Introduction
Why we do it: Youth sports is one of the most powerful platforms for youth development. A wide range of long-term development happens every time the kids step on the field. The challenge we all face is whether the development is positive or negative. By being aware of the ways kids develop, those involved in youth sports - parents, coaches, and coordinators - can actively work to enhance positive growth and reduce negative influences. Our mission at Sport4Growth is for the next generation to be well-prepared to achieve their highest potential in life.
How we do it: Sport4Growth has researched the development that happens in youth sports. We have reviewed what the best performance and leadership experts have discovered. We bring you access to this knowledge in an approachable way that you can apply to youth sports experiences. First, we aim to simply help you understand the range of development that happens in youth sports. From that, you can determine which of these impacts are most significant to you, and then use our tools and guides to achieve your goals within youth development.
What we do: We provide rigorously researched information to coaches and parents about how youth sports affect children's growth, both immediately and in the future. Our information and tools help parents, coaches, and program coordinators align their approach to youth sports with their desired outcomes for children.
In this article, we discuss traits essential for reaching one's full potential. On our website and through our services, we share how you can approach youth sports to ensure that children develop these traits in a way that aligns with your goals. Our methods focus on enjoyment and competition, suitable for all ages and skill levels.
The Seven Pillars of Achieving Full Potential
At Sport4Growth, awareness starts with the end in mind. What does a thriving adult look like inside? The following are a list of traits that are developed, either positively or negatively through youth sports. This may feel daunting. Take it bite by bite. Get started by bringing awareness of any of these traits every time you plan, lead or observe a sports experience. With that awareness alone you will increase the likelihood that kids develop on these traits in a positive way and reduce the chance that they develop in a negative way.
Resilience: Handle setbacks, learn from failure, and persevere and grow through challenges
Intrinsic Motivation: Driven by genuine interest or enjoyment
Delayed Gratification: Prioritize long-term goals over immediate rewards
Emotional Intelligence: Manage emotions productively towards desired outcomes
Stress Management Skills: Manage, handle and use stress to serve oneself to achieve goals
Love for Self-Development: A passion for continuous personal growth and learning
Curiosity: A sense of exploration and a desire to learn and understand before being understood
These seven foundational traits appear throughout Sport4Growth's articles and services. These are the traits that enable the development of more tangible success factors, such as strategic and critical thinking, self-awareness, leadership and productive communication as well as physical skills.
As the foundational traits develop, the young athletes perform better in their sports and they develop technically and tactically faster. This leads them to perform better and better. As a result of that, the teams perform better and continue to improve.
This is why at Sport4Growth we believe that long-term development and near-term experience go hand-in-hand. So whether you are interested in winning a championship or just having a fun physical activity, your awareness of the long-term development will enhance your near-term goals and improve your approach for the long-term.
What's Going on in the Brain
At Sport4Growth, we approach performance by focusing on the underlying pillars of a person who reaches their full potential. We do this by understanding behavior and by understanding what is going on in the brain that drives the link between behavior and performance.
You do not need to understand what is going on in the brain. However, we want you to know that we have done the rigorous work. Foundational to Sport4Growth is that we make that work accessible, approachable and applicable for you. In this section we bring you the research on the how the brain builds the underlying traits of a thriving person.
The Brain's Job: Prepare the body for what's going to happen next
Step 1: The brain receives the inputs brought into the body from all of a person's sensory organs (the eyes, ears, etc...) that are sent to the brain through neurons and neuroconnections.
Step 2: The brain evaluates those inputs by searching through the person's prior experiences to find similar inputs.
Step 3: The brain predicts what is going to happen next in large part by remembering what happened in the scenarios that it found in step 2.
Step 4: The brain prepares the body, including lungs, heart and metabolic processes to be best prepared to handle what the brain predicted would happen next in step 3.
Why this matters: Sports create so many of the prior experiences used in Step 2 above
Let's take resilience. If a kid over-and-over again experiences failure, picks themselves up, learns from it, find the positive in it and grows, then those experiences are the ones that the brain later in life will draw on to prepare that person to handle challenges. If instead, a kid experiences failure as negative, something to be feared, then later in life that person's brain will prepare the person to be afraid of challenges that have risk of failure. This will impact whethet the person reaches full potential or is limited, in life.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoy using the articles and services from Sport4Growth. We hope you read them for the purpose of building your awareness of all the impacts on human development that are happening. We hope that you determine what impacts matter most to you, so that you can use our guides to help you to affect the impact that you want. We hope that you go as broad as you want and as deep as you want. We hope that you play around with ideas and always are able to come back to what youth sports is about for you and your kids, whether you are the coach, parent or sports organization responsible for their experience, results or development.
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