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Parents Making Youth Sports a Positive Experience

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Parents Making Youth Sports a Positive Experience

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In this article it teaches you the benefits in youth sports. It also shows that sports can be fun and kids can learn important life lessons. Also parents can be good role models in youth sports to encourage their children to do good.

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Parents Making Youth Sports a Positive Experience: Role Models

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This is the first in a two-part series written to assist parents in fostering a positive climate that enables children and youth involved in sports to enjoy themselves and reach their full potential.

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In this article it teaches you the positive impacts of youth sports. It can also develop a kids character and build their self esteem. It also teaches you how to monitor your training the right way.

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KEY POINTS

The wide-ranging benefits of healthy youth sports participation are well-recognized, but many challenges are also prominently evident.

An emerging new culture for youth sports is underpinned by the increasingly recognized importance to set in place critical foundations early, appreciate individual athletic assets, development needs and trajectories, prioritize realistic long-term objectives, and embrace a wider definition of athletic and sport success.

From youth sport entry to elite participation, a variable, diversified and balanced development program with an athlete-centered emphasis on health, safety and fun is the best pathway to sustainable athletic and sport success and optimal performance.

INTRODUCTION

The positive impacts on health, ﬁtness, psycho-social and character development and numerous other traits contributing to academic and life success from youth sports participation are widely recognized, and increasingly, the supporting evidence continues to mount (Eime et al., 2013; Merkel, 2013; Mountjoy et al., 2011; Pfeiffer et al., 2006; Silva et al., 2013; Tenforde & Fredericson, 2011; Washington et al., 2001). However, many challenges are also prominently evident for all those closely involved in youth sports - especially for the youth athletes. Time-consuming practices, excessive travel and overloaded competition schedules are far too prevalent and characteristic of the continually growing widespread engagement in overly intense specialization in a single sport. This can place unsustainable physiological, psychological and social demands on the youth athlete that too often leads to a cascade of preventable injuries, burnout and eventual dropout from sport. And with an undue importance and priority on winning, the opportunities for children and adolescents to participate in an environment where the emphasis is on fun, learning the fundamental skills of one or more sports, and nurturing individual athletic assets are challenging to find. Accordingly, there is a growing desire and recognized need for more healthy and sustainable models for youth athlete development - particularly those programs that provide more inclusive, diverse and enjoyable participation and opportunities for fulfillment at all levels of individual athletic skill and achievement.

One such recent effort to advance a more appropriate and optimal, evidence-informed approach to youth athlete development was convened by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in November 2014. The outcome of this innovative meeting of experts in the ﬁeld was a published IOC consensus, and the key tenets of this definitive statement were explicitly featured in the document's guiding recommendations (Bergeron et al., 2015). The breadth of the IOC statement and guidelines includes: a) consideration of individual and constantly changing rates of growth, maturation and development, b) holistic and diverse development of the athlete and person, c) individual and flexible frameworks of athlete development, d) mitigating injury risk and promoting health through sport and, e) advocacy for a wider definition of athletic and sport success. Moreover, there are detailed recommendations on youth sport coaching, conditioning and nutrition, as well as a call to action to youth and other sport governing bodies. Similarly, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) recently launched their new Essentials Initiative (Bergeron & Koester, 2016; National Federation of State High School Associations, 2016). The initiative's goals as defined during the July 2016 NFHS Essentials Summit are to enhance and expand high school sport participation, reduce injury risk and optimize performance for all student-athletes. With a somewhat different emphasis, more focused scope of topics, and less depth of background and cited clinical research than the IOC Consensus, the NFHS Essentials document and guidelines are more practically specific to daily issues that are central to each targeted stakeholder group - high school athletes, coaches, parents, athletic administrators and state associations. Nonetheless, for all levels of play - sport entry to elite - the emphasis from the IOC and NFHS is on youth sport paradigms that are inclusive, healthy, sustainable and fun!

The central theme of this emerging "new culture" for youth sports is underpinned by the increasingly recognized importance to set in place early the holistic, diversified, functional and healthy sound foundations that foster athleticism, wide-ranging movement, creativity and problem-solving, and character (Côté & Vierimaa, 2014; Faigenbaum & Meadors, 2017; Gulbin et al., 2013; Myer et al., 2011). This is followed by a steady individualized progression of healthy and enjoyable athletic and sport development with realistic, youth-centered long-term objectives being the focus. Done right, the lasting positive effects can extend throughout youth sport participation to adult sport and other gratifying physical activity experiences that encourage a lifestyle of fitness and health (Dohle & Wansink, 2013). This Sports Science Exchange article features selected challenges facing youth athletes and identifies key considerations and "best practices" for mitigating and offsetting these obstacles - with a focus on the youth athlete that will keep kids in the game! The urgent need for innovative research and discovery, using new advanced technology and analytics from within a multi-domain real-world context, that will extend and deepen our insights to the temporal signatures of healthy and sustainable youth athlete development, is also highlighted.

ATHLETIC AND SPORT CHALLENGES ACROSS ADOLESCENCE

Appropriate individualized youth athlete development, including implementing optimal strategies for training, performance and injury risk mitigation, is challenging. This is in large part, because the developmental base is constantly and uniquely changing (owing to normal physical growth, biological maturation, behavioral development and their interactions) and difficult to accurately assess across the multiple domains and variable stages of athletic and sport advancement (Engebretsen et al., 2010; Malina et al., 2004). Moreover, there are several specific physiological changes and challenges across adolescence that should be deliberately considered in the youth athlete development strategy.

Various components of energy metabolism (e.g., phosphocreatine and muscle glycogen levels) notably increase with age in boys, as do glycogen depletion and muscle lactate buildup during strenuous exercise (Armstrong and Welsman, 2008; Eriksson, 1980). Children are generally well-equipped for long-term moderate-intensity exercise (intermittent or continuous activity characteristic of many team and individual sports), in part, because of their lower ratio of glycolytic (anaerobic) to oxidative enzyme activity and higher relative rates of lipid oxidation and glycogen sparing during exercise (that both decline with maturation through puberty) compared to adults ( Armstrong & McManus, 2011; Armstrong et al., 2015; Bergeron et al., 2015). As boys and girls get older, however, percent of peak VO ₂ at the lactate threshold decreases. That is, across adolescence, youth athletes have a progressive increase in anaerobic capacity and reliance on anaerobic energy provision during strenuous exercise. While subjective exertion can be equalized, it is recognizably challenging to compare the rate of exercise recovery between youth and adults, because of the complexity of influential differences in exercise performance and output. However, resistance to fatigue and rate of recovery from strenuous exercise, especially during and following high-intensity intermittent repeated bouts in practice or competition, are generally acknowledged to also progressively lessen as a child matures toward adulthood because of the aggregate effect of various changes in recovery kinetics and other contributing physiological and metabolic factors (Armstrong et al., 2015; Falk and Dotan, 2006; Ratel et al., 2006). Yet, it is the older adolescents who are frequently pushed inappropriately harder beyond their ability to tolerate a higher workload ( excessive rapid overload) with less concern and allowance for adequate recovery time that is exacerbated by an increasingly lower inherent resistance to fatigue and rate of recovery from demanding physical activity. The misperception is that the older, gifted and motivated athletes can better "handle it." Too often they cannot - and, beyond premature and undue fatigue, the more costly price of repeated overload and overuse is sadly evidenced by halted or ruined sports careers for countless young athletes (Bahr, 2014).

There are also progressively greater challenges in the heat for boys and girls as they advance through their teen years. The long-standing belief that youth athletes have greater difficulty tolerating the heat because of a purported biological maturation-related disadvantage has been clearly countered by more current research and position stands (Bergeron, 2013; Bergeron et al., 2011; Rowland, 2008). However, heat stress, especially when the humidity is high, is not benign, and youth athletes and those overseeing them need to recognize this and suitably accommodate the parallel changing challenges and threats as maturation and athletic development evolve. As a youth athlete physically and physiologically develops and matures, more heat is produced from a greater muscle mass and more mature sweat glands yield increased sweat production during vigorous physical activity (Falk et al., 1992). This results in a greater thermal load and an increase in sweat ﬂuid and electrolyte (primarily sodium) loss. Accordingly, total body water and exchangeable sodium deﬁcits from extensive sweating can be comparatively more substantial in mid- to late-teen athletes. Moreover, longer and physically demanding workouts and contests are characteristic of more physically developed, ﬁt and skilled older adolescent athletes. Potential greater levels of muscle damage and various physiological carry-over effects could increase thermal strain and other clinical risks during the next training session or contest (Fortes et al., 2013). While coaches and event administrators should always provide adequate between-bout/session recovery time (especially in the heat), a greater accommodation for recovery should be anticipated and liberally applied, as young athletes get older, and train and compete repeatedly and at a higher level. Despite these prevalent heat-related challenges and threats, if youth athletes are well-prepared and other modifiable contributing risk factors are considered and appropriate offsetting measures are applied, most healthy children and adolescents can safely participate in outdoor sports in the heat (Bergeron, 2015; 2017).

It is well-recognized that participation in sports with high-impact loading (e.g., gymnastics, volleyball) or odd (variable)-impact loading (e.g., soccer, basketball, tennis) can have an overall positive effect on bone health in young athletes through higher bone mineral composition, mineral density and enhanced geometric properties in a sport-specific loading pattern (Tenforde & Fredericson, 2011). And these benefits are bolstered when dietary calcium and vitamin D requirements are regularly met (Abrams, 2011). However, sport-related overuse injuries appear to be more prevalent during puberty and the adolescent growth spurt (DiFiori et al., 2014; van der Sluis et al., 2014). A contributing factor for a greater vulnerability to stress fractures during the period of peak linear growth is the coincident dissociation between bone expansion and bone mineralization (Faulkner et al., 2006). Unfortunately, this is also the time when many parents and coaches feel a falsely opportune sense of urgency to amplify intensive training, practice and competition loads for their "select" athletes. The concomitant greater potential for overuse-related injury suggests otherwise. That is, it would be prudent and wise to reduce (or at least maintain) training and competition intensity, frequency, and/or volume and instead focus on further developing foundational skills and sound biomechanical technique, while going through this particularly vulnerable stage of physical development. Not only will this approach reduce stress fracture and certain other overuse-related injuries risk, but the emphasis on developing skills and technique will help the athlete hold up under the demands of future training and competition!

These maturational and related physical and physiological changes and challenges, individually and collectively, facing developing youth athletes can measurably increase individual injury risk if training, practice and competition loads, and scheduling and recovery strategies are mismanaged. For example, rapidly increasing the training or competition load to accelerate "getting into shape" or to enhance the level of play can quickly lead to undue fatigue, poor performance and a variety of potential injuries (Bahr, 2014; Best et al., 2006). Moreover, adequate rest and recovery between training, conditioning and practice activities (e.g., sets, drills and other bouts of exercise) and sessions, as well as competitions, are vital in minimizing injury risk and achieving or maintaining optimal performance. Rest and recovery (along with various influencing and integrated factors such as proper nutrition and sleep) are central to a variety of regenerative mechanisms and positive adaptation to the applied sport-specific and individual exercise/training stimulus (Minett & Costello, 2015; Peake & Gandevia, 2017). But, the process (and youth athlete) breaks down when there is a short-term or chronic imbalance between training and conditioning, practice and/or competition, and rest and recovery, especially when the young athlete is repeatedly subjected to demanding physical (through high intensity, volume or frequency of exposure) and psychological loading and stress (Bergeron et al., 2015; DiFiori et al., 2014). Youth sports should not be unduly straining, and coaches and parents need to also recognize and promptly respond to the early warning signs (e.g., complaints of pain or undue soreness, uncharacteristic fatigue and poor performance) indicating evolving athletic overload, overuse or apparent injury.

Numerous problems can be averted or minimized by also ensuring a state of sport readiness. This involves closely matching physical, athletic and psychosocial/emotional development, as well as interest and commitment, to the demands and expectations of the sport and environment, for each youth athlete. Coaches, parents and youth athletes all have a responsible role in managing proper preparation and readiness, and appropriately adjusting their approach and behavior to effectively adapt to the changing sport stresses, periods of vulnerability, and injury risks associated with workload and rest/recovery cycles. This is especially important during puberty and the adolescent growth spurt. Without proper accommodation, a variety of detrimental consequences can readily result from an unintended unsustainable overload or imbalance of physical, physiological, psychological, academic, social, and sport demands and expectations.

MONITORING TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

At the core of youth athlete development are numerous entry programs to introduce the fundamental skills, rules and basic strategies of a sport. These are supplemented by a variety of school-based and community settings and facilities, volunteers and professionals, organizations, leagues, and competition formats providing progressive instruction and focused plans and opportunities for learning and achieving new levels of athletic and sport-specific competencies and success. Each early stage and advanced model is usually complemented by various practice/training strategies and competition progressions designed and intended to enhance athletic attributes and sport performance and achievement across the sequential athlete developmental phases (Gulbin et al., 2013). While this is a highly integrated, multi-dimensional, complex, individual and uncertain process, there remains a common belief in and commitment to traditional assumptions and practices regarding generalized athlete responses and adaptation trajectories during pre-defined periods of training and conditioning, practice and competition across age-related timeframes. Moreover, it is common for these purported "proven" specific training methods to be based simply on personal experience and/or observation of others. It is further expected that periodic planned manipulation of program variables (e.g., training and practice mode, intensity, frequency and volume) over time can predictably advance athlete and sport development similarly across individuals and youth populations (Naclerio et al., 2013). Although this simplified approach is convenient, the efficacy is generally not scientifically supported or empirically validated (Ford et al., 2011; Kiely, 2012).\

Appropriate variation in sport-development activities (training and conditioning, practice and competition) is key for reducing injury risk, maintaining athlete focus and engagement, and optimizing athletic progress and sport performance (Bergeron et al., 2015; DiFiori et al., 2014). However, individual athletes respond uniquely to training and conditioning, practice and competition formats, loads and schedules. Accordingly, the vital component to all youth athlete development programs is sensitive and early detection (primarily through careful observation of and close listening to each athlete) of advancement opportunities and emerging threats, and the prompt response with relevant, suitable and specific individualized redirection (Kiely, 2012; Weissensteiner, 2015).

SAFELY NAVIGATING SPORT SPECIALIZATION

Encouraged by escalating and widespread competitiveness, professional-like development programs and support teams, and media and marketing directed to young athletes and parents, youth sport is increasingly characterized by an early, intense single-sport focus. This pathway is often reinforced by rigorous sport-specific physical training and year-round, high-frequency competition with insufﬁcient allocation of time for rest, regular recovery and other non-sport activities important to developing youth. Not surprisingly, the cost for many boys and girls is illustrated by the disturbing prevalence at all levels of youth sports of preventable sport-related injuries and health problems, including overuse injury, overtraining and burnout (Bridge & Toms, 2013; DiFiori et al., 2014; Jayanthi et al., 2013, 2015).

Especially at entry to and during the early stages of sport participation and learning, diverse athletic exposure and sport sampling has recognized advantages. These include enhanced motor development, more firmly established foundational movement skills, and improved athletic capacity. This approach can arguably also reduce injury risk and increase the opportunity for a child to discover the sport(s) that he/she will enjoy and possibly excel at (Bergeron et al., 2015; Côté & Vierimaa, 2014; Goodway & Robinson, 2015). However, claims abound citing how select high-profile athletes got to the top because they were multi-sport athletes in their youth and through high school (Gardner & Hallenbeck, 2017). While there are clear opportunities to pick up a wider range of athletic and social skills from varied sport exposure, is multiple-sport participation the determinant in boys and girls exceling as athletes, or do the better athletes play multiple sports simply because they can? Would the level of athletic and sport success be similar or even better had these cited examples of popular athletes specialized early in their primary sport the right way? That is by following a progressive, long-term, healthy, supportive, sustainable, diversified, balanced, holistic and individually responsive training and competition model that fosters fully developed, functionally sound and movement-based athletes. Current youth sport development and specialization schemes are too often not appropriately designed or applied, while recognizing and being responsive to individual variability in readiness, needs, tolerance and times of developmental (physical and psychological) vulnerability. Numerous examples are unfortunately evident where youth sports academies and programs are dysfunctional and counterproductive in fostering enjoyment and sustainable balanced athletic success. In these scenarios, it would not likely be beneficial or benign to go from one dysfunctional sport to another, even seasonally each year. Simply put, multi-sport participation per se may not be the solution to enhancing athletic and sport development or mitigating injury risk, especially if each sport program is not practically individualized and managed well.

Unquestionably, there is great value in diversified healthy sports experiences for youth entering sport and through the foundational stages and sometimes beyond. But, it is important to not give in to an oversimplified binary solution - that is, multiple-sport participation is healthy for kids, while single-sport specialization is not. The recent IOC Consensus on Youth Athletic Development emphasizes that "appropriate diversity and variability of athletic exposure within a single sport, while supporting sufﬁcient learning of foundational skills and sport-speciﬁc technique and biomechanics to minimize injury risk and optimize performance, along with consistent adequate rest and recovery and a balanced emphasis on other priorities (e.g., family and school, life skills and social development), can be acceptable and healthy, so long as the youth athlete is enjoying and beneﬁtting fully from the experience"(Bergeron et al., 2015). From this perspective, sport specialization can be done in a healthy, sustainable and rewarding way for those youth athletes who choose and love a certain sport ... even beginning at an early age!

HOW CAN TECHNOLOGY AND ADVANCED ANALYTICS HELP?

The traditional approach to applied sport science research (and youth athlete development, performance and injury risk research is no exception) is commonly based on a hypothesis of "convenience." That is, depending on available equipment, personnel support, experience and available funding, a hypothesis is developed. This is followed by a process of reverse engineering to determine a viable methodology to prove or dismiss the research question(s). Unfortunately, this too often leads to an experimental setting that is limited and observations and conclusions that are far removed from a more real-world context.

Complex human systems in youth sports (or other scenarios) cannot be fully interpreted by evaluating discrete measures, especially when the young athletes under observation are removed from the natural environment of daily multiple stressors and wide-ranging influencing factors. Moreover, with the natural selectivity process of sport, research generally focuses on the choice young athletes. Accordingly, far less is known about the characteristics and circumstances of the injured boys and girls, or those who are systematically cut or who simply drop out. More comprehensive, real-world, multi-domain integrated evidence not only provides greater insights and practical perspectives, this approach also helps to close the gap between research discovery and practical acceptance and uptake of related recommendations and guidelines.

With the rapid evolution of advanced technology (including sensors, imaging and high-performance computer systems) and analytics, efficiently and effectively collecting, managing and analyzing massive amounts of structured and unstructured information from multiple (even disparate) domains is no longer the limiting factor. Moreover, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven, machine learning algorithms and advanced analytics can be expertly guided to reveal valuable new insights and a deeper appreciation for the true temporal signatures (pace and pattern) in youth sports specific to health, injury risk and athletic performance within and across disciplines.

THE FUTURE OF YOUTH ATHLETE DEVELOPMENT

The recent IOC consensus and new NFHS Initiative have established the definitive tenets of healthy and sustainable youth sports participation and athlete development (Bergeron & Koester, 2016; Bergeron et al., 2015; National Federation of State High School Associations, 2016). While the scope of recommendations featured in each document is extensive, with explicit details and categorized organization directed to respective concerns and stakeholders, there are several notable overarching principles that underscore the primary concerns and considerations outlined here:

Sustainable sport development takes time, and the youth sports experience will always be on an individual trajectory and evolving on an unpredictable continuum.

Early achievement or struggle is not always predictive of future performance, engagement or enjoyment.

Fitness, athleticism, skill, and physical and psychological resilience must adequately support the expectations and demands of sport training and competition.

Appropriate variation and diversity in progressively introduced athletic loading and sport-development activities, whether across multiple sports or within one, with adequate rest and recovery between training, conditioning and practice activities and sessions, as well as competitions, is key for reducing injury risk and optimizing performance.

Coaches and parents need to recognize and promptly respond to the early warning signs indicating evolving athletic overload, overuse or apparent injury, and no youth athlete should train or compete hurt.

Above all, youth athlete development programs and priorities must be youth athlete-centered!

The tenets of healthy and sustainable youth sports participation and athlete development described here (and recognizing others who similarly embrace and implement these principles) are already setting new best practices standards. A growing volume of increasingly higher quality, readily available and intelligently aggregated, analyzed and interpreted information is also rapidly changing the way youth sports are described and examined. The breadth and depth of these data coupled with rapidly evolving new advanced technology and analytics will be instrumental in better understanding and visualizing patterns across youth maturation and development never conceived previously. The necessary culture change, where these best practices, realistic expectations and acceptance of a wider definition of athletic and sport success for all youth athletes are deeply engrained, is not an easy task. However, we are beginning to witness a new paradigm for advanced discovery and transformational changes that will minimize preventable injury risk, promote more inclusive and sustainable athletic participation, foster health and enjoyment, and optimize performance and a wide range of rewarding achievement for all youth involved in sports!

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Washington, R.L., D.T. Bernhardt, J. Gomez, M.D. Johnson, T.J. Martin, T.W. Rowland, E. Small, C. LeBlanc, C. Krein, R. Malina, J.C. Young, F.E. Reed, S. Anderson, S. Bolduc, O. Bar-Or, H. Newland, H.L. Taras, D.A. Cimino, J.W. McGrath, R.D. Murray, W.A. Yankus, T.L. Young, M. Fleming, M. Glendon, L. Harrison-Jones, J.L. Newberry, E. Pattishall, M. Vernon, L. Wolfe, S. Li, M. Committee on Sports Medicine and Fitness and Committee on School Health. (2001). Organized sports for children and preadolescents. Pediatrics 107: 1459-1462.

Weissensteiner, J.R. (2015). The importance of listening: engaging and incorporating the athlete's voice in theory and practice. Br. J. Sports Med. 49: 839-840.

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Healthy and Sustainable Youth Sports - The Future of Youth Athlete Development

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The wide-ranging benefits of healthy youth sports participation are well-recognized, but many challenges are also prominently evident. An emerging new culture for youth sports is underpinned by the increasingly recognized importance to set in place critical foundations early, appreciate individual athletic assets, development needs and trajectories, prioritize realistic long-term objectives, and embrace a wider definition of athletic and sport success.

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Can Youth Sports be Both Fun and Competitive

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Can Youth Sports be Both Fun and Competitive

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In this article youth sports can be both fun and competitive. In this article it says the main reason why kids drop out of youth sports is because lack of fun is the number one reason why kids drop out. It also has information on how to make youth sports fun but also competitive.

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I got an email from a distraught parent the other day. She described a scene where the coach was screaming at the girls after a loss. She was beside herself at how the coach treated the girls. He was demeaning, he was loud and scary, and he had lost perspective on the age he was coaching.

She said at one point the coach barked "You're not here to have fun! You are here to work!" The coach felt the girls were not trying hard enough, were not fully engaged, and did not want to win as badly as he did. The worse they played, the more frustrated he got.

The girls were 8-years old!

This mom was so upset this one conversation would turn her child away from sports. She wanted her daughter to share the same lifelong passion and pursuit of a sport that she did. She wanted her daughter to have the great memories and experiences she had. She wanted her daughter to have fun first and worry about "work" later.

She asked me "when do kids shift from having fun to being competitive in youth sports?"

We get this question a lot, from parents of children 8-18. Our answer:
They don't! Fun and Competition are NOT mutually exclusive. Youth Sports should be both!
There is this overwhelming myth in sports that fun and competitiveness cannot coexist. To have one, you cannot have the other, and at some point, we have to choose between whether we are there to have fun in our sports experience or to compete.
The difference between enjoyment and pleasure
This is a patently false myth. From the youth to the professional level, they coexist. Look at some of the world's greatest athletes and ask yourself "are they having fun"? The Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho was always seen smiling. Peyton Manning had so much fun he even made commercials poking fun at the ultra-competitive nature of pro sports. Julie Foudy, the World Cup, and Olympic Champion told us on our podcast that there was never a game when she did not start laughing hysterically. The list goes on and on. No one doubts these athlete's competitiveness. They sure had a lot of fun doing it, though!

Fun and competition do not exist at polar ends of a continuum in youth sports. In fact, fun and competition can actually be the same concept for kids. Fun is not about deriving pleasure at all times from an activity. Having fun is more about "enjoyment" of the activity. So what is enjoyment?

Have you ever run a marathon? As we often say at our talks, during mile 20-26 of your marathon, do you experience any pleasure? If you are like most, probably not. You probably had cramps in places you didn't know you had muscles. But you can still enjoy running. Sports does not always have to be pleasurable; it can be demanding and challenging. Yet this can still be enjoyable, and enjoyment is a critical ingredient.
How adults define fun is not how children define fun
A while back, we wrote about the 3 critical ingredients of youth sport: enjoyment, autonomy, and intrinsic motivation. The foundation is enjoyment. Enjoyment is about the satisfaction of improving and achieving your goals. It is about being in the moment. Enjoyment also attaches to an experience of autonomy. People who have greater control over their own experiences, tend to naturally enjoy them more. As we have more and more autonomy, we feel more with the experience and find more joy in it. This ownership gives rise to intrinsic motivation. We do not perform the activity for anyone or anything outside of us but do it for some internal motivation. We enjoy doing it because it is ours to do and control, and it gives us a deep sense of personal satisfaction . Does this mean we will always derive pleasure from the activity? Goodness no.

Many of us will look at a tough practice, a hard-fought loss, or a bad day in the trenches and think kids will not stick it out because it did not bring them pleasure. Others believe we will never see that hard-fought game or the grind in the trenches because we are making the game too pleasurable and not making it challenging. Pleasure is not the goal of making sports fun. Enjoyment is the goal. Those activities do bring enjoyment with the right approach.

Fun is the main reason children play sports . Every piece of research ever done, every survey ever taken, or every time we ask the children, the primary answer for why they play is fun.

Adults think fun for kids is goofing off, not listening, and not being serious. Children don't define fun this way. In fact, Amanda Visek, in her groundbreaking research, decided to ask children to help her define fun. What she discovered was that children have 81 different determinants for having fun in sports!

How do they define fun?

Fun is working hard. It is being challenged and competing. It is learning a new skill, being with friends, having a coach that cares, getting compliments from coaches, and a coach who respects them. Fun in sports for kids means learning from mistakes, working together as a team, applying a skill you learned in practice in a game, improving athletic skills to play at the next level, playing against an evenly matched team, and winning. Fun is getting playing time! Yes, winning is part of the fun for kids. It is not the most important, factor, though, coming in at a lowly 48 out of 81 when the determinants are prioritized.
Lack of Fun is the number one reason kids quit sports
What we should glean from this short list of fun determinants is that children see many varying things as fun. Their definition of fun is quite encompassing. They really know how to make anything fun! Two, their definitions of fun incorporate nearly all the facets of youth sport we, as adults, hope it will accomplish for them. If we made sports about fun, following their 81 determinants as a roadmap, it would fulfill their needs and wishes for youth sports!

We will create an experience that fully engages children, keeps them playing for a long time, helps them develop vital skills in the game and beyond, and still achieves our adult-imposed goals on the whole thing. That is a win-win for everyone. They would play more, play longer, and play better if we only made it about fun.
If youth sports is fun, will kids compete less?
Amanda Visek is now working on the "Not Fun Maps," because she also discovered children quit sports when they no longer have fun. It is the number one reason they quit, and she wants to know how they define "Not Fun" so we can stop making it not fun. While the research is not yet published, as she shared with us on our podcast with her , most of the "not fun" determinants have to do with adults!

If we force the fun from youth sports, we risk losing the kids completely. If they are not in sports, we miss this chance to use it as the vehicle for life skills, strong values, great role models that we so desperately want for our kids. It should be our primary goal to make sports fun, modeled after how kids define it, so we are building amazing people beyond the game.

Why would enjoying something more ever make you compete less? The secret to competing is creating an environment that allows athletes to go all in without fear. What does this look like:

An environment that allows for mistakes, and even promotes them

Positive team dynamics

Respect and encouragement throughout the team

Agreed upon values

A coach willing to give players ownership of the experience

Last but not least, enjoyment!

How to Make Sports Both Fun and Competitive
This type of environment reflects Visek's fun determinants, for as you dig deeper kids define fun as competing, being strong and confident, playing hard, setting and achieving goals, being challenged to improve and get better, practicing with specialty trainers, scrimmaging during practice, playing against an evenly matched team, playing in tournaments, and even winning medals and trophies. This list is how we would define competition. This list is all inclusive of everything many coaches argue is lost when we focus on fun, and yet, kids are telling us these things are still fun for them.

Wringing the fun out of youth sports won't make kids compete more. It will make them compete less.

If you want to make your sports experience both fun and competitive, try these six things:
As coaches, our greatest fear should not be losing the game we had a chance to win, it should be losing the kids we had a chance to transform.

1. Play games in training, lots of them: if you want people to compete at game speed, make it look like a game. At a minimum, 60-70% of your training should be game based. Add defenders, add constraints if you like, coach through the game, but play and players will compete.

2. Focus on values such as fearlessness and accountability: if athletes are not afraid to make mistakes, and are willing to be held accountable when they do not bring the right effort and focus, they will compete harder. This is what the best professional coaches do (see for example Karch Kiraly and USA Volleyball) and you should too.

3. Stop yelling at players for technical errors: nothing stops a player competing faster than getting yelled at for every mistake. If they compete with 100% focus and effort and still make a mistake, they are entitled to that. That is called learning.

4. Play for something: Let the winners earn something for winning in training. At times, you can even let your athletes decide what the winners get for winning. It might be picking up cones, a quick physical activity, making a rule in the next game, but let the winners actually win something and people will compete.

5. Stay on schedule: nothing diminishes competitiveness more than when athletes do not know when practice will end, or an activity will end. You are better off playing in shorter intense practice activities than longer, drawn-out ones. How can you go all out when you don't know when an activity ends, or if practice ends in 10 minutes or 30? Stick to the schedule so players can monitor their effort and hold nothing back.

6. Give them ownership: Whether it is choosing the game, deciding on the practice topic, or "running" halftime, when kids are given ownership, their enjoyment will increase and with it that competitive fire will be stoked because they are competing to prove their ideas correct.

Can sports be both fun and competitive? You bet it can. Actually, it should be. If sports isn't fun, kids quit. And if they quit, we lose the opportunity to impact their lives for decades to come. We miss that chance to change a life. That should scare us more than anything else.

Make your practices and games a boatload of fun. Add competitive games to your sessions. Find an appropriate level of competition. And let them compete. And when the game ends, move on.

Sports isn't work.

It's play. It's fun.. and it's competitive , but it's play. Just let the kids play, and the kids will compete.

Comments

comments

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Can Youth Sports be Both Fun and Competitive? - Changing the Game Project

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I got an email from a distraught parent the other day. She described a scene where the coach was screaming at the girls after a loss. She was beside herself at how the coach treated the girls.

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The Importance Of Positivity In Youth Sports

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The Importance Of Positivity In Youth Sports

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This video is about how youth sports can keep your child healthy and motivated when they are older. It also teaches you not to be lazy.

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Noah Jackson co-founded the First Base Foundation in 2003, a non-profit dedicated to making travel baseball more affordable and transforming lives through positive mentorship, developing leadership skills and building self-esteem. He played college baseball at University of California Berkeley, minor league baseball for two years with the Chicago Cubs, and was a top scout in the MLB for 3 years with the San Diego Padres.

In this video, Jackson explains why it is so important for coaches to be positive. Many kids quit sports at a young age because of negative experiences. Coaches can be intentional about creating a positive culture that is healthier and more fun for the athletes.

Jackson urges coaches to show the athlete that even when they fail they can still learn something. He believes coaches need to be especially positive in teachable moments so young athletes are not overwhelmed with the sometimes difficult path to improvement.

LittleLeague-BaseballSoftball

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The Importance Of Positivity In Youth Sports Culture

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Noah Jackson co-founded the First Base Foundation in 2003, a non-profit dedicated to making travel baseball more affordable and transforming lives through positive mentorship, developing leadership skills and building self-esteem. He played college baseball at University of California Berkeley, minor league baseball for two years with the Chicago Cubs, and was a top scout in the MLB for 3 years with the San Diego Padres.

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How Youth Sports Done Right Has A Positive Effect on Children

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How Youth Sports Done Right Has A Positive Effect on Children

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In this video it explains how your children can be better athletes and become less lazier. It also teaches children to be active and motivated. It also teaches kids to be more talkative and to work on there teamwork skills. It also provides good information on how to stay healthy

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Shellie Pfohl is Executive Director of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition (@FitnessGov). She is responsible for developing the vision, strategy, and goals of the Council in consultation with its members, and directing the organization's daily operations. In addition, she leads the Council's efforts to support First Lady Michelle Obama's national Let's Move! (@letsmove) initiative aimed at solving the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation.

Prior to joining the Council, Shellie served as Senior Vice President of Partnerships for HOPSports, Inc. where she created strategic partnerships with state, national, and international organizations and corporations seeking health and physical education resources for schools and community organizations. Shellie also co-founded and served as Executive Director of Be Active North Carolina, a nonprofit organization that works statewide to increase physical activity among North Carolina citizens.

In this video, Pfohl explains the importance of organized sports "done right" as a key to developing healthy children, who are likely to continue healthy lifestyles into adulthood and pass those on their own children.

Kids who participate in organized sports as shaped by Positive Coaching Alliance develop character, sportsmanship, honor, the ability to relate to their teammates and others and just be a "good human being," Pfohl says. She also ties participation in a positive youth sports environment to kids' future success in careers, as parents and in community activities.

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How Youth Sports Done Right Has A Positive Effect On Children

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Shellie Pfohl is Executive Director of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition (@FitnessGov). She is responsible for developing the vision, strategy, and goals of the Council in consultation with its members, and directing the organization's daily operations. In addition, she leads the Council's efforts to support First Lady Michelle Obama's national Let's Move!

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Image #1 relates to being competitive during playing sports.

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Image #2 relates to being active and getting a good workout with all the equipment on.

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Image #4 relates because the coach is trying to teach these boys and tell them advice during practice

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Image #5 relates to youth sports in general.

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Image #3 relates to kids having fun playing soccer.

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Organized sports can teach kids to be competitive,determined,have fun, and to never give up. Also in this article it shows how coaches can help build children's character. It also teaches kids leadership and responsibility.Also in this article it teaches kids that you need to work hard and you need to have loyalty.

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Sports and Athletes, edited by James D. Torr, Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, http%3A%2F%2Flink.galegroup.com%2Fapps%2Fdoc%2FEJ3010233242%2FOVIC%3Fu%3Dpl2683%26sid%3DOVIC%26xid%3D9f7d1eb0. Accessed 27 Feb. 2019. Originally published as "Where Pride Still Matters: Want to Raise a Kid Who's Polite, Respectful, Even Neat? Forget School or Church. Send Him to a Good Coach," Men's Health, vol.

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In this article it has a lot of good information about how kids should participate in sports. In this article it explains the benefits of youth sports programs, participation and intensity, and attrition in youth sports. This article has a lot of good topics about youth sports.

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In recent years there has been an increase in awareness of some of the problems with youth sports programs. In particular, health professionals are concerned about the increase in concussion diagnoses and head injuries in people 22 years old and younger. From 2010 to 2014, the number of concussions among young people increased 500 percent.