If you had the answer to youth development, you would have a very busy calendar. But joking aside, no one holds the golden ticket. The development of children is multi-faceted, diverse, and certainly does not follow a linear pattern; but what is possibly the most important factor to consider in your junior program?

Forget the grip, length of swing, or throwing skills. Social aspects are arguably the greatest influence on youth development and actually underpin everything we do. More worryingly, they have often been dismissed and unaccounted for in widely used participant development models, such as the Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model.

So, what social aspects may be affecting children on your program?

Family

Parents are the bulk of this category and can often, but not always, act as role models whilst providing access and opportunity for children. On the reverse, parents can be can harmful and grouped into

• the uninterested parent, who is never present
• the overcritical parent, who is never satisfied
• the yelling from the sideline parent, who often shouts louder than the coaches
• the parent who coaches, who often contradicts the coach
• the over-concerned parent, who is afraid of the dangers of sport and threatens to remove their child.

Do any of the children enrolled on your programs have parents that sound like the above? And how could this be affecting their performance and development?

It may also be worth mentioning at this point that siblings also play a huge part in development for obvious reasons related to motivation and role models. Have you ever wondered why it is so common for the youngest sibling to be the best goalkeeper? Is this luck? Another classic is children turning up late for sessions: this is obviously completely out of their control and coaches should not single out or highlight the fact that a particular child is late. The late child often wanders in with their head down, embarrassed about the fact they are turning up late.

Finally, has a recent divorce or family death affected a child in your Saturday morning class? The reason for their quietness and ‘uninterested look’ may in fact be stemming from a much deeper root. And to not pick this child for a team or to single him out for not being interested would be a disaster move at this point!

Socioeconomics

These are closely linked to parents and are quite simply financial factors. The cost of memberships, transport, equipment and time can often be a barrier for children. Can the family afford to pay for practice buckets out of sessions? And how could this be affecting a child’s development? Furthermore, should a child who hasn’t been practicing be inadvertently singled out when the reason for not practicing may often be totally out of their control? Again, how can we as coaches best handle these situations?

From a slightly different angle, how does the child in the group who has ‘hand me down’ clubs and an old scruffy bag feel? And how does the fact all the other children have brand new shiny clubs make them feel? More importantly, how can we as coaches make that child feel at ease?

Schooling/education

The guy that Henry sits next to on his first day of high school could quite possibly shape his future. The influence of peer groups is a huge factor in how attitudes, interests and ultimately behaviors are developed. Furthermore, the friendships developed at golf sessions could be pivotal in future development. What are we doing as coaches to create the best possible social environment for our players?

Additionally, the provision of sport varies across schools and can limit opportunities for different groups of children. This is totally out of a coach’s control but must be acknowledged. The popular named fundamental movement skills can heavily be influenced by the amount of school sport experienced; are children being dismissed from ‘talent ID’ programs for a lack of fundamental movement skills? And is this purely down to a lack of opportunity to develop these skills?

Finally, relative age effect has been shown to play an important role in youth sport and relates to the birth month of school children. Children born close to the start of the academic year (September in the UK) are often selected for school teams as opposed to children in the same year group that are nine months younger (born in Spring/Summer of the following year). The reason for being selected is often only because these children are bigger and stronger so therefore ‘suit’ the team better. So much for little Billy who loves the game but just gets “out muscled” by the big kids! (is this just bad luck?).

How can we tackle these issues?

Of course, we cannot hand out questionnaires to children and parents demanding fine details about their personal lives, however a big part of this puzzle does lie in TALKING to children and parents.

Talking to children/parents during a session about more than their grip or posture is invaluable for everyone involved.

• For starters, these chats will help you build relationships with the children, a vital component of Self Determination Theory which is linked heavily to lifelong participation.
• You will start to gather important information about the child. It is surprising what you may find out, but this is not nosey!  Discovering that a child is being picked on at school may in fact be the most important thing that child has ever told you.  And can for sure help you in how you behave and interact with that child.
• Some of the most useful sessions are the ones spent talking for over half the time with the parents. Finding out what is going on in a child’s life could play a pivotal role in how you interact with different children.
• Also, spending time with parents educating them is just as important. Let them know your plans/views.  Pushy parents are the evil in youth sport but education can help them change their approach. Imagine if you could change the car journey home conversation from, “Why did you miss that putt?” to, “Did you enjoy that today? I love watching you play!”

Summary of points

Whilst participation development models that acknowledge physical, technical, and other assets do hold great value, a model that completely disregards any social aspects of development has to be questioned. Below are the important take home points

• Social aspects underpin everything we do and an acknowledgement of unique social situations is paramount in youth development
• Luck can often play a huge part in youth development
• Children should not be judged or selected based upon something that is out of their control.
• Be aware of relative age effect/biological age…..(but, do not make it your priority as neurological age is more important than biological age!!
• Talking to parents and children is the key catalyst to bridging the gap between development and social issues.
• The relationships we develop with children are critical to motivations and lifelong participation.

Reference

Bailey, R; Collins, D; Ford, P; MacNamara, A; Toms, M; and Pearce, G. (2010). Participant Development in Sport: An academic review.