooperative approach fostered by trained coaches and supportive parents, emphasizing a holistic, long-term athletic development model. Her projects include conducting sport for social change programs in Jordan and Tajikistan, the NASPE task force for the position statement on Maximizing the Benefits of Youth Sport, and running local after-school sport for peace leadership programs with elementary school children. Additionally, Dr. Blom has been an invited expert on using sport for development to counter violent extremism for two closed roundtable discussions hosted by the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation and Hedayah. Throughout her academic career, Dr. Blom has co-authored journal articles, book chapters, and the book, “Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Soccer”. Talk about an expert! Dr. Blom also serves on the Board of Directors for the Indiana Soccer Foundation, Dream Sports Africa, and the Ball State Center for Peace and Conflict Studies. Lindsey has over 12 years of consulting experience as a certified consultant for the Association of Applied Sport Psychology and over 15 years of experience as a youth soccer coach. As a consultant, she has worked with administrators, coaches, and athletes from the youth to collegiate level on issues in creating a positive sport environment and maximizing performance. Furthermore, she has led numerous team-building workshops and presented at coaching conferences. As a coach, she has worked with children ages 4 to 18 in recreational, competitive, and school-based settings using her experience as a semi-professional and Division I soccer player. Kathy and Lindsey connect on breaking down ingroup and outgroup interactions by leading as parents and normalizing supportive environments, asking curious questions on and off the field, and creating empathy for both fellow sport parents and athletes alike. She emphasizes the importance of feeling heard and finding common ground in communities that can be precarious. Her episode is full of incredible insights into her research on supportive parenting - you won’t want to miss it!
