What is 'success' for kids in sport?

And why I think many parents are missing the point

Four years ago, I took my daughter to our local netball club and, pretty quickly, I got involved with the coaching. I like to say I got dragged in but, the truth is, I just love the game. I could talk at length about why netball is the best team sport there is (don’t worry, I won’t!).

This weekend it’s the girls’ first tour…11 players and mums at a holiday camp taken over for the purpose. I’m buzzing for them.

Netball was my ‘thing’ growing up. As a teenager I played for school, club, and County so, between training and matches, I was playing pretty much every day. Numerous weekends spent at netball tournaments all over the country. Days eating bananas, chicken legs, and jelly babies in a tent with my team before being called for another warmup and match. Evenings giggling in hotel rooms together whilst the parents had a drink in the bar.

We were good. Objectively successful. I didn’t realise when we won the School Nationals how significant an achievement that was for a run-of-the-mill state school. I see now how the odds were stacked against us (as they are in all great sporting underdog stories - Mighty Ducks, Cool Runnings, A League Of Their Own, Dodgeball!) but there was something about the combination of those girls that just…worked. I’ve 2 gold and 2 silver Nationals medals in my loft somewhere as a result of being part of that team. And 2 Oxford Blues from the next one I was part of.

But the thing is, despite that objective success, those things barely feature when I think about what netball gave me.

Much more important was:

The friendship.
The belonging.
The dedication.
The support.
The challenge.
The mastery.
The focus.
The fun.

Not really the winning.

I’ve played hundreds of netball matches and, excepting a few significant ones, I couldn’t tell you if we won or lost. It’s not what I carry with me.

Parents behaving badly

There’s a story doing the rounds here at the moment of a parent-coach who was so incensed with the man refereeing his son’s football match that he ran onto the pitch and punched him. In retaliation, the referee headbutted the parent-coach. A brawl ensued, with parents from both sides wading in. The children at the centre of this football match were on a weekend tour. They were 7 years old.

An extreme example for sure, but it’s not so far from behaviour I see every week on sporting sidelines. Parents gossiping and denigrating, parents shouting and criticising, coaches hollering and reprimanding.

In a BBC Sounds interview, Gary Linekar talks passionately on this topic when prompted about ‘ranting parents’…

Oh, I hate them…the attitude, they get carried away, it’s as though it’s too important for them. I’ve got four boys. I’ve watched them all play football, all through. Just let them play. I’m standing on sidelines listening to parents shouting and bawling, ‘get rid of it’, ‘don’t mess about with it there’, and 99.9% of what they say is wrong. 99.9% of what they say is damaging their children. It’s instilling fear into them. Just shut up. Shut up and let them play. I remember one distinct thing where a parent walked onto the pitch, picked his child up by the scruff of the neck and said, ‘if you play like that, you’re never gonna make the grade’. And I thought, ‘mate, I’ve just watched him play, he ain’t gonna make the grade anyway, so just chill. Let him enjoy his football’.

(Click here for the full clip)

And that’s the reality of it. Virtually none of them are ‘going to make the grade’. But all of them have the opportunity to experience sport as a positive, formative, character-building experience. If we shut up and let them.

So, why do we find it so hard? Why do we want more from these kids? Why do we pitch them against each other? Why do we care about them winning? And why are we so over-invested in their success?

I can’t help but wonder if it’s less about the kids and more about the parents. Perhaps they are using their kids’ successes as a yardstick for their own. A validation they’ve done their job well. An opportunity to bask in the reflected glory. I’m not sure what else it can be. Because it certainly isn’t in the best interests of the kids.

My own philosophy for kids’ sporting success

Now let’s be clear. Success means experiencing the things I listed - friendship, belonging, mastery, fun. Winning is good too, but if you win without the other stuff, it’s not a success.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, as a parent and a coach. And now I have some ‘rules’.

1. Find what they love. Let them try things, and give up things, and try more things, until you find the passion. My oldest son was decidedly average at football and had no real interest in it. So, we encouraged him to give it up and try basketball instead. A year on and he’s buzzing, out shooting hoops every day.

2. Pick a club carefully. The ethos of the club or team they are part of is paramount. Don’t let them be in an environment where they are shouted at by a coach, left on a sideline, or criticised by teammates or other parents. That is damaging to their self-esteem, and not fun.

3. Focus on the good. At the end of a match, you might think you can see a dozen ways they could have done better. Keep schtum. How would you feel if you got to the end of a task and your boss or partner waded in with a list of things you could improve on?

4. Create micro-challenges. Encourage progression by giving them a single challenge or focus and providing feedback only on that. At one rugby festival, I agreed with my son that I’d count how many tackles he made in each game, to encourage him to get stuck in. He was motivated to beat the number each time. I give my daughter one thing to focus on in a netball match e.g. jumping high for rebounds, and praise specifically for the progress she makes with it. This approach helps them feel a sense of accomplishment and mastery.

5. Check your responses. If you get really enthusiastic when they win, phone their grandparents, post photos on social media, and take them out for ice-cream, but you don’t do that when they lose - what are you teaching them? Kids want your approval, so think about how and when you give it and what they are learning from that.

6. Always ask, ‘Did you enjoy it?’. Because in 20 years’ time, all that will matter is how often they said, ‘Yes!’.