Power Question #13: What did you do when you made a mistake?

Not did you make a mistake. Not why did you make that mistake. What did you do — after.

That distinction is the whole point.

Why is this a power question?

Every player makes mistakes in every game. What separates players who keep growing from players who plateau isn't the mistakes themselves — it's what comes next. The recovery is the skill.

Asking "what did you do when you made a mistake?" focuses your child's attention on the recovery moment instead of the mistake moment. It teaches them that the play after the play matters more than the play that went wrong.

It also quietly removes the shame from mistakes. The question assumes the mistake happened — no big deal, every player has them. The interesting question is what your child did with it. Did they sprint back? Did they hide? Did they hold the next ball forever because they were scared of another mistake? Did they reset and try the same brave thing again?

What to do if you are uncomfortable asking the question

Some parents worry the question will dredge up an embarrassing moment. It might. That's not a problem if you handle it right.

Your job is to receive the answer calmly. "Yeah, that's hard" or "that's a tough one" is plenty. You don't need to coach, fix, or explain.

If your child shrugs and says they didn't make any mistakes, that's almost never literally true — every player makes some — but it's not worth pushing. Either they're not yet ready to name them, or they did the mental work and don't want to relive it. Both are fine.

Don't bring up a specific mistake you saw. "What did you do when you missed that open shot?" turns the question from curiosity into critique.

What you might learn

The answers reveal your child's recovery pattern.

"I just kept running." "I asked my coach what I should have done." "I felt bad for the rest of the half." "I told myself it was okay and went back to it." "I got nervous to touch the ball after that."

These tell you what your child's internal monologue sounds like after a mistake — which is some of the most actionable information you can have as a parent. A child who can recover quickly is a child whose game has another floor underneath it. A child who carries mistakes for the rest of the session has a developmental edge to work on.

How you can probe for more if your player is interested

"Did it help?" — gets them to evaluate their own recovery strategy.

"Has there been a time you recovered really well?" — turns the question toward a model they can copy from themselves.

"What do you want to try next time you make one?" — installs an intention.

A takeaway

The play after the play is the play that matters. Players who learn to recover fast develop faster than players who don't. "What did you do when you made a mistake?" is the question that builds that habit, one rep at a time.