A Notice to Parents of Young Soccer Players

By: Christopher Kaminski

Over the past few decades, sports have exploded into big business. Every role within

sports, nowadays, carries with it a great deal of prestige and wealth. For this reason, many of

today’s parents attempt to push their children into the sport realm. Parents and children, alike,

see the wealth that can be gained from becoming an expert in sports and will stop at nothing to

achieve success. While parents place such an emphasis on their children becoming a sports

expert, there are many pratfalls that parents can become victims to. Here, we examine the route

that parents of youth soccer players can take to help increase the chances that their child makes it

to an elite status of sport. Initially, parents must encourage their children into sport, preferably

early in their development. Next, parents must diversify their children’s sporting experience

with rest so that they can learn to hone their skills while not becoming burned out with one sport.

Lastly, parents must provide emotional and financial support so that their children can feel like

they are encouraged to and are allowed to perform sports.

For the athlete themselves, one of the most important aspects of becoming an expert

soccer player is putting in the practice time to develop their technical and tactical skills.

According to Christopher M. Janelle and Charles H. Hillman, “A convincing corpus of evidence

has been gathered to suggest that regardless of innate talent, hereditary predispositions, and

genetic limitations, high levels of skill cannot be acquired without years of dedicated practice.”

(2003, p. 27). For parents, this means encouraging their children to practice and/or play soccer

even if they initially are not the most talented players. While children may start at different

ability levels, the most important aspect of reaching elite level performance stems from

practicing for many years. If a child wants to grow up to be an expert soccer player, it is

important that they know the fundamentals (ie. dribbling the ball, passing, shooting, and player
movement) rather than relying on natural gifts to get them by. As a person reaches higher level

of sport, physical gifts will even out, and skill level plays an enormous role in whether or not the

athlete will succeed. The elite skill level can only be obtained through many years of practice.

Next, as Ericsson et al point out, “expert performance…will inevitably emerge through an

extended period of ‘deliberate practice’ typically either 10 years or 10,000 hours. (Ericsson,

Krampe, & Tesch- Rӧmer, 1993). Since it takes a significant amount of time to reach an expert

level within a sport, it is best for parents to enroll their children in sports programs earlier, rather

than later. The earlier a child can start practicing a sport, the earlier they can reach these preset

milestone timeframes. Likewise, by starting a child’s practice late, a parent risks losing crucial

years of the child’s development.

As is starting to become apparent, in these initial stages of development it is important

that a parent provide emotional support. According to Jean Côté, Joseph Baker and Bruce

Abernethy, “In the early years of a child’s involvement in an activity, parents tended to be

supportive, which allowed their children the freedom to decide whether to practice formally or

not” (2003, p. 106). By being supportive, and not pushy, the child learns to play sports for

themselves. The young athlete also learns which sports they enjoy (soccer) and which sports that

they do not enjoy. This realization is important because the child will want to enjoy soccer so

that they are willing to put in the practice hours required to reach elite status. As a parent, it is

important to encourage a child to participate in sport at a young age and continue to practice

even if the face of differing natural abilities.

As the child continues to mature, they will inevitably begin to play their primary sport, in

this case soccer, more frequently. This stage of sport development mainly focuses on an athlete

starting to specialize in that primary sport. For soccer, this means that a child will start to
practice multiple times a week with their team, including many games/tournaments on the

weekends. With such a rigorous schedule, players may feel an enormous sense of being required

to perform rather than wanting to perform. Also, the child may start to become physically and

mentally tired from competing. After all, soccer requires an enormous amount of physical

demand through running. It also requires mental demand since games are usually very tight, in

that one goal or one mistake can greatly influence the outcome. With such a small margin for

error, soccer players tend to spend much of the game stressing about little mistakes. According

to Ericsson et al, “Inability to recover from stress of training, which is viewed as necessary for

improvement in sports, can lead to ‘staleness,’ ‘overtraining,’ and eventually ‘burnout.” (1993, p.

371). As a parent, it is important to monitor the training that a child performs. In this

developmental stage, the parent generally acts as transporter to and from practice opportunities.

In this stage, Côté et al claim “[Parents facilitate] their child’s deliberate practice schedule.

“(2003, p. 107). If a parent can realize that practice demands are becoming too much, they can

influence their schedule so that the child stays motivated and stress free. In soccer, for many

athletes who are starting to specialize, weight training becomes popular amongst parents and

their children. The parent must be able, though, to create a schedule with rest involved so that

the child can have time to recover from both the physical and mental demands associated with

practice. If a parent is lucky enough to be able to influence practice and game scheduling

decisions (in the role of manager or schedule coordinator), it is advisable that the parent follow

consecutive days of practice/games with a day of scheduled rest. Lastly, if a parent notices that

burnout is starting to occur, help does exist for the athlete. As Ericsson et al recommend, “Rest,

and in some cases, complete abstention from training and sporting activities may be necessary.”

(1993, p. 371). From both a mental and physical standpoint, a parent can encourage their child
to take a break from sport during their investment years. For instance, after a long season, a

parent may schedule a family vacation for a week, so that the child can forget about performance

and just relax for a few days. This may also help a child recover, physically, after a demanding

season.

Lastly, as a child becomes more advanced in soccer, parents must be apt to investing

more time and money for their child. According to Côté et al, in later developmental stages,

“Parents [make] sacrifices in their personal lives and their family’s lives to allow their child-

athlete to have optimal training conditions.” (2003, p. 107). Children will likely search out and

play for elite clubs so that they assured of the best competition to perfect their personal skills.

As a parent, this may require traveling quite far for practices and games. In fact, the older, and

more advanced the child-athlete becomes, the opportunity for national competition increases.

Regional leagues force players to travel within their region (ie. within the Midwest, or within the

Southeast) to play high level competition. Also, tournaments with high level competition are

staged throughout the country, requiring teams to travel from coast to coast for playing

opportunities. Next, players who excel in the sport of soccer are invited to play, not only for

their local clubs, but also for regional and national teams. These teams may have international

travel demands associated with them. As one can see, travel demands require much more than

just time, the demands also require financial resources. As Côté and colleagues point out, “later

years [of sport participation] were characterized by…the parents role [being] more restricted,

consisting mainly of financial support.” (2003, p. 106). It is important during this time frame,

that parent are willing to spend money to see their child succeed. Without financial support, a

player may never be able to reach optimal levels of performance. In addition, by financially
backing the child, a parent can show emotional support by demonstrating that they a fully

committed to seeing their child succeed.

In the end, many influences can affect whether or not a athlete can reach expert levels of

performance. Starting at an early age, parents must encourage their children to play sports. If a

child ever wants to reach elite levels, the athlete must be willing to spend an enormous amount of

time practicing and perfecting their skills. As a parent, a child must feel as though they want to

practice, a trait that may be difficult if the child is not as naturally gifted. In early stages,

encouragement of children is critically important if a child is going to continue to focus on

sports. As a child gets older, practice demands become more time consuming. Here, a parent

must be advised about the time that their child spends practicing a given sport. As practice

increases, both physical and mental stress/fatigue increases as well. Having influence over their

child’s practice schedule can help assure that “burnout” does not occur for the athlete. Lastly, a

parents final obligation to their child-athlete involves become both mentally and financially

committed to their child’s sporting interests. Not only does the athlete have to make sacrifices to

obtain expert levels of performance, parents must be fully committed, as well. All in all, by

creating a positive atmosphere around sport, by being invested financially and mentally, and by

supporting a child’s practice/playing, a parent can greatly influence whether or not a youth

athlete can reach elite levels.

References

Côté, J., Baker, J. & Abernethy, B. (2003). From Play to Practice: A Developmental Framework

for the Acquisition of Expertise in Team Sports. In J.L. Starkes & K.A. Ericsson (Eds.).
 Expert Performance in Sports: Advances in Research on Sport Expertise. (p. 90-113).

United States: Human Kinetics.

Ericsson, K.A., Krampe, R.T. & Tesch-Rӧmer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the

acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363-406.

Janelle, C.M., & Hillman, C.H. (2003). Expert Performance in Sport: Current Perspectives and

Critical Issues. In J.L. Starkes & K.A. Ericsson (Eds.). Expert Performance in Sports:

Advances in Research on Sport Expertise. (p. 19-47). United States: Human Kinetics.