Kids’ Athletics: Thoughts from a Therapist and Mom
Sports and other high performance activities can be amazing for kids. They can teach children how to work toward something, persevere when something is hard, cooperate with others, tolerate frustration, manage disappointment, take feedback, solve problems and experience the satisfaction that comes from getting better at something. It also gets them moving, which is very important to maintaining good mental health. Sports can build great friendships and great communities.
But there is a catch.
The way we approach children's sports can undermine the very benefits we're hoping to provide.
When children's athletics become increasingly focused on performance, winning, selection, rankings, playing time, scholarships and elite performance, it changes things.
In my professional life, I get called into high performance educational and athletic institutions when there’s been a critical incident. I also work with these institutions on prevention, which is obviously preferable to crisis response. Either way, I get a close look at the culture and practices of different organizations.
When I enter these communities I always find well meaning adults who care deeply about the kids in their programs. I also sometimes find practices or norms that are not well informed by principles of child development and that can undermine the social and emotional development of kids and impact their mental health quite severely in some cases.
In my personal life, I’ve watched my kids and their teammates thrive and flounder in different programs. I’ve seen stellar coaching and coaching that is harmful and should never be allowed. I’ve seen diverse approaches among parents to supporting their kids.
A Hard Truth
There are certain aspects of high performance activities that are in direct conflict with principles of child development. In order to develop optimally, kids need free play, unconditional positive regard, and intrinsic motivation. Certain approaches to kids’ athletics or other high performance activities undermine all of these. That’s a hard truth, and it’s probably not a popular opinion, but as a career long advocate for children, I believe it’s a truth that needs more attention.
What Kids Really Need
Children are still developing. Their brains, bodies, identities, emotional regulation, social skills and capacity to understand long-term consequences are all works in progress. Their primary developmental task isn't to maximize their athletic potential. It is to play and grow.
That sounds obvious, but it is surprisingly easy to forget when we're standing on the sidelines.
A child who is ten years old may be playing on a highly competitive team, travelling for tournaments, being evaluated by coaches and comparing themselves with their peers. But they are still ten.
They still need unstructured play.
They still need downtime.
They still need room to make mistakes without everything being evaluated.
They still need to know that their worth and identity isn't dependent on their performance.
And they still need adults to help them make sense of difficult experiences.
Free Play
Children need free play. It is critical to optimal child development. Organized sport isn't necessarily free play.
If there is a coach evaluating you, a roster you're trying to make, a position you're trying to earn, a score being kept and consequences attached to your performance, that’s not play, it’s work.
Free play means they can experiment. They can make up rules. They can take risks. They can change their minds. They can be terrible. They can be creative. They can play simply because they want to.
When every interaction with a sport is organized around performance, children can stop experiencing sport as play.
So if your child plays competitive soccer, baseball, hockey, gymnastics or another sport, make sure they also have opportunities to interact with that sport with nothing at stake.
Let them kick a ball around. Let them shoot hoops. Let them throw a baseball. Let them play street hockey. Let them invent a ridiculous game with their friends. And resist the urge to coach them.
Sometimes a kid just needs to play.
Free play can be embedded in competitive sports too. Next week my child’s team will be given full rein over the field and equipment to play however they want while the coaches hold a parents meeting. There’s a league that opens their field for this type of unstructured play opportunity weekly. It preserves the kids’ love of the sport and serves their development. It’s simple and smart.
Unconditional Positive Regard
I have sat with elite athletes who are struggling with their mental health and who are miserable in their programs. When asked why they continue, the answer is often “I don’t know who I am without this sport.” Their entire identity and worth is tied to their performance. This is one of the reasons high performance athletes are so prone to mental health problems.
Our kids need us to love them and think they’re amazing regardless of wins, losses and performance. It is critical to their mental health and well-being.
Intrinsic Motivation
Rewards and consequences for performance are extrinsic motivation. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating wins, but the ice cream only if you score a goal fosters kids’ love of ice cream - not their sport, and it’s conditional. Too many rewards and consequences undermine intrinsic motivation, as does too much focus on wins or losses. What works instead? Making it fun, giving choice, focusing on the process, not the outcome.
Big Picture
About 1% of kids in competitive sports will receive a scholarship or have professional opportunities. That means that about 99% of children stand to benefit ONLY from the PROCESS of athletics.
They learn how to fail, how to improve, how to persevere, how to get along with and respect others. They spend time learning and moving their bodies and connecting with others in community instead of sitting at home on a screen.
This is incredible for building resilience and good mental health. EVERY benefit about 99% of kids will get from participating in sports or other high performance activities comes from the process - NOT the outcome.
Too often coaches and parents get too focused on the outcome. They want to win. They want their child or team to be the best. And I get it. I don’t sit stoically when my kid’s team wins a game. It’s definitely cause for celebration. But if they lose? No problem. The coaches I most respect spend the chat after the game breaking down the game - highlighting the great plays they had during the game, praising the effort they saw out there, the good sportspersonship, and identifying areas for growth. The parents chat with their kids after the game about how they felt about it - no rewards, no consequences - just listening and problem solving if needed.
A Big Misconception
I think one of the biggest misconceptions in sports is that if you focus on the process and on developing the whole child (and I mean every whole child on your team, not just the athletic ones), that you lose your competitive edge.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. When you make it fun, value every player, develop them athletically in ways that develop them socially and emotionally too, you get better buy-in and better performance.
Kids want to do well. No one feels worse when they mess up or fail PUBLICLY than that kid.
Putting them down for it or highlighting it says way more about the coach or parent doing that than it says about that kid. And it will rarely help the kid improve. It will most often make them shut down and not care whether or not they do well because it feels too vulnerable to care, or it will make them tune out that coach.It might make them second guess their every move in play and freeze rather than perform, which will frustrate the coach further.
Eventually they will quit, and believe me the experience will leave a mark. I’ve treated grown men in therapy who needed to heal from the cascading effects of long standing relationships with coaches who were emotionally abusive.
With all of this said, here’s what I hope that every parent and coach will hold top of mind as they see kids through athletic programs. If you find that you’ve been doing some of the “don’ts”, don’t beat yourself up over it. I firmly believe that being around kids is one of the fastest ways to highlight our own opportunities for personal growth. I am humbled by my kids most days and I’ve done a lot of growing up in their lifetimes. I have enormous respect for adults willing to look at themselves and grow into more mature versions of themselves. So here’s what I think we should be keeping top of mind when supporting kids in athletics:
The outcome is not the point.
Ask yourself: What is my child learning from this experience that will still matter when they are 25, 35 or 50?
Maybe they are learning that effort matters.
Maybe they're learning that you don't have to be the best at something to enjoy it.
Maybe they're learning how to be a good teammate.
Maybe they're learning how to accept constructive criticism.
Maybe they're learning that you can be disappointed and keep going.
Maybe they're learning how to lose without falling apart.
Maybe they're learning how to win without making someone else feel small.
Those lessons have enormous value.
And unlike a trophy, they stay with your child forever.
Focus on the process, not the outcome
This is one of the most important things parents can do.
Instead of making the conversation after a game:
"Did you win?"
Try:
"How was it?"
"What did you work on?"
"What are you getting better at?"
"What was hard?"
"What was fun?"
"What did you learn?"
"Did you enjoy yourself?"
Your child can win and have had a terrible experience. They can lose and have had an extraordinary one. They can sit on the bench and learn something important. They can make a mistake that teaches them more than scoring a goal ever could.
The outcome is one moment. The process is where the development happens.
Let your child fail
This is probably one of the hardest things for parents to do.
Your child doesn't make the team. They're cut. They don't get selected for the tournament. They don't get the position they wanted. They don't get as much playing time as they hoped.
And they're devastated.
Our instinct is often to intervene.
We want to call the coach. We want to figure out what happened. We want to explain why the coach was wrong. We want to tell our child that the other kids weren't actually better. We want to find an external explanation that will make the disappointment hurt less.
I understand this instinct, but sometimes the most supportive thing we can do is let our children be disappointed.
If your child doesn't make the team, let them feel sad. Don't immediately make excuses for them. Don't speculate about why the coach didn't choose them. Don't tell them that the coach "just doesn't understand how good you are." And don't get down on them for it either. You don't need to tell them they should have practiced harder or that they weren't good enough. You can simply acknowledge what happened. "You really wanted that. I know you're disappointed. That sucks." And then be there.
When the initial emotion has passed, you can problem solve. "Do you want to try again next year?" "Is there something you'd like to work on?" "Would you like some extra coaching?" "Do you want to try something different?"
Maybe the experience motivates your child to put in some extra work and they make the team next time. Maybe it doesn't. Either way, they've learned something much bigger than whether they made a particular roster: I can experience disappointment. I can feel bad. I can be supported through it. And eventually, I can figure out what comes next.
That is resilience.
Your child needs you most when things aren't going well
Parents are naturally enthusiastic about their children's successes.
We celebrate the goal. The home run. The personal best. The championship. We should. But one of the most important things children learn from their parents is what happens to our relationship when they struggle. Does our enthusiasm disappear? Do we become critical? Do we become embarrassed? Do we withdraw? Do we immediately try to fix the problem? Or do we stay connected?
Research tells us that how we respond to difficult emotions is more important than how we respond to easy ones. That means being there for the disappointment as well as the celebration.
Coaches: develop the whole child
Coaches have an enormous responsibility.
A coach isn't simply teaching a child how to throw, skate, hit, shoot or run. They're teaching a child what it feels like to be challenged by an adult who has authority over them.
That's powerful. A good coach can have an extraordinary impact on a child's development. They can help a child discover confidence, discipline, competence and belonging.
But coaches can also inadvertently teach children that positive regard, attention or respect must be earned through performance. Yes, teach the skill, expect effort, hold children accountable, allow them to experience disappointment. But make it fun and value every child.
Children who enjoy their sport are more likely to stay involved in it. And enjoyment isn't the enemy of excellence. In many cases, it is part of what sustains the effort required to become excellent.
Coaches should also remember what children don’t need.
They don't need to be humiliated to become tougher.
They don't need to be frightened to become disciplined.
They don't need to be shamed to become accountable.
And they absolutely should not be subjected to emotional abuse in the name of athletic development.
Parents: model the behaviour you want to see
Children are watching us. They see how we respond when the referee makes a call we don't like. They hear what we say about the other team. They see whether we congratulate the opposing players. They notice whether we complain about the coach. They notice whether we're gracious when we win and whether we can tolerate losing.
Arguing with referees, putting down other players, getting into it with other parents and behaving as though a children's sporting event is a matter of enormous personal consequence is immature and unbecoming behaviour.
Don't be that parent. You're not demonstrating passion. You're demonstrating poor emotional regulation. And you risk making your child's athletic community uncomfortable for you and for your child.
If you have a legitimate concern, address it appropriately. Teach your child that problems can be solved without aggression, humiliation or public confrontation. If you have a concern, communicate directly and respectfully.
And if a coach is repeatedly humiliating, belittling, threatening or emotionally abusing your child, advocate for them, remove them if you need to, and report it.
What if we made kids' sports about kids again?
I don't think the answer is to eliminate competition.
Competition can be fun.
I don't think every child needs equal playing time forever.
I don't think coaches should stop expecting effort or holding children accountable.
And I certainly don't think children should be protected from every disappointment.
But I do think there are some flaws in our current design.
We need children's athletics to be informed by the science of child development.
That means:
Development over status.
Process over outcome.
Challenge without humiliation.
Competition without making winning the measure of worth.
Coaches who develop the whole child.
Opportunities for genuine, unstructured play.
Exercise that is associated with enjoyment—not punishment.
Parents who support.
Adults who model good sportspersonship.
Because the goal of childhood athletics shouldn't be to produce the greatest possible number of elite athletes.
The goal should be to help children become capable, confident, resilient human beings who know how to work hard, navigate disappointment, connect with others, enjoy moving their bodies, and become mature, successful adults.
And if, along the way, your child becomes an exceptional athlete, (which is actually more likely with this approach)? Wonderful.