'A conversation with Tom Kitchin' - High Performance and Sports Parenting

Parents in Sport Podcast

In this episode Michelin starred chef and sports parent Tom Kitchin joins Gordon MacLelland to discuss high performance and sports parenting. Tom has lived experience as a parent going through the football academy journey and it was great to discuss how his own working life in high performance has influenced his ongoing approach with his four children.

During the conversation they discuss amongst other things:

• The realities and complexities of being a sport parent
• Keeping as balanced as possible in our approach throughout the ups and downs of the journey
• The importance of parental role modelling in shaping key character traits in our young people
• Using the big challenges and moments to help fire drive, desire and determination
• The art of picking the right time to have the best conversations with our children
• Adapting and changing our approach as our children get older
• The similarities between high performance sport and high performance restaurants
• The importance of helping to instil the right attitude and discipline and being honest with our children
• Building confidence in our young people
• The vital role of nutrition in fuelling our young people to help them achieve their best

Tom Kitchin opened his first restaurant The Kitchin, on Edinburgh’s Leith waterfront in June 2006. The Kitchin was awarded an acclaimed Michelin Star just six months after opening - an accolade that has been retained now every year since. The award-winning restaurant has been consistently voted one the UK’s best restaurants since its opening whilst Tom and his wife Michaela were also named ‘UK Restauranteurs of the Year’ in 2019 at the prestigious UK Restaurant Awards.
Tom has become a well-known face on television, having appeared on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, UKTV Food’s Market Kitchen, in BBC2’s successful series and BBC2’s Remarkable Places to Eat.
Tom has, on many occasions, joined some of the UK’s most renowned chefs on the MasterChef Final
Chef’s Table panel as a judge.