Self-regulation

Navigating Talent ID and Selection in Youth Sports

Navigating Talent ID and Selection in Youth Sports

One of the biggest travails of the youth sports journey is dealing with selection. Even the most successful athletes often recall instances of disappointment at not being selected for teams or being benched during their years competing at high school and junior level. Navigating selection and talent identification policies are thus part of youth sports. To help parents and young performers themselves deal with these trials we should try to understand the factors at play and perhaps find some strategies to overcome the challenges involved.

Realising the Full Benefits of Youth Sports

Realising the Full Benefits of Youth Sports

A notable casualty amid the ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic has been organised sport below the elite and professional level. In recent weeks kids have cautiously returned to school, but youth sports and school sport in particular remain off limits for many. Competition schedules for the coming year are still in limbo. There is a question mark over whether there will even be a competitive season for some sports and this uncertainty extends to college sports, which is the end-goal that many high school aspire to. Against this backdrop, the numbers of kids who have returned to participating in training and practices are way down since the lockdown and returning to school. There is an understandable reluctance among parents and the kids themselves to reengage in sport, given the perceived risks. Some authors are already sounding the alarm that the present generation of high school kids may be lost from participating in organised sport.

Developing Grit in Young Performers

Developing Grit in Young Performers

Over recent years talent identification in sport has started to acknowledge and account for the crucial character element in talent development. In particular, the importance of ‘grit’ is increasingly championed. Coaches and parents are accordingly becoming more aware of this concept in relation to youth sports. So what is grit, how does it relate to long-term success in sport and what can we do to create the conditions to help foster grittiness in young performers?

Learning to Take Responsibility

Learning to Take Responsibility

A recent instalment of the Prepared Blog spoke about the transition into the teenage years as a key window where young performers start to become equipped and amenable to taking greater ownership. In the realms of coaching it is often advocated that we should place the performer at the centre of things. Like many others I have written about autonomy being an important objective in the coaching process. Clearly this does however place some onus on the performer. So what exactly do we require from the performer themselves in order to make it all viable?

Whilst this is primarily written in the context of young performers, these themes are equally applicable to performers of any age. To some degree we are all on this journey!

What You See Is Not All There Is...

What You See Is Not All There Is...

To explain the title, one of the most common cognitive biases in how we see the world is encapsulated as ‘what you see is all there is’. In other words, we have a tendency to overlook what is not immediately visible or obvious. We tend to assume that the elements we see in front of us are the only aspects at play. We are slow to consider that there might be additional unseen factors at work that might lead us to an alternative explanation for what we are seeing.

The Opportunity of Early Adolescence with Young Performers

The Opportunity of Early Adolescence with Young Performers

Without doubt a unique opportunity to have a profound impact and see dramatic changes presents itself as young performers enter the adolescent years. The theme for this latest offering is this overlooked but crucial phase in the development of young athletes.

As most who read this will already be well aware, there are fertile windows of development in the childhood years. It is widely recognised that young kids are a sponge for learning and acquiring cognitive and motor skills, including language. What is less known is that there is similarly a distinct window of development that coincides with the transition from childhood to adolescence.