Children and Sport Psychology
Rationale for the Psychology of the Young Athlete
High Participation Numbers: It is estimated that approximately children are involved in youth sports in the United States alone.
Intensity of Involvement: Children are often intensely involved in youth sports, making it a significant part of their daily lives.
Critical Developmental Period: Participation usually reaches its peak at a critical period in a child's life, specifically around the age of .
Rationale for the Psychology of the Young Athlete
High Participation Numbers: Approximately children are involved in youth sports in the United States.
Intensity of Involvement: Youth sports are often a significant aspect of children's daily lives.
Critical Developmental Period: Participation peaks around age , marking a key developmental stage.
Impact of Participation: Engagement in sports leads to significant physical and psychological consequences for children.
Requirement for Leadership: The benefits of organized sports depend on qualified adult leadership.
The Youth Sports System Model
Dynamic Arrangement: The model developed by Dorsch and colleagues () presents youth sports as an interacting arrangement of influencing factors.
Reciprocating Influences: These factors impact the sporting experiences and outcomes for all participants.
Contextual Participation: Young athletes are influenced by personal characteristics, family and team environments, sport organizations, and the community.
Understanding Fun and Motives for Participation
Fun as the Primary Driver: Fun is the main reason children participate in sports.
Dimensions of Fun: This includes team rituals, traveling for competitions, learning new skills, receiving game-time support, friendships, and positive coaching.
Motives for Participation: These differ from adults and encompass having fun, skill improvement, exercising, socializing, and competition.
Gender and Motives: Boys and girls may share similar motives, with variance in their significance.
Statistics on Participation and Discontinuation
Peak Age: Youth sports participation peaks between ages to .
Consistent Decline: After this peak, participation decreases until age .
Attrition Rates: For every children starting a season, to typically quit before the next season.
Motives for Withdrawal: A major reason is having other interests, with negative reasons linked to feelings of inadequacy and pressure.
Gender Differences in Withdrawal: For girls, critical reasons include teamwork issues and ability concerns.
Social Identity: Social identity relates to sport enjoyment and predicts dropout rates.
Perceived Competence and Dropout Types
Perceived Competence Link: Children with low perceptions of their abilities often drop out, while confident children tend to persist.
Types of Dropouts: - Sport-specific dropouts: Withdrawing from a specific sport but participating in others. - Sport-general dropouts: Withdrawing from all sports, raising concerns for psychologists.
The U.S. National Youth Sport Strategy
Five Action Steps:
1. Promote physical literacy.
2. Encourage sport sampling.
3. Recruit demographically reflective coaches.
4. Promote youth sports benefits.
5. Offer developmentally appropriate, inclusive programs.
Dimensions of Friendship and Peer Relationships
Affiliation Motive: A major motive for children in sports is the desire for companionship.
Positive Dimensions of Friendship: Includes companionship, self-esteem enhancement, help, prosocial behaviors, intimacy, emotional support, conflict resolution, and attractive personal qualities.
Negative Dimensions of Friendship: Consist of conflict, unattractive personal qualities, betrayal, and inaccessibility.
Research Findings on Peers: Peers significantly influence motivation, social status, and relationship dynamics.
Practical Implications for Enhancing Peer Relationships
Foster a motivational climate focusing on teamwork and cooperation.
Use small-group interaction in drills.
Avoid public displays of social status, like team selection.
Allow time for socializing among children.
Encourage positive reinforcement and team cohesion.
Stress and Burnout in Competitive Sport
Prevalence of Stress: Most young athletes (over ) do not experience excessive stress.
State Anxiety: High anxiety affects about children in specific situations.
Causes for Elite Juniors: Often stem from fear of failure.
Comparative Stress Levels: Sports anxiety is generally not higher than other evaluative situations like school assessments.
Situational Sources of Stress: Include losses, event importance, and sports type.
Effective Coaching Research and Practices
Research by Smith, Smoll, and Curtis (1979): Coaches' instruction correlates with players' self-esteem and motivation.
Dropout Prevention: Trained coaches reduce dropout rates to .
Coaching Recommendations: Utilize positive feedback, modify rules for developmental appropriateness, and support autonomy in feedback.
Parental Policies and Guidelines
Support Policies: Provide support without pressure; keep a focus on enjoyment.
Spectator Guidelines: Stay in designated areas, avoid coaching from the sidelines, and provide positive feedback.
Professionalization and Common Myths
Professionalization Trend: There’s a growing focus on extrinsic goals over physical and social development.
Seven Myths of Youth Sport: Common misconceptions about talent, training, specialization, and enjoyment in sports.
Requirement for Leadership: Organized sport is not automatically beneficial to a child; its benefits are contingent upon receiving qualified and competent adult leadership.
The Youth Sports System Model
Dynamic Arrangement: Developed by Dorsch and colleagues (), this model views youth sports as a dynamic arrangement of factors.
Reciprocating Influences: These factors interact in reciprocating ways to influence the sporting experiences and outcomes for everyone involved.
Contextual Participation: A key point of this model is that young athletes do not participate in a vacuum. They are influenced by: * Personal characteristics (personality and demographics). * Family and team environments. * Specific sport organizations. * The community and society at large.
Understanding Fun and Motives for Participation
Fun as the Primary Driver: Fun is cited as the reason kids play sports.
Dimensions of Fun: What children perceive as "fun" includes: * Team rituals: For example, performing a cool team cheer. * Swag: Traveling to new places for competitions. * Learning and improvement: Developing and mastering new skills. * Game-time support: Having people cheer during the game. * Team friendships: The ability to "goof off" with teammates. * Practices: Participating in well-organized practice sessions. * Games: Receiving adequate playing time during official games. * Mental bonuses: Experiencing stress relief as a result of playing. * Positive coaching: Being treated with respect by the coach. * Positive team dynamics: Feeling supported by fellow teammates. * Trying hard: Putting in significant effort during practice.
Motives for Participation: Children's reasons for playing differ from adults and include having fun, improving skills, exercising, socializing with friends, making new friends, and competing.
Gender and Motives: Boys and girls share similar motives, though the relative importance of those motives may vary between groups.
Statistics on Participation and Discontinuation
Peak Age: Participation in youth sports peaks between the ages of and .
Consistent Decline: Following the peak, participation levels consistently decline through the age of .
Attrition Rates: For every children who start a sport season, an average of or will quit before the beginning of the next season.
Motives for Withdrawal: * Major reason: Having other things to do (other interests). * Negative reasons: Feelings of inadequacy (not as good as they wanted to be), boredom, excessive pressure, decline in excitement, inability to be with friends, and a lack of team spirit.
Gender Differences in Withdrawal: For females specifically, lack of teamwork, team affiliation issues, and concerns about ability were the most important reasons for dropping out.
Social Identity: Social identity is linked to sport enjoyment, which in turn acts as a predictor for sport dropout.
Perceived Competence and Dropout Types
Perceived Competence Link: Children with low perceptions of their athletic abilities tend to drop out or avoid participation, whereas those with high perceived competence participate and persist.
Types of Dropouts: * Sport-specific dropouts: These children withdraw from a specific program but transition into another sport. * Sport-general dropouts: These children withdraw from all sport participation entirely. These cases are of special concern to psychologists.
The U.S. National Youth Sport Strategy
Five Action Steps:
1. Promote physical literacy to build a foundation for sports involvement.
2. Encourage sport sampling (playing multiple sports throughout the year rather than specializing too early).
3. Recruit coaches who reflect the demographics of the communities they serve.
4. Promote the benefits of youth sports and create opportunities to maximize participation.
5. Offer programs that are developmentally appropriate, safe, inclusive, fun, and accessible through a "sports-for-all" mentality.
Dimensions of Friendship and Peer Relationships
Affiliation Motive: The desire to be with others is a major motive for children in sports.
Positive Dimensions of Friendship (9 Categories): * Companionship: Time spent together. * Pleasant play association: Enjoying the company of friends. * Enhancement of self-esteem: Friends taking actions or saying things that boost confidence. * Help and guidance: Assistance in learning sports skills or general help (e.g., schoolwork). * Prosocial behavior: Following social conventions like sharing or avoiding negativity. * Intimacy: Deep, personal feelings of close bonds. * Emotional support: Expressing concern for one another and an absence of significant conflict. * Conflict resolution: The ability to settle disagreements effectively. * Attractive personal qualities: Positive personality or physical features.
Negative Dimensions of Friendship: Includes conflict (insults/arguments), unattractive personal qualities (being self-centered), betrayal, and inaccessibility (lack of interaction time).
Research Findings on Peers: * Peers influence a child's social status, motivation, and friendship patterns. * Motor competence (actual and perceived) is related to peer acceptance, particularly in boys. * Positive peer relationships correlate with lower stress, higher self-determined motivation, and continued participation. * Relationship-inferred self-efficacy: The belief that one's teammates believe in them. * Best sport friends are often perceived as more encouraging than music friends, though both sources provide enjoyment.
Practical Implications for Enhancing Peer Relationships
Create motivational climates emphasizing task goals and cooperation over competition.
Utilize drills that require small-group interaction.
Reduce public displays of social status (e.g., avoid public picking of teams).
Provide allocated time for children to socialize and make new friends.
Encourage positive peer reinforcement and foster team cohesion.
Stress and Burnout in Competitive Sport
Prevalence of Stress: The majority of young athletes (over ) are not under excessive stress. Less than report excessive stress.
State Anxiety: While rare, high state anxiety affects approximately children in specific situations.
Causes for Elite Juniors: Often driven by fear of failure and feelings of inadequacy.
Comparative Stress: Anxiety levels in sports are generally not higher than in other evaluative activities, like school tests recorded in childhood.
Situational Sources of Stress: * Children experience more anxiety after losing than after winning. * Higher event importance increases state anxiety. * Individual sports typically generate more state anxiety than team sports.
Practical Anti-Stress Strategies: * Develop a constructive attitude toward mistakes. * Use physical strategies: A "stress bag" to metaphorically put worries in. * Use fun strategies: "Spaghetti toes" relaxation. * Use simple strategies: "Changing channels" to shift mindset. * Individualize the approach to the child and remain optimistic.
Effective Coaching Research and Practices
Smith, Smoll, and Curtis (1979): Research shows that a coach's instruction and reinforcement correlate directly with player self-esteem and motivation.
Dropout Prevention: Trained coaches can reduce player dropout rates to , compared to a dropout rate for players under untrained coaches.
McLaren et al. (2015): Found that athletes with coaches trained in a positive, mastery approach reported higher task and social cohesion.
Coaching Recommendations: * "Catch kids doing things right" and provide sincere praise. * Reward effort and correct technique as much as the outcome. * Use the "sandwich" approach for corrections (positive comment, then correction, then encouragement). * Modify rules and skills to be developmentally appropriate and maximize action. * Deliver feedback in an autonomy-supportive and informational manner.
Transformational Leadership Behaviors: * Idealized influence: Gaining trust. * Inspirational motivation: Communicating a compelling vision. * Intellectual stimulation: Empowering players to solve problems. * Individualization: Recognizing specific individual needs.
Parental Policies and Guidelines
Support Policies: Be supportive without pressuring; keep winning in perspective; help set realistic goals; ensure the athlete meets team responsibilities.
Spectator Guidelines: * Remain in the spectator area and "let the coach be the coach." * Avoid coaching your child during the contest. * Provide only supportive comments to both teams, officials, and coaches. * Avoid alcohol at practices and games. * Control emotions and show enthusiasm.
Professionalization and Common Myths
The Professionalization Trend: A shift from physical and social development toward extrinsic goals like rankings, fame, and college scholarships.
Characteristics: Early specialization, year-round training, and private coaching.
Seven Myths of Youth Sport: 1. Athletic talent can be accurately predicted at a young age. 2. More [training] is always better. 3. Stages of talent development can be skipped. 4. Intense training will lead to a college athletic scholarship. 5. Early single-sport specialization is essential. 6. One cannot have fun if they are going to be an elite athlete. 7. Talented children need different entry programs and coaching than less talented counterparts."