Winning in sports should not be the most important thing for a child; competition should be a means of education, because that is how children learn about themselves and others, monitor their own progress and the level of skills they have achieved, socialize, have fun, and enjoy sports.
She said this, among other things, in an interview for "Vijesti". Ljubica Bacanac, sports psychologist, full professor at the Faculty of Sports Management, University of "Donja Gorica" (UDG) in Podgorica.
Bačanac entered the world of sports psychology in 1976, retired in 2012, but has not left sports to this day, and for over 30 years, and even today, she is an active competitor in orienteering.
"The theory of sports psychology offers a lot, but practice offers even more, and when you combine these two approaches in the best way, you are far better equipped with psychological tools whose effectiveness has been personally tested and confirmed," he says.
Bačanac has published more than 100 papers in sports psychology, and has dedicated a good part of her professional career to children's and youth sports, so she gladly accepted an invitation for an interview on the topic:
"We are all obligated to enable children to grow healthily through sport and gain the most beautiful experiences from it."
The educational potential of sport
Sport plays an invaluable and multifaceted role in the lives of children and young people, she says.
"Not only because it is a prerequisite for their proper and healthy psychophysical growth and development, but above all, because it possesses enormous educational potential."
He adds that youth sports have not been given the professional and media attention they deserve, that in this region we are still lagging behind in that regard, but that this has been changing in the world since the 1970s.
"Numerous research is being launched in the United States that has attempted to provide answers to many questions and needs of sports practice, in which there has been a chronic lack of real information that would help provide child athletes with a more positive and productive sports experience and elevate work with them to a higher professional and pedagogical level."
Bačanac says that sport in itself is neither good nor bad, nor is playing sports positively or negatively associated with a positive or negative impact on the bio-psycho-social development of the participants. Whether its undoubtedly enormous educational potential will be utilized, she adds, depends on how it is led by adult experts and how much they are helped or hindered in the process by sports parents:
"Do they recognize it as a powerful educational tool or do they believe that victory and results (even for children under 12) are the only measures of its success?"
The interviewee of "Vijesti" says that parents, as well as the state, benefit greatly from children's participation in sports:
"Parents, because they are more relaxed and know that their children are safe, that they are safe, that they are learning and having fun under the supervision of adult experts, and that they themselves share more of their sports experience with them. A responsible state understands that playing sports is an excellent preventive measure for reducing health care costs not only for the state's health system, but also for the families of young people."
Victories are important to parents.
When asked about the psychological challenges children face when they start training, Bačanac explains that the development of motivation for achievement, competition, and interest in sports occurs somewhat in parallel and through three phases.
"Researchers say that children up to the age of four are primarily focused on personally mastering motor skills that are important to them, such as riding a tricycle or scooter, and they are not at all interested in others, nor do they have the need to compare themselves and compete with them," he says.
Psychologists call this phase the phase of autonomous competence, explains Bačanac, adding that already at the age of five, this phase is replaced by the phase of "social comparison" - then children are focused on directly comparing their knowledge, abilities and skills with other children (and even adults), trying to compete with them and be faster, more agile, stronger, more capable than them.
That is precisely the time, she said, when children's interest in sports grows and, according to the research she worked on, children's massive entry into sports begins.
"From the age of five to ten, when the period of the most massive entry of children into sports 'ends', many encounter various forms of competition that, in terms of content, goals or method of organization, are not adapted to their level of maturity, psychological needs or the principles of long-term sports development," says the interviewee of "Vijesti" and adds that it is precisely such competitions that are not aligned with the psychological maturity of children and that overemphasize the value of victory and the pressure (mainly from parents) to achieve it, that become a source of great stress:
"Because most children (only three or three teams are winners) come out of them with experiences of failure, they begin to doubt their personal and sporting competence, feel that they have disappointed their parents and coaches, and so they conclude that it is best to leave the sport."
Children should be taught that defeats, as an integral part of competition, are just as important as victories, and that there is much to learn from them, says Bačanac:
"They indicate what needs to be worked on more, how to react to one's own mistakes and accept them as necessary components of future sporting success."
Learning about yourself and others
When asked what the solution is, Bačanac says that competitions for children should not be organized according to the model of those for adults, in which winning is the only and most important thing:
"Both parents and coaches must understand that competitions for children must be a means of education, learning about themselves and others, for monitoring their own progress and level of achieved skills, for socializing and having fun, for enjoying the game/performance."
This way, she said, the children won't feel like losers, regardless of the fact that they didn't beat their rivals:
"They will feel successful if they have gained new experiences, new friends, if their coaches and parents point out to them that they played/performed well, that they are progressing, and that they have shown good sportsmanship and fair play behavior during the match."
Bačanac also cites a third, "integral" phase in the development of competition and achievement in children and explains that it includes the first two - autonomous achievement and competition with oneself and comparison and competition with others.
This, according to her, is also the most desirable phase, because children, especially athletes, learn when it is appropriate and desirable to compete and compare themselves with others, and when it is more desirable to adopt personal benchmarks of success and primarily focus on personal progress in mastering various skills and tasks.
Professional path
Bačanac entered the world of sports psychology almost 50 years ago.
"After I was working on my graduate thesis in social psychology on the influence of likes and dislikes on competition and cooperation between people, my professor recommended that I apply for a job at the Sports Psychology Laboratory at the Yugoslav Institute for Physical Culture and Sports Medicine. And so began my discovery of sports psychology, its specificities, its then-current possibilities and its usefulness for improving the competitive achievements of athletes of all ages and levels."
The sports system in the former Yugoslavia, she adds, was organized differently than it is today, and a lot of attention was paid to sports psychology, which was adequately accepted by other sports experts, especially educated coaches who worked with national or club teams.
She decided to work with children and young people after less than 10 years of work on describing, explaining, predicting and controlling the behavior of top athletes and working on their psychological preparation.
"I realized that most of their confusion and inadequate behavior in competitions stems from negative experiences gained at the very beginning of their sports."
The key to eliminating problems in the later stages of their sports careers, he adds, is in changing the approach to children's and youth sports.
At first, she did not have the expected support and understanding from either her coaches or parents, who were convinced that victories and placements, even at the earliest ages, were the basic goals and measures of success for young athletes, an indicator of their talent and a key factor in predicting their future sports careers.
However, she was persistent and today she says that this persistence bore fruit.
"More and more young, educated coaches and parents who wanted to 'play their part well' are starting to look at children's sports differently, trying to ensure that their children, even though most will not reach elite levels, receive many benefits from sports that will make them and their lives more productive, mature and satisfied."
Teachers from the first grade
Bačanac believes that it would be desirable for elementary school students to have physical education teachers in school even before the fifth grade, and this proposal, he adds, is based on research into the ages at which children enter sports and under whose influences they do so.
"A 2005 study shows that 73,7 percent of our children enter sports between the ages of five and ten, and a 2013 study shows that 86,4 percent of children do so, which means that our children are entering sports earlier and earlier - at ages when they are not yet ready for highly organized sports programs whose main goal is early identification of talents, intensive training, competition according to the adult model, and early specialization."
Motivation and interests at these early ages, says Bačanac, are better suited to sports programs rich in free play and fun, because, he explains, it is only at the ages of 10 to 12 that children reach the level of development of cognitive capacities (attention, thinking, reasoning) that allows them to maturely understand the competitive process, understand other people's points of view, their own role and the roles of other team members.
That's why he recommends the Canadian Model of Long-Term Sports Development with seven sequential phases, which, he says, is aligned with the physical, cognitive and emotional development of children, and begins with the "active start" phase and, for most children who don't see themselves at the elite level, ends with the "active for life" phase.
It is not surprising, says the interviewee of "Vijesti", that research shows that when asked who influenced their decision to play sports, children most often attribute this decision to themselves (79 percent), the influence of their parents (11,7 percent), peers (7 percent) and 3,6 percent to their physical education teachers.
"Based on this data, many were ready to 'condemn' physical education teachers for not having a greater impact, forgetting that they come onto the scene after most children have already started playing sports. That is why we believe that this picture can and should be improved by engaging physical education teachers from the first grade of elementary school, and not only from the fifth grade, when it is already too late," he says, adding that by then many children have already left sports because they have other interests or have had a negative experience while playing sports.
Adults responsible for early retirement from sports
In the US, 75 percent of children who start sports early leave by the age of 15, and half by the age of 12. The interviewee of "Vijesti" says that similar data does not exist for Montenegro and Serbia.
Commenting on the large dropout rate of children from sports, she says that parents and coaches are most responsible for this.
"Parents, because they often lose sight of the fact that they are choosing a sport for their child, not for themselves," she says, adding that parents often forget that their children's motives for playing sports are different from their own, that their children want to socialize, have fun, make friends, and simply love sports. For parents, the motive is often winning and achieving top results.
Bačanac says that, although their behavior does not confirm it, all parents wish their children athletes all the best and that they do so out of ignorance.
That's why, he says, education is important.
When she talks about the reasons why young athletes leave sports because of coaches, she says it's because some of them don't match sports programs and competitions to the children's abilities:
"There is no room for play, fun and enjoyment in them. Coaches primarily use a negative approach in their communication with athletes (with a lot of criticism, punishment, discouragement and humiliation) and of course, glorifying victory, resort to various forms of unfair treatment," she said, adding that coaches sometimes do not respect the rules of "equal playing time" for all children under the age of 12, thus denying them the opportunity to learn through competitions, have fun and make their contribution, rather than sitting on the bench as "less talented" and watching only those who the coach believes can bring victory play.
Coaches, says Bačanac, play a key role in developing children's sporting abilities, but their educational role is equally important.
"Which is often neglected and unrecognized in our country. A coach is not only a teacher of sports skills, but also an educator, a pedagogue who guides children through the most sensitive periods of their development."
Bačanac says that parents and coaches are the most important adults in every athlete's life and that both must properly understand their roles and responsibilities:
"To play them well and thus enable children and young people to transfer positive experiences, sports and social skills from sports to all other areas of life in adulthood."
There is also violence.
Bačanac has also published several works on the topic of violent behavior towards and among children and young people in sports, and this topic, in terms of prevention, is particularly important to her.
One of the earlier studies she worked on showed that some sports participants believe that violence and aggression are an inevitable part of sport, that they are a function of the game, that they contribute to its attractiveness, viewership, and appeal to the media...
A survey of 3.000 sports participants, among other things, showed that around 35 percent of young athletes (average age 13) and 38,7 percent of older athletes (average age 18) had experienced violence from another sports participant at least once.
The most prevalent form of violence against athletes is emotional violence - mockery, insults, swearing, and the use of derogatory words, followed by physical violence, where punishment through additional exercise is dominant, which, according to Bačanac, is the favorite "educational measure" of over 70 percent of coaches.
"They are not aware of how much using additional exercise as physical punishment is a wrong pedagogical measure, how much it undermines and destroys the true motivation of all athletes and represents the first step towards definitively abandoning sports," says the interviewee of "Vijesti".
As factors contributing to violence in sports, match-fixing, poor refereeing, and money - the pursuit of greater profits and earnings - were singled out.
"Does this data lead you to the conclusion that today, almost 20 years later, at least something has changed," asks Bačanac.
In order to prevent violence, she adds, the participants in the research, among other things, suggested tightening the penal policy, but also promoting the positive values of sport through the media and using successful and popular athletes as role models and promoters of good sports behavior.
Coaches, sports officials and sports journalists are of the opinion that strict compliance with existing laws and regulations should be ensured, and closer cooperation should be established between sports organizations, the police and the judiciary.
From today's perspective, with the aim of preventing violence, Bačanac asks whether sports federations in Montenegro, that is, all clubs, sports schools... are familiar with the Charter of Children's Rights in Sport, whether they have adopted and signed the charter:
"Can we agree on the following statements: children are primary, victory is secondary; sports should serve children, not children serving sports. If your answer is "yes", then we are on the right track."
“Wandering” is normal
It is completely normal for children not to immediately find themselves in one sport, says the interviewee of "Vijesti":
"In practice, I have often met parents who are concerned that their children are 'wandering' from sport to sport, not finding the one that suits them best. I always tell them that such behavior in children is normal and justified, because they are looking for the sport, environment, company or coach that best suits their nature, meets their needs, interests, motives and expectations."
He adds that research shows that more than 50 percent of young athletes, before settling on their current one, "tried" at least two or more other sports.
"Instead of panicking because their child hasn't discovered their sport yet, parents should accept that their children should choose the sport they like the most, not the one that is currently the most popular, makes the most money, or seems like the best choice to them (the parents)."
They can be helped in their choice by sports experts, what their children tell them, and they can also rely on their own observations obtained by observing their child's behavior in different situations - does he like to play alone or is he attracted to team games, does he enjoy games/activities that require precision, patience, perseverance or those that require speed, action...
Bonus video:
