Have you ever thought about why you want your child to play sport, or what drives your own involvement in it?
Most parents like to see their children take part in sport or physical activity. It’s rare to find one who sees no value in it. But the reasons often go no further than a vague sense that it’s somehow “good” for them. Yet what parents want their children to get from sport shapes the environment they choose for them, and the achievements they celebrate and encourage.
What children want from sport
Research is quite clear about what children enjoy in sport: having fun, being with friends, getting better at something and the excitement of competition. All of these regularly rank above winning trophies.
What matters is whether the adults who shape youth sport reflect those priorities. Parents and coaches set the culture. They decide whether it matches children’s motivations, or mirrors the performance-focused values of elite adult sport.
When performance comes first
If adults pursue a performance agenda, it shapes every decision that follows. The early developers get most of the playing time and the key positions. They’re allowed to dominate, scoring goal after goal every week. They become dominant players, but may lack the physical and emotional qualities to become great players once everyone else has caught up.
Meanwhile, the less able players and late developers get little playing time or encouragement. Eventually they drift away, carrying into adult life the label “I’m not sporty”.
Is there an alternative?
Is there an approach that matches what children want? Does it have to be a choice between performance and participation? Can sport offer both joy and achievement? Is the joy of achievement open to everyone, or only the strong and fast? Is an inclusive approach just a consolation prize for those with empty trophy cabinets? And is finishing with more goals the only way to win?
A culture of mastery
A culture that values mastery (getting better) over outcomes can serve both. It encourages everyone to work hard and some to excel, and it celebrates both. It teaches early achievers to empathise with less able teammates as everyone shares playing time, and it celebrates improvement, individually and as a team. Its measures of success include keeping players in the game and seeing joy on every face. And it chooses a competition programme that challenges every player and lets everyone experience both winning and losing, so they can learn from each.
Striving to improve is central to sport. Success in competition is one way of measuring that at every level, though in elite sport it’s the only measure. Children do need to win sometimes to stay motivated, because losing every week is demoralising. But a team that wins every week, or loses every week, limits its players’ development. A positive youth sport environment chooses competition that supports its wider aims, offers real challenge, and gives every child the experience of both winning and losing.
Culture shouldn’t be left to chance
The culture of a youth sports organisation, whether club or school, is too important to be left to individual adults to decide. Good quality control means the organisation’s leaders set out its values and how it works, and communicate them widely.
Parents should be able to enrol their children knowing exactly what’s valued and what experience their children will have, in every age group and with every coach.
That would also ask parents to think carefully about what they want to see: pressure to win in a zero-sum game dominated by early developers, or smiles on red faces and a first step towards lifelong activity.
