Motivation in Young Athletes
No Matter the sport or the age, keep the fire burning bright
As I mentioned before, I want to do a entire series on athlete development and how to help keep kids healthy, happy and progressing in sport. There really is no better place to start than with motivation and what unique factors influence motivation with kids. To me motivation is the key element throughout development and equally important is that the motivation be internal. No amount of cajoling, pleading or demanding will raise kid’s motivation in sport and, more likely, these practices will inhibit it. So what are parents and coaches to do? In the end, it is all about the environment that we create rather than the instruction that we give.
In 2000, Richard Ryan and Edward Deci proposed their Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and though it was introduced as a general posit on human motivation and “basic needs” of people, its relevance in sport cannot be understated. They put forth that humans need autonomy, relatedness and competence to maintain intrinsic motivation. They further state that this intrinsic, or internal, motivation is more durable than extrinsic, or originating eternally, motivation. As noted, SDT’s influence on sport motivation is paramount, but how it is specifically related to kids in sport is even more relevant. As coaches, administrators and parents, we look to keep kids involved in sport longer and striving to higher levels; therefore, the individual tenets of SDT must be met for those athletes in order to keep them self-motivated. We, as adults, do have essential roles to play in the success of kids in sport, but young athletes must be personally driven to progress and to succeed.
Relatedness. Put simply, relatedness is feeling as though you have other people like you that understand and can relate to what you are doing and why you are doing it. For the athlete this is fairly obvious. Humans are social creatures and kids maybe even more so. We must strive to find situations where they are surrounded by people who are like them (think age, race, sex, etc) and think like them. In these environments young athletes feel empowered to strive and risk, and hence, can fail safely. Failure is a key to learning and in the right environment, it is framed as valuable and even encouraged. Learning and growth is thus facilitated and progression follows. Coaches and parents can play key roles in this as well because they are the ones that create the environment and therefore have influence over how failure is perceived by the athlete.
One of the best things that adults can do to foster relatedness is do decrease internal competition and ranking systems in sport. On the team level, ranking players and fostering competition within a team naturally reduces the feelings of relatedness among the athletes. It is harder to relate to the best and worst players if they are constantly being pitted against one another. Additionally, competition degrades the team environment rapidly as trust is broken and support can be non-existent. Fostering an environment of team, unity and everyone playing their key, essential role can increase the relatedness feelings of all participants and fulfil this tenet of SDT. Most athletes will bring their own high competitive levels to sport and need little or no encouragement from us. One way to do reduce over-competitiveness is to focus on keeping levels of fun high and social needs met. Parents and coaches often move quickly to sport as a means to an end rather than a joyful pursuit of individual progression. Keep in mind that sport can fulfil social needs but this happens in the free and unstructured time more than in the training time. If the team environment is highly regimented and business-like, athletes lose the social piece and often lose their relatedness in the sport itself.
Keeping athletes with their age group or maturity level also helps to foster relatedness. Moving athletes through the ranks quickly can place them competing and practicing with kids that are nothing like them. As a young swimmer, 8-9 years old, I was often training with kids 3-6 years older than me. I could not understand what they talked and laughed about and was often seen by them as a threat. Needless to say, it was not fun. Social relatedness is crucial for athletes and this can be even more true for individual sport athletes. Do not underestimate the need for social interaction for kids and it is easy to lose this need in individual sport athletes. There may be situations where the only team environment for a young athlete is below their performance level, but the high feelings of relatedness that those environments fosters is likely worth it.
Competence. Competence is the feeling that we are good at something and we belong in the group or environment in which we are participating. In sport, competence is feeling like we belong. This belongingness can be derived from the obvious (think skill level or performance level), but it can also be gained by feeling as if there is a role for us to play in the group. Coaches can help athletes that are still progressing to the level of their teammates by laying out a clear path to improvement and by clearly delineating roles for the athlete to fill in the here and now as they improve. Doing so helps athletes recognize their strengths as work on improving in specific areas. Most athletes are acutely aware of their weaknesses, but yet modern coaching seems to thrive on pointing out those issues to the athlete. More often than not this encourages lower feelings of confidence by eroding self belief and reducing feelings of competence. This is not limited to players below the median skill level either. With too much negative assessment, even the very best athletes can feel incompetent and lose motivation. In fact, this is something that I have observed often at the higher levels within a team. As the athlete progresses to higher and higher levels of play, their path to improvement narrows and often they receive more criticism and input. Many already question their ability aa they have progressed to the next level of competition and this added input can make them feel even more strongly that they do not belong. Positive reinforcement and coach/athlete partnered assessments can help the athlete maintain their confidence while understanding areas for improvement and laying out specific paths for progression.
Autonomy. Autonomy is feeling as if you have control over your situation and are in charge of the path. This is the easiest for the three SDT tenets for young athletes to lose and most often it is parents and coaches that take it away. Very young athletes need a great deal of direction and supervision for safety and logistical reasons. While I am a huge proponent of athletes learning through play and trial and error, for beginner athletes, a top down program is often necessary in order to keep things moving efficiently. However, as athletes gain both proficiency and maturity, a more partnered and supporting role by the parent or coach will help to breed autonomy within the athlete. When the athlete feels like they have agency and a say in their progression, they are more likely to stick with sport through the highs and the lows. These ups and downs can be seen as within their control instead of things that are inflicted upon them. This is true of coach and parent roles as well as the general training plan. As the athlete progresses, training gets harder and more time consuming. When training feels like something athlete has a say in, they are far more likely to participate willingly, with enthusiasm and push themselves to higher levels. However, when the training is inflicted upon them or they are dictated to, it is far easier to bail out or complain about the process or even leave the sport entirely. It may seem hard to trust young athletes to steer their training and their progression, but we need to remember that most athletes love their sport and want intensely to improve. The adult’s role is to facilitate that improvement and to help guide and direct their progression. If we do all the work for them, they often become listless and disinterested as they have little or no control in the process.
Motivation in young athletes can feel like a fleeting and transient thing that we as adults must help them to find, nurture and retain. In reality though, it is more about creating an environment that allows them to do all of these thing for themselves. Introducing kids to sport is easy when those sports are fun and joyful with little discrimination between play and practice. Keeping kids in sport becomes about how they relate to that activity and how they feel about themselves as a part of that sport environment. We can help them feel competent, related and autonomous; however, we can also help to degrade these feelings as well. Motivation is closely tied to the environment of sport and the adults often play the largest role in the development of that environment.