I was reminded of Margaret Talbot’s words when I recently read Mina Samuels book Run Like a Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives.  This book offers an interesting collection of stories of girls and women whose lives have been transformed by engagement with sports of different kinds.

Samuels, herself, wrote:

“Over the years that followed my “discovery” of running, my self-confidence grew, and feeding off the accomplishments I achieved in sports – setting new personal bests, winning a little local race, surviving the setbacks of injuries and marathons gone wrong – I discovered a capacity within myself that I never knew I had. I wasn’t just physically stronger than I expected, I thought of myself as a different person, as someone with more potential, broader horizons, bigger possibilities. I saw that I could push myself and take risks, not just in sports, but elsewhere, too. The competition in sports, as in life, was not with someone else, it was with myself. To “compete” was to discover my own potential to do better, to hold my own self to a higher standard, to expect more of myself–and deliver.”These comments highlight what has become one of the most important areas of research in youth sports: the role they can play in developing self-esteem.

Theories of self-esteem abound, but most refer to the degree to which an individual feels positively about him or herself.  It generally arises when an individual succeeds, is praised, or experiences love from another, and is lowered by failure, harsh criticism and rejection.  It is an important topic for those interested in education, heath and sports because of its associations with emotional adjustment, health behaviours (like drug taking, and unprotected and early sex), the ability to deal with life’s challenges, and general mental health and happiness.

As has been seen from the comments by Margaret Talbot and Mina Samuels, there is a widely held belief that the development of competence or expertise in sporting skills can lead to a sense of personal effectiveness and feelings of autonomy, and these are associated with the promotion of self-esteem.  Not surprisingly, researchers have found that physical activities play a particularly powerful role in strengthening physical self-worth.  The association between these activities and more general measures of self-esteem is more complex, although there seems little doubt that a positive perception of physical self worth is an important factor underlying more general positive perceptions of oneself, especially during childhood and early adolescence.

A number of studies offer support to the claim that sports and other physical activities can contribute to the development of self-esteem. For example, Canadian scientists found that sixth grade students boys and girls who were more physically active had considerably higher levels of self-esteem.  This finding was corroborated by another Canadian team, who also highlighted the potentially harmful role that obesity plays in the equation.  A study in Switzerland found that adolescents who participated in sports clubs had greater well-being, including being better socially adjusted, feeling less anxious, and generally being happier about their lives.  Similar findings were reported in a study of Latino students, where participation in school sport was found to be significantly associated with self-esteem.

There seems little doubt that part of the potency of sports lies in their social setting.  There is a substantial body of literature demonstrating the fundamental importance of social connectedness for healthy child and adolescent development, and sports offer a popular and engaging setting for social interactions.  Involvement in team sports has been positively associated with social acceptance and a sense of belonging, especially where such involvement is characterised by positive coaching, progressive skill development and peer support.

Of course, the social setting of sports can exclude as well as include.  There is now compelling evidence that boys’ and girls’ experiences of sports can be markedly different, and this can affect the contribution they can make to there self-esteem of players.  Peer acceptance seems to be a significant factor in determining the relationship between sport participation and self-esteem, and girls can be particularly vulnerable to negative judgments.  Competitive sports often exaggerate difficulties, and studies have found that many ‘feminine’ boys and girls benefit most from non-competitive physical activities.

So, note of caution ought to be sounded in case sports are assumed to be a panacea.  Much of the literature on the most positive psychological outcomes associated with childhood and youth sports stress the absolute importance of positive experiences.  It will surprise no one that bullying, excluding or abuse experiences will harm, rather than support the development of self-esteem, and well-being in general.  Sadly, it will also not be a shock to learn that many children’s introductions to sports are far from life-enhancing.

The great developmental psychologist Jean Piaget argued that the foundations of self-esteem were laid between the ages of about 6 and 11 years of age.  Importantly, this is also the time when children are most likely to be introduced to sports.  It is impossible to over-state the importance of positive early sporting experiences for the development of both self-esteem and on-going participation in sports and other physical activities.  Teachers, coaches and parents have a responsibility to ensure that these experiences ‘catch’ as many children as possible, and for this to happen they need to remember ‘three fundamental principles of child development’:

1. children are not mini-adults;
2. children are not mini-adults;
3. children are not mini-adults.

Problems arise when adults forget these principles, and kid themselves into thinking that they are coaching future Olympians or Superbowl stars.  Ironically, evidence suggests that talented children are most likely to emerge when they are given time to develop, to play, and to remain children.

Children are not miniature adults, and their enjoyment of sports (and their self-esteem) can suffer when well-meaning adults forget this!

However, children are just children for a reason and they need to go through a whole different process to be successful.  At times their sport will appear chaotic, there will be times where you do not recognise the game as you know it and there will be many moments of calamity and clumsiness.

However, this is all good and it is important that as adults we recognise that this is vital in helping our young children grow and develop with their sport.

So What Is Developmentally Appropriate Sport?

If, like me, you are a rather sad individual, with shoddy friends, and no life worthy of the name, you will spend many hours reading academic literature.  And if you happen to coach children, you might fill your lonely hours studying fields like psychology, pediatric exercise science and child development.  (You might also have an obsessive fondness for Apple Mac computers, describe your dress sense as ‘geek chic’, and be prepared to drop your children off at the local orphanage if they ever ask for a Jar Jar Binks doll.  But these things aren’t especially relevant here).

If, on the other hand, you live a normal, healthy existence, you might appreciate some help distilling the mass of research that might be relevant for your work.  So let me try to help.

The collective wisdom from decades of research into children and sport can be summarised in just three points:

1. Children are not mini-adults;
2. Children are not mini-adults;
3. Children are not mini-adults.

Point ‘1’ relates to the unarguable fact that children’s minds and bodies work differently from adults.  They process information, pay attention, move and exercise in distinctive ways.  Many of the sports scientific principles that underpin conceptions of good practice simply do not apply to children.  For example, we have been taught that benefits of exercise come from sustained activity above a certain threshold.  But the most cursory observation of young children’s physical activity reveals that it is stop-start, and of wildly varying levels of intensity.

Point ‘2’ refers to movement development.  With a few exceptions, adults engage in a small number of physical activities that require quite specialised motor skills.  These skills predominantly relate to games with names (golf, judo, netball, and so on).  Children are still laying down the foundations of their movement competence.  Much of the pre-adolescent phase is taken up with the development of fundamental movement skills – running, jumping, twisting turning, stopping, starting …  These skills are necessary for subsequent physical activity, are best developed in an atmosphere that could be characterised as ‘play’, and are intrinsically motivating (kids do them for them love the movements themselves).  Also, importantly, these basic movements are best developed through engagement in a wide range of activities that are adapted to reflect the distinctive needs of children.  In terms of early movement development, variety really is the spice of life.

Finally, Point ‘3’ reminds us that, whilst us adults play sport for lots of different reasons – weight loss, elite competition, socialising, reproduction – the vast majority of children play sport for only one reason – fun.

Developmentally appropriate coaching is an attempt to put into practice what we have learned about human development.  It recognises that, if we want children to enjoy sport and to continue to do it throughout their lives, we’d better acknowledge some of the basic facts of their development.

You might think that this is all rather obvious.  But if it is, I’m led to wonder why there is still so much inappropriate practice going on.  Maybe we would expect the odd rogue coach to stand in opposition to recognised good practice.  But this does not explain more structural things like:

• Children playing full (or nearly full) sided) games, or following adult-designed rules;
• Children being selected for teams based on their relative age or physique;
• Later sporting performance being predicted from early childhood;
• The concept of ‘early specialisation sport’.

The list could go on and on, but I hope these few make my point.  It seems to me that none of these practices can be described as developmentally appropriate.  They either assume that children’s and adults’ needs and interests are more or less the same.  Or that adults’ sporting ambitions ought to dictate children’s recreational actions.  The first assumption is factually wrong.  The second is heading towards being morally wrong.  This is a serious matter, especially for those who try to persuade politicians, policymakers, practitioners and parents that sport is a really good thing for children, and that every child needs to experience regularly.

I’ve hinted at some of the principles that might inform developmentally appropriate sport.  Now, let me be more explicit about some of the building blocks.

1. Biology does not celebrate birthdays

There is a strong tendency in youth sport to rely on chronological age as the main criteria for grouping children, but this is an extremely poor measure.  At any given age, there will be children of the same chronological age who are up to 2 years older or younger in terms of development.  The easiest way to see what this means look at a group of half a dozen ten or eleven year old boys and girls together.  What will be obvious straight away is a stark variation in height.

2. Childhood can usefully be thought of in terms of stages of development

The child’s developing body and brain alternative between periods of rapid growth and stability.  This pattern has enormous significance for coaches, since learning complex skills can be tricky if the body is rapidly changing.

Developmental Markers and Characteristics

• 3-6 Years
• Relatively rapid physical growth
• Rapid brain development

• 6-12 years
• Relatively slow physical growth
• Steady brain development
• Improving memory, decision-making, and attention-span
• Reasoning abilities are limited

• 12-17 years
• Relatively rapid physical growth
• Initially rapid, followed by steady brain development
• Physical and psychological maturation rarely occur at the same pace
• Young people start to identify and commit to one or a small number of sports
• Abstract thought becomes well-developed

• 17+
• Relatively slow physical growth
• Steady brain development
• “End of the Beginning” – physical and emotional development continues, although at slower rates than before; preparing for adulthood

It is not difficult to imagine some of the implications of this pattern for effective sports practice.  I hope.

3. Performance is a poor indicator of ability

Many sports groups continue to believe that the identification of talent in children is a relatively simple matter.  They use essentially the same procedures used with adults, namely observing in practice and in competition, direct comparison with peers and occasionally some sort of sciency testing.  Those who perform best are the most talented, right?  Wrong!

It is almost impossible to make valid and reliable assessments of children’s sporting performance that can be translated in terms of talent.  The extent that this might seem a shocking statement is an indication of how over-zealous coaches have simply ignored a host of factors that undermine the whole childhood talent enterprise.  For example:

• Relative Age Effect – every age-based group of children will include those who are relatively young and those who are relatively old.  The older children will have spent up to a year longer than their younger peers developing their bodies and practising their sport.  And since maturation is the simple greatest determinant of physical performance, it is hardly surprising that children born early in the selection year dominate.

• Social and economic factors are massively significant – generally speaking, children are unlikely to develop high-level sports skills if they’ve never learned that sport and had the opportunity to experience high quality coaching.  The curse of the UK sports system is that opportunity is heavily mediated by factors that have absolutely nothing to do with the child’s interest or ability.

Here is a summaryof some of the social and economic factors linked to high performance in sport:

• Parents achieved high standards in domain
• Relatively high socio-economic status
• Ability and willingness to financially support participation and specialist support
• Ability and willingness to invest high amounts of time to support the child’s engagement in the activity
• Parents as car owners
• Relatively small family size
• Two-parent family
• Attendance at Independent School

Countries vary in the details, but the basic pattern is the same (at least in the developed West): the most powerful benefit most from sport.  How else do we explain this startling phenomenon: half the UK’s gold medallists at the last Olympics were privately educated, even though that group made up just seven per cent of the population?  It takes nothing away from the extraordinary achievements of elite athletes to suggest that they have benefitted from a system that confuses opportunity with ability.

I am aware of the limits of space, so I should stop there.  There are plenty of other principles, and perhaps I will return to discuss them on another occasion.  Some are so blindingly obvious that is it truly staggering that people are still arguing against them: step forward small-sided games, adapted equipment, restriction on the frequency and form of competition, and an ever-present emphasis on fun.  But by way of conclusion, I will limit myself to some brief ideas, clustered according the phase model I suggested earlier.

Developmentally Appropriate Practices

• 3-6 years
• Young children need time and space to move
• Physical activity should primarily have the character of creative play and experimentation
• Activity should be a part of the child’s daily life
• Boys and girls should play together

• 6-12 years
• Children should sample a range of sports, as well as non-sporting physical activities
• Games ought to be simplified or modified to reflect developmental markers and characters
• The emphasis ought to be on fun / enjoyment and skill learning
• Enough time for the skills to be properly learned
• Children are capable of learning basic rules and strategies of sports
• Competitions should be fun
• Adults ought to reinforce the principles of fair play
• Consistency in messages from coaching is vital
• Training load needs to be increased slowly and gradually
• Emphasize aerobic training
• Boys and girls should play together

• 12-17 years
• Temporary worsening in performance can result in drop-out
• There is a need for on-going communication between child, parent and coach.
• Guidance of lifestyle management (school-sport balance; importance of rest; etc.) will often be needed for serious athletes
• Fundamental skills need to be applied in diverse settings
• High quality practice with feedback helps automatise core skills
• Competitions should become progressively more serious and frequent
• Scope for greater personal goal-setting and responsibility in training
• Introduce moderate anaerobic training
• Emotional support is important

• 17+
• Young people need to be led to take on greater responsibility for decisions and aspirations in sport
• Increase training volume and intensity
• Training and conditioning become highly specific
• Athletes should become more aware of basic sports science that relate to their training
• Development of aerobic capacity is vital
• Progressively increase the volume and intensity of anaerobic training
• High quality practice with feedback help generalize skills
• Psychological skills training should become a central part of training
• Guidance of lifestyle management (school-sport balance; importance of rest; etc.) will often be needed for serious athletes