It’s important to make sure a young child’s first introduction to sport and physical activity must be an enjoyable one, where they feel invigorated, excited and happy.

Young children engage with sport and physical activity when:

• it’s enjoyable and allows them to play with their friends
• the adults involved are supportive and offer encouragement
• they’re in an environment where they’re improving and gaining mastery in their chosen activity.

If these very basic and fundamental needs are overlooked, there’s a chance that they’ll disengage with sport and physical activity.

Listen to the children in the video below to hear about what they get from playing football.

The balance between mastery and competition is also a critical one for young players.

A mastery environment will begin to meet their needs as they will feel competent and confident when engaging in sport in this way. This is not to say that competition isn’t important, it is, but this aspect must be carefully managed by the adults so that the children benefit from this involvement.

In general, there may be two environments that develop due to the attitudes of the adults involved - a mastery environment and a performance-oriented environment.

The mastery environment will:

• focus on individual improvement and learning
• reinforce the notion that effort and cooperation leads to success.

A performance-oriented environment places more emphasis on:

• outcomes and measures (for example, winning and test scores)
• comparing performance to others.

A mastery environment can bring greater engagement and positive benefits children, so it’s important to remember this as training turns into competitive games, league tables, points and increasing pressure to perform.

For the long-term benefit that lifelong engagement with sport and physical activity can bring, it’s important to provide the most memorable experience possible.

Alongside this, you can role model how competition can still be enjoyed and help your young players deal with winning or losing, playing well or playing poorly with dignity, respect and sportsmanship.

What do your players think of your training sessions? What do you do to make sure they’re engaged and enjoying football? Let us know in the comments below.