Why Parents Must Completely Rethink Youth Sports
9 out of 10 parents think about youth sports completely wrong until one of two things happens. Either, they have multiple children who play sports, and they learn the truth by the time the younger ones start playing. Or they figure out once they become grandparents and their grandkids start playing youth sports.
So, let me save you all that trouble and give you the truth about youth sports. How your child performs playing youth sports is not the tell-tale sign of whether or not you have an athletic child.
If your child comes out of the womb with the ability to throw, kick, or run you can’t automatically assume your child has a bright future in sports. On the other hand, if your child struggles with coordination and competition, you also can’t automatically assume the opposite.
Fortunately for humankind, this is not how it works. Performance in anything as a child does not predict performance as a teen or adult. Yes, it’s an indicator of potential, but by no means does it indicate a limit to potential.
Carol Dweck, the recognized thought leader on the growth 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.
Remember this the next time you see your child, or another young athlete playing sports and assume that he or she is either a future star or lifetime scrub.