Breaking A Young Athlete’s Cycle of Counterproductive Busyness
It’s not uncommon for a competitive young athlete to have an extremely busy schedule. Many youth athletes go to practice at least 3 to 5 days a week for two hours each day minimum. This may be worth it if the athlete has purpose for each one of those hours and is improving at a rate that justifies the time investment.
However, this is simply not the status quo. I would argue most youth athletes who practice 6 hours or more a week don’t make enough improvements to justify this level of busyness. Moreover, I would argue that most parents know their kids aren’t improving at a rate that justifies the time commitment but aren’t willing to change because this is what everyone else does.
Not only is this frustrating, it’s also an expensive waste of time considering the cost of youth sports. So what’s the solution?
Work Less on Physical Skills and More on Mental Skills
If you are a sports parent who has experienced this cycle of counterproductive busyness, then I have one suggestion. Have your child work less on developing their physical skills and more time on developing mental skills. Too many people overrate the value of working on a child’s physical skills, especially when a child has yet to hit puberty. At this age, it’s far more productive to help a child develop emotional intelligence, mental toughness, and resilience.
Developing mental skills is not less work in terms of time and difficulty. However, coaches undervalue working on mental skills because there are no physical signs of blood, sweat, and tears. Don’t let this illusion confuse you. The most important thing for young athletes to develop is and will always be mental skills.
Obviously, I’m not saying that physical skills are not important, they’re just not as important as you would think for younger athletes. Yes, one day the physicality of a sport will be front and center. However, the main differentiator among experienced athletes is not physical, it’s mental. Furthermore, older athletes who have strong mental skills are capable of pushing their physical skills beyond the boundaries of peers with weak mental skills.