Meaningfulness in Youth Sport: Ensuring a place for every child

Déirdre NiChronin

This blog provides an overview of pedagogies that prioritize meaningful experiences for young sports participants. Meaningful experiences are those that the participant identifies as personally significant. These experiences can be negative or positive. Some of the features that children have identified as enhancing the meaningfulness of their sport experiences include being with friends, having fun, feeling competent, and feeling like the challenge is ‘just right’. The more experiences children have that match their participation preferences, the more likely they will stay involved. Sometimes, individuals may drop out of a sport because their experiences are not a good match for the aspects of sport that they are personally drawn to. For example, if activities are overly competitive or if most attention is given to the more skilled children, others who do not fit in these categories may disengage or drop out.  

A focus on meaningfulness attends to the quality of experience of each individual, endeavouring to help every child have a positive and enriching experience that they seek out and invest in as a part of daily life. Following these five principles can help you coach in ways that facilitate meaningful experiences: 

1. Foster AUTHENTIC RELATIONSHIPS with each child. Get to know each individual. Know their name, what they enjoy and what is important to each child. 

2. Develop a CULTURE OF BELONGING. Building a strong sense of community supports children to develop a sense of belonging in the activity. Be intentional in promoting social interaction between players and opportunities for team bonding.  

3. Use competition in an INCLUSIVE AND EVEN-HANDED way, for example promoting personal bests and offering choices to engage in competitive/ non-competitive activities. Sometimes, more can be lost than gained for children when competition is over-emphasised.  

4. Be a POSITIVE coach. Remember, “A good coach can change a game, a great coach can change lives” (John Wooden). A positive culture is important for motivation, engagement, and sustained participation. Giving children ownership involves including children in decisions about their participation, asking for their ideas, and giving them opportunities to shape what happens in activities.   

5. Be a REFLECTIVE coach. Regularly reflecting on experiences and coaching practice supports you to be mindful of your influence: “Ten years of coaching without reflection is simply one year of coaching repeated ten times” (Gilbert & Trudel, 2006). Reflecting during sessions can involve noticing the body language, mood, and commitment of players. Reflection after a session, for example with participants, parents, or other coaches, can help plan toward experiences that work best for all individuals in the group.  

Meaningfulness in Youth Sport project (MiYS) is an Erasmus+ funded project. The partners are Mary Immaculate College, Ireland, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Goce Delcev University, Republic of North Macedonia, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Norway and Brock University, Canada. More details on MiYS is available at Website: https://www.mic.ul.ie/research/research-at-mic/research-projects/meaningfulness-in-youth-sport-miys?index=0 Twitter: @in_miys

In the coming weeks, we will share several posts written by participating coaches and their experiences of prioritizing meaningfulness in youth sport.