Giving Young Athletes Space to Learn How to Use Time Wisely
The only way parents can teach children who play elite level sports how to use their time wisely is to not over schedule them in activities. Generally speaking, young athletes who are serious about sports have their weeks planned out months in advance.
More often than not, the majority of prime hours on the weekend are full with competitions, camps, and private coaching. In similar fashion, during the week the majority of prime hours are full with school, practice, homework, and study time (and often private coaching sessions, and competitions as well).
If sports parents are not careful, their children will have no free time. If a child has no free time, then they will never have space to learn how to use their time wisely. This is a recipe for future failure. Children don’t learn to use free time wisely until they learn that wasting free time has consequences. In addition, learning this lesson is a process. A process that is best learned while young and consequences are minimum. The older they get without learning to use free time wisely, the greater the consequences of wasting time.
As a result, sports parents must be extremely intentional about giving their children free time to do what they want. If they choose to waste their time, so be it. Let them face the consequences and help them learn from their decisions.
At some point athletes who continue to higher levels of sports will have to make choices about their time beyond the influence of coaches and parents. The sooner they start making these choices the better. Experience is the only way to learn the lesson of using time wisely.