let's see what sticks

Parenting, unfortunately, doesn't come with a manual. So like most parents, when our children were small, my husband and I constantly worried whether we were doing "the right thing". With everything. 

Sports were no different. What if one or both of our children had some innate and very specific sporting talent that we simply couldn't identify? How many sports and activities were "too many"? Were our children too busy? Not busy enough? Should we let them give up a sport if they didn't enjoy it any longer, or should we teach them that commitment and perseverance was more important? 

Throw Everything At Them

Whilst I fretted, my far more pragmatic husband came up with a simple and no-nonsense approach which became our mantra. 

"Let's Just Throw Everything At Them - And See What Sticks."

This sounded like common sense to me, so we signed them up for any sport that they showed an interest in. When they were 4 and 6 we moved from the Home Counties to the Cairngorms, so between those two locations there was an eclectic mix of sports on offer, including snow- and water-based ones. Here is a list of what they tried between the ages of 4-11 (I think this is exhaustive but I may have forgotten one or two): 

Tennis lessons, gymnastics club, skiing, swimming lessons/club, trampolining lessons, shinty club, horse-riding club (lots of learning horse anatomy - that only lasted a couple of months), triathlon, sailing lessons, hockey, fencing, rifle shooting, climbing, mountain biking, cross-country skiing...It was a smorgasbord.  And that was on top of the termly cycle of school sports - cricket, rugby, hockey and athletics. 

Eventually, mountain biking and cross country skiing turned out to be the ones that really stuck (although many of the above are still in circulation). But we had to kiss a lot of frogs (and some horses) before we found our prince(s).

The Venn Diagram of Youth Sports

Until very recently, I believed that both my children had ended up still eagerly participating and competing in their sports into their teens by sheer chance. We had, by nothing more than luck, stumbled across two sports that fit into that happy Venn diagram that married "Something They Love" with "Something They're Half Decent At". However, since reading more about the fundamentals of youth athlete development, I'm starting to think that there may be more to their enduring love of (and talent at) their chosen sports. 

Everything I've learnt about Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) over the last couple of months points to the fact that allowing children to participate in a wide variety of different types of sports up to roughly the age of 11-12 provides them with the best foundations for taking part in sport, training and competing, in their teens. And that delaying the age at which they specialise in any one discipline is better in the long run than focussing on one main sport too early. 

In short, any child who is given the chance to try out and participate in as many sports as possible in their first 12 years is far more likely to be participating in one or more of those into their teens and even beyond. More likely than the child that narrowed down to that one sport earlier. The skills they have developed across that wide variety of different sports have enhanced their performance and enjoyment of the one sport they have chosen to specialise in. 

The Sports Buffet

After all that fretting, it turns out that letting our kids try a bit of everything was probably the best thing we could have done - just not for the reason we thought! We assumed that all we were doing was letting them find something they loved from a wide ranging buffet of sports. In fact it was the variety itself that was building and strengthening fundamental skills that would prove valuable in whichever sport they chose. 

So if your children move from sport to sport, trying something new, letting it go and starting out again - don't fret like I did! Something, eventually, will stick. And you've given them the best sporting chance you possibly could.

In more detail

Read more about LTAD below, or explore the interactive infographic.

Have you found what sticks?

I hope this blog has been helpful, or at least will spark some ideas and conversations with fellow parents, coaches and even your kids! 

Accessibility

An accessible version of this blog is available here. 

Interactive infographic: Click on the accessibility icon bottom right for an accessible web view link.