by Mike Stella, MA, ATC, PES, CES – Rehab and Performance Coach, Owner of The Movement Underground
In today’s fast-paced, digital world, the landscape of adolescence has dramatically shifted from the one we grew up in. As a child of the 80s and 90s, I fondly recall leaving at sun up, and being out with my friends playing games, sports, or just riding my bike around town as fast as possible, taking breaks only at neighbors garden hoses for water, or snagging a sandwich at the local deli until the street lights came on, indicating it was time to head home.…I think I speak for all of us when I say I wish our kids got a bit more of that childhood, but they can’t…so here we are…
As parents, many of us recall long hours of unstructured play, less screen time, and more face-to-face interactions. Our children, on the other hand, are growing up in an era dominated by instant gratification, social media, and a constant barrage of online content. This new cultural and generational shift can make it challenging to understand how best to support our young athletes in both sports and life. However, by recognizing these differences, we can help them thrive and develop into well-rounded adults.
The Changing Landscape: From Yesterday to Today
Then vs. Now: The Digital Divide
In our youth, patience was a virtue cultivated through the natural progression of learning and growing. Whether it was waiting for a weekly TV show, practicing a sport, or slowly developing a new skill, the journey was as important as the destination, but more importantly, there was no short cut. No online guru telling you if you just do this or that, your dream will come true right now!Today’s adolescents live in a world where everything is at their fingertips. They are accustomed to immediate answers from Google, instant social validation through likes and comments, and on-demand entertainment. This can create a false sense of immediacy that doesn’t tranThe Movement Underground well into the world of sports, personal development, or life, for that matter.
Sports and Instant Gratification: A Mismatch
Sports inherently demand time, effort, and perseverance. Success in athletics is rarely instant; it requires continuous practice, dedication, and resilience. This contrasts sharply with the immediate rewards found online, making it essential for parents to help young athletes understand and appreciate the value of delayed gratification.
The Benefits of Sports: Beyond Physical Fitness
Mental Health: Building Resilience
Participation in sports is a powerful tool for enhancing mental health. The structured environment of athletics helps teens build resilience, cope with stress, and develop a healthy outlet for emotions. The discipline and routine of regular training sessions provide stability and a sense of accomplishment, which are crucial for mental well-being. Encouraging your teen to stick with their sport, training, and development even when progress feels slow, can foster a stronger, more resilient mindset set up to win over the long haul.
Physical Health: Lifelong Benefits
The physical benefits of sports and exercise are well-documented. Regular exercise improves cardiovascular health, builds strong muscles and bones, and helps maintain a healthy weight. For teens, these benefits are compounded by the development of healthy habits that can last a lifetime. Engaging in sports also reduces the risk of developing chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and heart conditions.
When we get teenagers coming in for sports training, they come in with various expectations, goals, sports, skills, and reasons for being in the gym… Despite the many reasons, their is always a common denominator…The bar. It weighs the same 45 lbs no matter who you are, where you come from, your advantages/disadvantages in life….its the ultimate equalizer. Capable of transforming even the most stubborn athlete into a well measured, balanced young adult capable to overcoming adversity and stepping into leadership. It also has the ability to expose bad habits and attitudes very quickly. There is nothing like the weight room to balance an ego, if you get what I’m saying…and yes, even teenagers can have bad egos…
Leadership and Confidence: Growing into Leaders
Sports provide a fertile ground for developing leadership skills and confidence. Whether they are captaining a team, collaborating with teammates, or setting personal goals, young athletes learn to lead by example, communicate effectively, and inspire others. These experiences build self-confidence and teach valuable life skills that extend beyond the playing field.
A parent to one of our current HS athletes gave me what I think is the best compliment I’ve ever received from a client…
“The best part of this place (The Movement Underground) is you’re running a character & leadership development program guised as a sports performance program…”
At first, I said thank you, and complimented their son on being just a great human being…but after some time, reflected on just how much of a compliment this was. We had no intention of “leadership” development. It just happens as a natural result of young men and women gaining confidence, competence, and capacity when they voluntarily do hard things.
Character and Collaboration: Life Skills in Action
Through sports, adolescents learn the importance of teamwork, cooperation, and fair play. They experience firsthand the value of working towards a common goal, respecting others, and handling both victory and defeat gracefully. These character-building experiences are critical for developing into cooperative, collaborative, and successful adults.
Supporting Your Young Athlete: Practical Tips for Parents
1. Emphasize Effort Over Outcome
Encourage your teen to focus on their effort and improvement rather than just the results. Celebrate their dedication, hard work, and the small victories along the way. This helps them understand that success is a journey, not an immediate destination. Believe it or not, but delayed gratification is a skill that can be honed. Starting teens with short to medium term goals, like getting stronger, isn’t rewarded right away, but the effort and consistency is rewarded later, when they are compared to peers who didn’t do the work…. Talent is everywhere…but work ethic isn’t. Learning to work with no immediate outcome, is maybe one of the best indicators of long term success. Athletes that learn this early, will consistently outperform their peers, and themselves, with time.
2. Promote Balance
Ensure that your young athlete maintains a balanced lifestyle. These days it seems its sports or video games with little variance in between…I imagine when your teen is on hour 5 of call of duty, the parent in you is crawling in your skin, but remember the downtime is important also…maybe not 5 hours worth, but you get my point! Same goes for sports! While sports are important, so are academics, social interactions, and downtime. A well-rounded life helps prevent burnout and keeps their passion for sports alive. We see a lot of burnout in talented kids with well intentioned parents and coaches. We all know effort is required but remember to balance this with the other aspects of life that make it memorable. I tell every parent that walks through our doors…you can’t be a parent, coach, and recruiting coordinator. The more you emphasize sports as the basis of your relationship, the more you and your teen will experience burnout. This honestly, beyond injury treatment/prevention, and athletic development, is where I feel we help parents most. Outsourcing some of the motivation, discipline, and strategy to an outside expert does the trick in more instances than not. For example, you may tell your teen they need to hit the gym, and then study…but when their strength coach says the same thing, it hits a bit different. Same message, different source, sometimes is the carrot needed to get the buy in and effort to happen.
3. Be Patient and Understanding
Recognize the challenges your teen faces in a world of instant gratification. Be patient with their progress and understanding of their frustrations. Offer support and remind them of the long-term benefits of their efforts. When we were young, when we were home…we were home. Today’s teens take the stress of school, sports, and outside influences with them in their pocket, everywhere they go. It isn’t uncommon that teenage athletes will reveal more about what stresses them to their strength coach, but not the parent. Teens often feel safer sharing with a coach, a trusted adult, that doesn’t have as much skin in the game like a parent does. Don’t take it personally, but as a reprieve that you have additional role models and support for your teen. Strength Coaches and Parents are aligned in their mission, to help the teenage athlete succeed, so at the end of the day, we all represent the athlete support system. Your teen will lean on their coach, you should too! Always remember that progress takes time in all facets, and there is never enough praise for effort over outcomes.
4. Model Healthy Behavior
Set a positive example by leading an active lifestyle and demonstrating patience and perseverance in your pursuits. Your actions speak louder than words and can inspire your teen to adopt similar values. The reason we let our athlete training groups commingle with our adult fitness clients is simple… seeing successful, high performing adults, who have a lifestyle worth emulating…are working out too. Discipline and Consistency are hallmarks of both successful athletes…AND successful people. Bottom line is when you put kids in an environment of GROWTH MINDSET, It spreads. Maybe this is your call to action to get back in shape, or start an exercise program. Make it known to your kids, they can help hold you accountable, but also showing them by example that life happens, sometimes priorities get our of whack, and time slips by…but its never too late to BEGIN! One of my favorite quotes, is an old Chinese Proverb. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today.”
Maybe you aren’t the best example of fitness…yet. Yet being the key word. If you are, then keep it up! Whether you see it or not, your actions speak louder than words!
5. Communicate Openly
Maintain open lines of communication with your young athlete. Listen to their concerns, offer encouragement, and provide guidance. Understanding their perspective helps you support them more effectively. Something Ive done in recent years with my Rehab patients, is ask more open ended questions… If I ask “did you have a good day?” You’ll say yes. The question answers the question and offers an easy way out… If I ask..”what was your favorite part of the day?” It communicates genuine curiosity, as well as me asking your perspective, not a recap of events. Small, subtle changes in how we speak and ask questions often is the difference between simply a reply, versus a conversation.
The Pitfalls of Modern Youth Sports: Striking the Balance
While youth sports offer numerous benefits, it’s essential to be aware of the pitfalls that can undermine a young athlete’s development and well-being. As parents, understanding these challenges allows us to guide our children more effectively and ensure they have a positive, balanced experience in sports.
1. Overzealous Coaches: The Winning-at-All-Costs Mentality
In many youth sports programs, there is an intense focus on winning and outcomes, often driven by well intentioned, but overzealous coaches. Please understand…they NEED to win, to attract more athletes and parents to their program. While competitive spirit is important, an excessive emphasis on victory can create undue pressure and diminish the enjoyment of the game. Young athletes may feel their worth is tied to their performance, leading to stress and anxiety.
Additionally, signing up for a program that “never loses” is a big red flag. Why? Because in the game of life, we tend to lose more than we win. So never learning how to lose gracefully, and evaluate a loss as a learning opportunity, is depriving young athletes with one of the best lessons sports can teach us.
What You Can Do:
- Advocate for a Balanced Approach: Encourage coaches to focus on personal growth, teamwork, and effort rather than just winning.
- Communicate with Coaches: Have open discussions with coaches about your child’s development and well-being, emphasizing the importance of a supportive and balanced environment. If they think you’re being soft…then find a new program. Mental toughness doesn’t happen from treating kids like soldiers. Remember, its supposed to be fun.
2. The Allure of Playing More: Burnout and Financial Exploitation
The push for year-round participation and specialization in a single sport is often fueled by youth organizations aiming to maximize profits. This trend can lead to physical and mental burnout, overuse injuries, and a loss of passion for the sport. Its is well documented that single sport athletes get hurt at a rate 3x that of multisport athletes. You will be pressured to specialize early and focus on one sport, or else… this type of hard sell is an indicator that the coach is more worried about their bottom line than your young athletes development…
Additionally, the financial burden on families can be significant, as they invest in travel, equipment, and training. Make sure you are comfortable with the commitment as much as your son/daughter.
What You Can Do:
- Prioritize Rest and Recovery: Ensure your child has adequate time off from their sport to rest and pursue other interests.
- Diversify Sports Participation: Encourage your child to participate in multiple sports to develop a broad range of skills and prevent burnout.
- Be Mindful of Financial Commitments: Weigh the costs and benefits of additional programs and prioritize your child’s long-term well-being over short-term gains.
3. Athletic Development vs. Skill Development
Many youth sports programs prioritize skill development specific to the sport, such as hitting, throwing, or dribbling, at the expense of overall athletic development. While sport-specific skills are important, a strong foundation in athletic abilities like strength, speed, and mobility is crucial for long-term success and injury prevention. In recent years, with the big push to be better skilled in sports at a younger age has come with a direct increase in injuries. Remember, your teen isn’t a fully developed human. They are still growing, and more important the movement skills they are developing set the foundation for the type of athlete they can become. It is much better to be a good athlete first, then develop sport specific skills…versus being the best 12U player, who gets hurt, and later has to learn how to be athletic. The best part of our youth development program, is helping kids have a rich, diverse environment of movement, honing their athleticism and seeing it tranThe Movement Underground to their on field/court endeavors.
What You Can Do:
- Focus on Fundamental Fitness: Encourage participation in activities that build general athleticism, such as running, swimming, and strength training. A good performance coach will be well rounded in program design for this.
- Seek Comprehensive Training Programs: Look for programs that incorporate a balance of skill development and athletic training to ensure well-rounded development.
4. Identity and Self-Worth Tied to Sports
For many young athletes, sports become the primary source of admiration and attention from adults, leading them to tie their identity and self-worth to their performance. This can create a fragile sense of self that is vulnerable to the ups and downs of sports, affecting their overall well-being.
What You Can Do:
- Promote Diverse Interests: Encourage your child to explore other hobbies and activities outside of sports to develop a well-rounded identity.
- Focus on Healthy Habits: Emphasize the healthy habits and life skills gained through sports, such as discipline, teamwork, and perseverance, rather than just performance metrics.
- Offer Unconditional Support: Show your child that your support and love are not contingent on their athletic achievements but on their effort, attitude, and personal growth.
Conclusion
Raising a young athlete in today’s digital age requires a blend of understanding, patience, and proactive support. By acknowledging the differences between our upbringing and theirs, we can better guide them towards success in sports and life. Remember, the skills they develop on the field—resilience, discipline, leadership, and collaboration—are the very same skills that will help them thrive as well-adjusted, successful adults. Let’s embrace this journey with them, one step at a time.
If you have any questions on how we can help you navigate Athletic Success, please feel free to email us at info@themovementunderground.com. We specialize in athletic development and offer in person and online programming for athletes of all ages and sports!
