My kid’s becoming a junior football star – should they drop their other sports?
- Written by: Weekend Times
Picture this: your sports-loving 12-year-old has started showing some promise at Australian rules football.
Not only are they now pleading to stay up later on Thursday and Friday evenings to
watch games, but your weekends are fast becoming filled with car trips, the packing and unpacking of footy bags and cold mornings spent supporting from the sidelines.
Then one day, a state-based talent development academy invites them to attend a pre-season training camp in summer.
What was once a winter passion may soon become a year-round sport, leaving you pondering several questions:
what’s the best way to support their ambitions?
how can you help them juggle their workload?
how young is too young for a child to focus solely on one sport?
Thankfully, sports science research has answered these tough questions.
How early is too early to specialise?
We’ve all heard the proverb “practice makes perfect”. Perhaps we should dig a little deeper and ask: is the acquisition of skill actually proportional to the time invested in its practice?
At first, it may seem logical to assume young athletes need to start practising as early as possible if they want to excel.
But is this the case?
A recent systematic review found most professional and Olympic-level athletes engaged in multiple sport activities during their youth. The athletes, put simply, diversified their sporting experiences.
And that’s not where the story ends. The authors also noted youths who specialised faced increased risks of injury compared to those who played multiple sports.
So the evidence suggests children should look to delay sporting specialisation for as long as possible.
What’s the best practice?
Influential youth sport expert Jean Côtè and colleagues have long emphasised the importance of sporting diversification early in life.
This has culminated in what they’ve termed the “developmental model of sport participation”.
This model is broken into three general stages:
the sampling years (between ages 6-12): when children enjoy a wide variety of sporting experiences
the specialising years (13-15): a progressive increase in focus on the deliberate practice of two or three sports
the investment years (16 years and above): characterised by more deliberately focusing on one or two sports.
While quite generalised, there has been a growing amount of research supporting this model over the years.
So, in order to best support youth athletes’ sporting ambitions, it seems encouraging sporting diversification, especially before the age of 16, is the best option.
What about workload concerns?
The challenge of juggling multiple sports across the year can lead to youth burnout: a chronic state of emotional and physical exhaustion that can develop when the demands of sport, and life, outweigh a young person’s capacity to cope. Burnout is rarely sudden – it is often preceded by a period of overload, where a child or adolescent has been stretched too thin.
This imbalance between demands and recovery can show up in subtle but telling ways: more frequent injuries, recurring illness, disrupted sleep and general fatigue.
So it’s vital to ensure your emerging athlete doesn’t overdo things.
The Australian Sports Commission recommends that hours spent in organised sport each week (training and competition) should not exceed an athlete’s age. Going back to our 12-year-old, this means keeping training to around 12 hours per week as an upper limit to reduce the risk of things like burnout, injury and illness.
If their club or coach wants them to do more than these recommendations, parents should ask why.
Be aware if your youngster’s training load suddenly spikes – this can increase injury risk.
Monitoring and paying attention to the warning signs is essential. Red flags include things like illness, fatigue, poor sleep and changes in appetite – all of which may indicate workload is too high.
Parents should know it’s OK to miss the odd training session – or even a game – if they see these red flags. Instead, prioritise sleep and a balanced diet to help recovery.
However, it’s also important to build resilience, which is where strength (or resistance) training can be beneficial, if prescribed by an appropriately certified practitioner.
Resistance training is safe from age seven, and has been shown to reduce injury risk by up to 68%, while also improving performance, health outcomes and physical literacy (the skills, motivation and knowledge to be active in life).
Read more: Is it OK for kids to lift weights? At what age and how heavy? Here’s what parents need to know
Dedicating even one of those 12 weekly hours to developing movement competency and strength may be a key part of a workload management plan.
The best path
Many sports-loving youngsters dream of becoming a professional athlete. An opportunity to join a team at a higher level is exciting, but there are things to be aware of, especially with younger athletes.
Remember, a greater focus on one sport is not always better – encourage your youngster to continue sampling multiple activities through their youth.
In the end, it’s crucial to find the right mix of training, recovery and play to keep young athletes healthy, developing and enjoying sport.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
