The Next Time You Judge a Young Athlete’s Performance Remember This
The next time you see a young athlete playing youth sports and consciously judge their performance, I want you to think back to this article. That young athlete may be a top performer you see as a future star or appear to be a completely uncoordinated lifetime scrub. Either way, those moments of judgement are great moments to practice how you orient your mindset.
Most parents view performance in youth sports as a tell-tale sign of whether a child is athletic. If a child comes out of the womb with the ability to throw, kick, or run then parents automatically assume the child is a future star athlete. On the other hand, if a child struggles with coordination and competition, then parents automatically assume the opposite.
Fortunately for humankind, this is not how it works. Performance in anything as a child does not predict performance as an adult. Yes, it’s an indicator of potential, but by no means does it indicate a limit to potential.
The Growth Mindset vs. The Fixed Mindset in Youth Sports
Carol Dweck, the recognized thought leader on the growth vs. fixed mindset, has a fantastic quote from her research that makes this point perfectly.
Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training. This is so important, because many, many people with the fixed mindset think that someone’s early performance tells you all you need to know about their talent and their future.
Furthermore, Dweck’s research on the growth mindset vs. the fixed mindset destroys the misconception that youth sports stars are the only pool of young athletes who have the potential for future athletic success. The truth is, future success in athletics, as well as most other endeavors, depend more on coaching, passion, and purpose than it does on innate talent.
Youth sport’s parents often get caught up in the fixed mindset because they don’t understand the concept of relative age. This causes them to often mistake early biological maturity for high potential and talent. Therefore, parents view young athletes who have matured biologically faster than chronologically as future stars. While those young athletes who mature later as lifetime scrubs.
The truth is it’s impossible to know if a young athlete will be a future star or a lifetime scrub. It doesn’t matter how good or bad they are in youth sports. This is why the #1 job of parents and coaches in youth sports is to foster the same love of the game for both high and low performing youth athletes.