Children, junior and youth sport considerations

 Youth sport retention is a critical issue for many reasons. Regular physical activity is essential for children's health and well-being. Sport can provide children with valuable life skills such as teamwork, discipline, and goal setting. Sport can help children develop a sense of belonging and identity. However, these things are not guaranteed simply by providing sport, and in Australia as elsewhere, youth sport drop out is a concern, and in particular for girls who drop out in greater numbers than boys. There are a number of factors that can contribute to youth sport dropout, and two factors clubs and sport bodies have most control over are the quality and type of coaching, and the nature of the sport experience. 

Not long ago we use to discuss drop out occurring from age 12, but it is becoming a trend from an earlier age. There is around a 30% drop-out rate from children in organised sport aged between 9 and 17 (AusPlay data). And, it happens in greater numbers for girls than it does for boys. By age 17, 50% of girls had dropped out of sport entirely, despite most acknowledging that sport can make them feel more confident. By age 14, girls are dropping out of sports at x2 the rate of boys (2019 Australian Youth Confidence Report). While there are well recognised factors in youth sport drop out, which we discuss in this paper here, there are gender specific factors such the uniforms that girls are required to play in. 

MacDougall et al., 2003 research suggested that terms such as ‘sport’ (something adults want them to do), ‘play’ (something they like to do) and ‘physical activity’ (something adults like to do) have quite different resonances for children. However, the Australian Sports Commission 2004 Children and Sport Report found very few children (<6%) said that they ‘are not into sport’. Do young people today have the same resonances about ‘sport’, ‘play’ and ‘physical activity’, and the same feelings about sport participation?

'My take' on the research about young people and sport participation is that for those who 'opt out' there are two main reasons: 

            *The existing pathway is not appealing

            *The sport pathway does not meet their needs, availability or interests

The first may be a result of the second, however the first includes elements such as parents pressure and needs impacting negatively the young persons enjoyment of sport. Parents are crucial in the sport participation ecosystem. It is parents interest that often sees the choice of sport the young person begins with, parents fund the sport participation, (hopefully) continue the sport experience outside the 'practice' sessions with a play-around with their children (e.g., kick and catch in the back yard or park, a hit at the local court or home drive way, etc), and chat about the sport with their child. Enabling more parents to initiate and enable sport in encouraging and positive ways within the formal sport setting and informally as 'active recreation' is a known factor in delivering greater children and youth retention in sport. However, in research that we undertook, the most significant barrier to engagement in organised sports was the associated financial costs, with many parents admitting to not being able to afford increasing sport fees. This has led to a shift away from formal participation in organised sports towards informal, unstructured play which has significant implications for the nature of sport participation in Australia (see that research here).

Research we have undertaken suggested that sport disengagement corresponds with changes in level of competition (see here). Sport goes from fun, friends and physically active play to premierships, pennants, points , performance and pressure from about U12 onwards. If you are a young person only interested in sport as fun, friends and physically active play there isn't much available to you once you reach secondary school age. Sport also goes from smaller-sided game-forms to 'full field' game forms. Research we have undertaken found in one sport,  The smaller-side version provided more technical actions per player in each play period, and thus constructs more engagement per player and therefore game development, than the full field game form recommended from under-11 (see that research here). Young people tell us they like sport when they are involved in the play. Perhaps not surprisingly then, reduced player numbers and smaller fields have been found to enhance player development as each player has the potential for greater game engagement than in game forms with more players and on larger fields (e.g., see that research here). In another research project we undertook, where an association had too many players for the full field game form on Sunday and wanted a competition for those that 'didn't get a game on Sunday', competitively engineering the game form for reduced player numbers and smaller fields found parents, players and coaches enjoying the smaller-sided game form more so than the full-field game form (see that research here).

Returning to the role of the coach in youth player retention and attrition, we recently published a model explaining the centrality of the coach in many young people's decision-making regarding continuing in sport (see the book chapter here). Many sports have developed resources, education, and curriculum to enhance the child and youth player experience from the style of coaching and the participation environment provided by the coaching. Typical of research into these elements, studies we have been involved with suggest that while coaches may have good understanding of the mechanics of the sport curriculum, and support for the use of small-sided games as a preferred practice form, the coaches lack understanding of the process of shaping and focussing player game development using the player-centred inquiry focus of the Game Sense approach, which has been the central pedagogy in player-athlete centred junior sport coaching promoted in Australia since the mid-1990s (see our research here). Additionally, coaches lack self-awareness with regard to their own coaching performance and are often incapable of accurately describing the reasons why they implement particular ways of coaching (see our research here). 

Internationally, sport coaching is recognised as a specialised field of education. The skills, knowledge and understanding required by a sport coach is that of a physical education teacher. Yet, for many sports you are 'accredited' to coach after completing an online training module that takes a few hours to complete.

Non participation in sport in childhood is associated with an increased likelihood of non participation in adolescence (Gallant et al., 2017). If we want a more physically active community, sport participation  is a good starting point. Movement ability seems a key factor in keeping young people involved in sport, and therefore physically active. By age 10-12, children's perceived and actual belief in competence or ability starts to become influential in participation motivation. Sport competence may underlie general self-esteem, in that a sense of self-worth or self-esteem is determined by specific competencies such as sport ability (Atkins, Johnson, Force & Petrie, 2015). There is a potential long term health consequence to sport drop out due to under-developed movement ability. Entering adolescence, low movement ability means more likely to chose to be inactive which means more likely to be overweight (Pill & Harvey, 2019).

In the 2020 Learning through Sport Blog: CHILDREN, JUNIOR AND YOUTH SPORT: RETENTION MESSAGES, I outlined key messages for sport providers (see here). Many of the ideas in this blog are picked up in the paper: Sport4Me (see here). In summary, sport needs to provide ways in which children and youth can participate outside the common competitive structures and environments, this availability would complement the traditional competitive club-based model, and afford participants more choice whilst fostering an environment that promotes lifelong involvement in sport.