In The Balance: Sport vs Non-Sport Active Programs
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Focus
Being Active is Crucial, and Sports are a Powerful place to be challenged, motivated and grow. But have we got the focus wrong?
Summary
Everything from the length of shorts, to kids being too soft is blamed on why the dropout rates of sport are so high in young people, and everyone is trying to fix it. But should we? What’s beneath all this?
- Up to 70% of kids leave sport by the age of 13, and 87% want to be active but just not in sport,
- Kids want their activities to be about fun and learning, but sport is valuable and serves a critical purpose,
- To encourage long term participation, we need to build foundations of confidence and resilience in active programs which are not sport,
Kids Are Turning From Sport
Sport is amazing. It’s unparalleled as a place for us to work together, to strive through competition and achieve astounding feats. But we need to stop pretending it’s something it isn’t.
- Sport is a meritocracy by nature,
- Up to 70% of kids stop sports by the time they turn 13,
- 87% of young people want to join programs which are active,, fun, but social and individual in nature, called “active recreation
Sport is a meritocracy. It’s a place for the best at the sport to emerge. That means competition, fierceness and comparison by nature. That’s just not everyone’s idea of a good, or even worthwhile, time. But we keep trying to force kids to participate, even though dropout rates are higher than ever, with up to 70% of kids stopping sports by the time they turn 13, with a large disparity towards young women and girls,
This is compared with a staggering 87% who say they want to participate in non-competitive, individual and social pursuits. This is a category known as “active recreation”. It’s not that kids don’t want to be active, or be challenged, or to move, it’s that we’re pushing them in the wrong direction.
Instead of investing in active recreation programs though, we keep trying to figure out how to change sports, or change young people, until they fit with one another. But if we want young people to participate in sport and for it to be meaningful we have to first meet their needs.
What Are Kids Looking For In Their Programs
Kids and young people know exactly what they want from their physical programs and we need to listen to them better.
- Kids want their programs to be fun and social above all else,
- Winning and competition are very low on the list,
- Adapting sport isn’t the answer, but creating new programs,
When it comes to the reasons kids want to join programs, the very first in every study comes up as FUN. Second and third are typically a place to make new friends and a place to learn new things. About 43rd is beating other people and even later than that is winning trophies.
Kids want to be social and to be challenged, but they don’t care about competition. So many sports these days are shedding their competitive elements, removing the “winning” aspects, but once that’s gone, sports lose their measure of success.
So we’re left with a choice. Either we listen to young people and start creating new programs and more opportunities for them to be active and social without competition and judgement, or we keep trying to adapt sport until it’s unrecognisable.
Strong Foundations Lead To Better Sport
By building up resilience we can help young people to be better prepared for sport, and also to have better self awareness of what they want.
- Resilience builds a desire for challenge and excellence,
- Sport can be a destination for those with these desires,
- Active recreation programs are the best places to build foundations,
Getting kids into sport is about helping them believe in themselves first, building self esteem and resilience and tolerance to failure. With this will come a hunger for greater and greater challenges, and a desire for excellence.
This is when sports can become a destination. We build up first a desire to be active, and a confidence in ourselves that we’re capable and worthy of being fit and strong, and then naturally young people will want to find places where people feel the same.
This is best achieved through active recreation programs, either as a place to build foundation skills, or as a complementary program.
Conclusion
Young people are driven to be active, and want to challenge themselves and be social. But sport isn’t the best first answer, or even an answer for so many young people.
Forcing young people into sport before they’re ready, or when their desire for active living lies in individual pursuits, has the very real risk of damaging their self esteem, their self worth and their love of movement and activity.
Richard Williams
Risky Kids Founder, Director of Programming
Richard Williams is a fitness industry consultant, gym owner, business coach and professional stunt actor with more than a decade of experience in the health and fitness industry. With an education in psychology and criminology, Richard blended life experience as a fitness industry consultant with Spartan Race, gym owner, elite-obstacle racer, ultra-runner and professional stunt actor to create the Risky Kids program.
Richard has a passion for enacting meaningful social change through all avenues of health and wellbeing and believes that obstacles are the way. Some of Richard’s key achievements include:
- Key consultant/coordinator Spartan Race/Tough Mudder/Extreme Endurance
(Australia/NZ/Global) - OCR World Championship Finalist – Team & Solo (2015)
- OCR World Championship Silver Medallist – Team Endurance (2018)
- Professional film and television stunt performer for 15 years
Considered one of Australia’s foremost experts in the fields of fitness, wellbeing and behavioural science, Richard is frequently in demand as a guest speaker for relevant government and non-
government bodies and organisations. Speaking engagements centred on the success of the Risky Kids program, philosophy and approach have included:
- Expert speaker/panellist Sports & Camp; Recreation Victoria and Outdoors Victoria forums
- Closing expert speaker at the Australian Camps Association National Conference
- Expert speaker at the National Fitness Expo, FILEX
