In an era of declining sports participation amongst our youth, in conjunction with some eager parents wanting their kids to specialise to become elite. What does the evidence point to being the best approach to keep kids healthy, happy and potentially reaching an elite level in sport later in life?

Screen time is way up, participation in sports is going down. Across Western countries, participation tends to range between 50-70% but approximately 35% drop out of sport with the majority doing so by 11 years of age.

The most likely barrier for kids to continue sport is cost and accessibility with some stats showing a pretty much doubling in likelihood for a child to play sports if their parents are high income earners.

The well-being of our kids is obviously far more important than whether a child should stay playing sport because they could potentially be really bloody good in years to come and given the indisputable evidence of overwhelming benefits for our youth it’s quite shameful that in a high tax paying country like Australia cost of the sport is a factor. While increasing the training demands for eager kids certainly has its place, kids should not be dropping out because suddenly participation shifts from fun to super serious at ages below 15 years old.

Why Do We Need To Keep Sport Fun and Participation Levels High?

According to the Institute For The Study of Youth Sports, “those that play sport are 92% less likely to get involved with drugs. 80% less likely to get pregnant and 3x more likely to make it through high school than kids not involved in sport.”

It’s not just about keeping kids busy. Kids need to be able to take risks as a healthy part of brain development. In the midst of a game or event there are regular controlled risk-based decisions taking place. To note, it doesn’t need to be sport to have this effect either. Drama, music and other extracurricular activities which require overcoming nerves and summoning up some courage to perform are also shown to have similar benefits. There is a clear correlation that youth without the regular stimulus of controlled risk based decision in sport or other co-curricular activities are more likely to find more dangerous ways to achieve their need to experience the thrill of risk-taking.

Youth sport participation also carries over into adulthood. 73% of adults who play sports did so as a youth. Healthy habits become normalised through childhood and adolescence. Of those adults, mental health issues are far lower.

My Kid Is Talented, Should They Specialise?

While not universally shown the majority of studies show that early specialisation (focusing on one sport before the age of 12) is linked to risks while diversification supports better outcomes. Specialisation increases injury risk and higher burnout well before the kid could ever see their potential.

Youth Success Does Not Forecast Adult Elite Performance!

From my own personal experience, I’ve long banged on about why I think the Triathlon High Performance system, in fact most high performance programs are misguided in their approach. I got to be a part of an NSWIS talent ID camp when I was first getting involved in triathlon. There were probably 12-15 young athletes there all doing really high training loads and at least from my observation they were all quite elite for their age at swimming, cycling and running. I was far off their level but was only just starting out and my froth levels for the sport were seemingly far higher given it was all new, exciting and I absolutely loved the training. I was quickly informed at that camp that I was too far behind the other younger athletes to ever be an elite athlete. Over the years, I watched nearly all of that group burnout with injuries or just wanting to get their youth back except for one, Aaron Royle who went on to the Olympics and is still racing successfully as a pro. Like me, I think both Aaron and I genuinely love training and at least from what I know of Aaron, he is hugely self-motivated and doesn’t need parents to push him into anything.

I’ve long preached that instead of paying several coaches and funding a select few athletes the funding should be largely focused on money on grass roots programs and lots of fun events to cast the net very wide for athletes to become interested and aware of the sport. If access costs are kept low and opportunities to compete are numerous the cream will rise to the top and there should be a lot more cream!

It should be noted that it’s not that future elites haven’t been involved in the sport they later excel at. Certainly, future elites typically start developing their skills in their later sport of focus however however they are also involved in many other sports in their junior years and the sport is largely ‘play’ focused aka, it’s kept fun.

Early Talent Identification Is Very Flawed

Nothing grinds more gears than talent ID systems that exclude kids from participating in a development program. Anyone I coach knows that I’m not a ‘pat on the back’, ‘give every kid a medal’ sort of coach. Quite the opposite. I like to keep it real and give the feedback that’s needed to help the athlete improve in a relatively constructive way. Yet, I’m also vehemently against programs that exclude kids from being apart of programs or coaching where they could really pursue their passion for more training and better guidance from more qualified coaches.

If the kid is keen, let them take part! Children and teens physically develop at wildly different rates. You can end up excluding a late bloomer who hasn’t yet had the pubescent growth spurt to show their longer term potential. Hell, Jordan the GOAT of all GOATS didn’t make his high school basketball team because he was too short!

Additionally, it’s very tough to measure ‘mongrel’ and dedication to training. The one key recipe for nearly every future elite is compounded improvement through hours and hours of training, month after month, year after year. You can’t watch a 12 year old in a tryout or measure a 14 year old in a time trial and know whether they have that level of commitment or not.

Nearly every coach will take a young athletes with a little talent and a massive work ethic over a super talent with a lazy work ethic every day of the week. It can take time to really know who has that work ethic.

Specialisation has its place..

When specialisation seems to start to make sense is nuanced from sport to sport so there is not a definitive age where it becomes ok and every young athlete has different needs. A Meta-analysis from the American Journal of Sports Medicine (4) showed that the later the specialisation happens the lower the chance of injury. Again, that’s not to say a swimmer or a cyclist shouldn’t do a lot of the sport if they love it, just that there are potential benefits to continuing other sports even if it means reducing the training load of their primary sport.

Other Factors To Consider In Specialisation:

Is the training load so high that it stunts the athlete’s growth and development? I’ve seen firsthand where this is often the case. In my opinion, while a high training load might equal elite results amongst the athletes’ age category, it is a far preferable option to play the longer term game for peak success after the athlete is fully grown should they have the potential and drive to be an elite performer as an adult.

It’s not just physical development that needs to be considered too. What is the cost on the other areas of the child or young adults life to meet the demands of their sport? Given the very small odds most youth face of making a professional career in sport, how much of their childhood and teen years are compromised or missed in the pursuit of excellence in sport?

Parents Step Aside

Of the professionals I raced alongside who had long and successful careers I can’t think of any who had had really pushy parents. Supportive parents of course but not pushy. There is a big difference. I can think of several who got to a high level but who also retired prematurely, which in my opinion was at least partly due to the effect of constantly trying to live up to their parents’ expectations.

The stats are clear on the negative effects of parental pressure in sport but probably the most relevant stat to this article is 40% of young athletes who drop out of sport cite parental pressure as their primary reason.

I’m certainly not casting shade here as an overly competitive human by nature, I find it hard to only congratulate on the effort and not make comments around technical changes they should consider unless they specifically ask. However, I constantly have to remind myself that the payoff of my boys enjoying their chosen sports long term is far greater in value to me than any immediate small changes I want to see them make that day and risking them feeling like they’ve let me down.

If your child is driven to really focus on one particular sport and you can provide the taxi service they need, that’s fantastic. However, if you’re the one having to set the alarm and wake them up in the morning to make it in time for training then consider leaving that role entirely to them especially from 14 years of age and older.

References:

Owen KB, Nau T, Reece LJ, Bellew W, Rose C, Bauman A, Halim NK, Smith BJ. Fair play? Participation equity in organised sport and physical activity among children and adolescents in high income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2022 Mar 18;19(1):27. doi: 10.1186/s12966-022-01263-7. PMID: 35303869; PMCID: PMC8932332.
Barth M, Güllich A, Macnamara BN, Hambrick DZ. Quantifying the Extent to Which Junior Performance Predicts Senior Performance in Olympic Sports: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Sports Med. 2024 Jan;54(1):95-104. doi: 10.1007/s40279-023-01906-0. Epub 2023 Sep 7. PMID: 37676619; PMCID: PMC10799111.
Güllich A, Barth M, Hambrick DZ and Macnamara BN (2023) Participation patterns in talent development in youth sports. Front. Sports Act. Living 5:1175718. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2023.1175718

Youth Sport SpecialiSation Considerations