The Debate of Maximizing Potential

By Ivor Buffong

Even though US youth soccer registers approximately 3 million players a year, a State of Play 2020 report from the Aspen Institute stated that the number of kids aged 6-12 has slowly declined over the past decade. A study conducted by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association cited that over the past three years the percentage of 6-12 year olds playing soccer regularly dropped nearly 14% to 2.3 million players with high burnout rates listed as one of the more prominent reasons.

In addition, field study research carried out with Norwegian players aged 10-14 which examined the relationship between supportive and pressuring behavior and athletes’ psychosocial experiences concluded that pressure from parents related positively to maladaptive achievement striving, as indicated by overconcern for mistakes, doubt about one’s soccer actions and lowered perceptions of soccer competence. Mirroring these findings, predominantly supportive psychological climates were related to competency perceptions and the absence of specific worries related to achievement striving. You may be thinking what exactly does all of this mean? It means that there is a significant enough issue we would like to speak to. We are presently in an era where more parents of players in youth sports are striving in every conceivable way to get their child(player) into one of the many so-called ‘elite’ programs or ‘individualized’ training protocols.

Why?

Because they believe it will maximize the potential of their child.While on the surface it may appear well intentioned this way of thinking is flawed. This baseless and arbitrary thought process has only served to produce a decreasing participation with more players exiting at younger ages as burnout has become a byproduct. Soccer is no exception to the rule in this scenario. As a parent you are an integral part of our organization with the ability to positively or negatively impact the outcome as it relates to your child. We, along with you, unequivocally want ‘what's best for your child.’

However, the question that goes begging is ‘ are parents clear as to HOW that best should be achieved?’ If the role of parenting can be viewed as being akin to a position of leadership then a very natural progression would be to entertain the presupposition that leading yourself first in an effort to better guide those over whom we’ve been given the mandate to love, care for and instruct would seem a logical foundational concept. We believe that our assistance predicated on providing tools, proven methods and objective solutions will make the pathway to ‘maximizing potential’ far less cluttered. This should allow the parents' journey of ‘good intentions’ to have far more significance.