The Young Athletes' Perspective - 'A conversation with Graham Turner'

In this episode Australian Institute of Sport Athlete Development Senior Lead Graham Turner joins Gordon MacLelland to discuss his latest book 'The Young Athlete's Perspective.'

This book features six stories told by young athletes about their talent development experiences in sport. Each young athlete tells a personal story. They describe their own individual set of circumstances and provide a personal perspective that has been shaped by living in contemporary times.

These unique stories are shared in the hope that they may support coaches and parents to better connect with the young athlete’s perspective. When considered together, these individual insights confirm the essence of the talent development experience, and they reveal what every parent and coach supporting and developing the young athlete needs to know.

During the conversation they discuss amongst other things:

• Understanding the mentality of young people
• Working closely to understand your own child (they are all different)
• The importance of hard work and making the most from the whole sporting experience
• Helping our children to trust themselves and find environments that allow them to thrive
• The importance of positive relationships between the key people around young people
• Creating an environment for genuine, authentic conversations
• Impression management and how information is perceived by all involved
• The importance of parental role-modelling and walking the walk

Graham works for the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) as Athlete Development Senior Lead, supporting National Sporting Organisations to establish world’s best High-Performance Pathways that identify, develop, and progress talented athletes to achieve medal winning performances.

 Graham's career in athlete development and talent pathways began in professional football at Wolverhampton Wanderers where he worked under former England National Coach Graham Taylor. He then went on to work for Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Crewe Alexandra, Leeds United and Bradford City. His subsequent experience includes research, design & implementation of National Strategy for Talent Development, (PE & Sport Strategy for Young People UK); design, delivery & evaluation of Coach Education, (Leeds Beckett University), Founder Member & Director on the Inaugural Board of the UK Strength & Conditioning Association; Coach & Athlete Development Consultant (Skill & Behaviour) for the Northern Territory Institute of Sport (AU) and National Elite Coaching Manager for Gymnastics Australia. Graham holds a PhD in Talent Development in Sport.

Additional Reading

The best and worst of being a sports parent

How can you help motivate your children when it comes to their sport?

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:13

Welcome to season five of the Parents in Sport Podcast. I am your host, Gordon Maclelland, and I'm delighted to be joined today by Athlete Development Consultant at the Australian Institute of Sport and author Graham Turner. Graham, thank you for joining us on the show.

Speaker 0:30

Hi, Gordon. Thanks for having me. It's really I've really been looking forward to doing this, actually, because I know that you're doing some great work. And so it's great to be able to connect and see if I can contribute. Yeah, thanks, Graeme.

Speaker 1 0:40

And such a key topic that we're going to be talking about today. You know, there's lots in the in the world and in the media around the athlete's voice and the athlete's perspective and what that means for adults, um, I guess involved in the sporting uh experience. Um, just before we get into that, can you just tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your background and your story?

Speaker 1:06

Yeah, for sure. Well, um, I started off in in sport actually quite a while ago now, back working for Wolverhampton Wanderers. So that was before the days of the Premier League and academies. That was the old center of excellence. Um, and I was a I was a coach, uh a technical coach, um, dealing with the young schoolboys. So that that could be from eight, nine years old all the way up. Um, and in those days, there weren't such a big array of um specialists. So I actually had a dual role. I was um also the under 18s team physio. Um, so I did that for a few years, and an opportunity came up for me to go in the physiotherapy way. So I then became a first team physio um with uh Carol Alexandra. Um and I I guess you'll get this is a the nature of me. I'm a I've been on a learning journey which is taking me in different directions. So started off technical, went into medical. Actually, um, when the institutes were brought into the UK and they were looking for um quality assurance for strength and conditioning practitioners. Um, I was a founder member of the UK Strength and Condition Association um on the board. And so then went into the field of strength and conditioning, and that allowed me to really branch out into lots of different sports, so Commonwealth Game Sports, Olympic sports, moved up north. Um, and I was at Leeds Beckett University, so I was a senior lecturing sports coaching, introduced to the great game of rugby league there. So, again, different experiences, and then eventually um took a gamble and decided to go for a change of lifestyle, moved out to Australia. Um, and as we know, uh working in high-level elite sport, it's difficult to get in. So I um took a job in the Northern Territory Institute of Sport, right up in the tropics. So that was a fantastic experience out with the regional remote indigenous um communities and their athletes. On the back of that, I got a job as the national elite coaching manager for gymnastics Australia. So there I was working with the four different sports: men's, women's, rhythmic, and trampoline, uh helping them. Um that was around the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games time. And on the back of that, for the last four years now, I've been at the Australian Institute of Sport. Um, and my role is specifically looking at what we call future cycle. So, of course, we've got Paris coming up. Um, my job is to work with sports to help them with their strategy, um, look at the way that they're developing their athletes for specifically the LA games and of course Brisbane 2032, which that being a home game for Australia, a real big emphasis on that for us to do as well as we can.

Speaker 1 3:48

Yeah, amazing stuff. I mean, you've certainly got a busy time in Australia uh over the next few years, and certainly with the football that's just been there. You've got some pretty cool uh events coming up. Nice to hear. Um, also there, a couple of the the partners that we work with. You know, one of my favourite days is going to Wolverhampton Wanderers every year, and it's it's great to work with um Gymnastics Australia. Um, I mean, we're here to talk today. I mean, I'm I'm really interested in the SNC work and uh and also the work that you did up in the uh Northern Territories to see if that was any different to maybe in the in the mainstream cities. But we're here to talk about you know the young athlete's perspective. And you've written uh uh a fantastic book on it, which uh which I did find really um enlightening. Tell us all about it.

Speaker 4:37

Yeah, well, I've always been interested in in the youth development space with a young athlete. Um, back in the day when I was an undergrad, it was the days, as I say, before the elite um Premier League Academies, it was when Lidishall had a national school, and they used to take people like Michael Owen for a couple of years and they they'd go and work there. And that's where I first did my first look at the young athlete for my undergrad. Um, and being able to work in that space um went on. I qualified as a PE teacher first, and of course, got my coaching badge, and then um did a master's in sport and exercise science. And uh, I guess I thought I I knew quite a bit about it. Um but of course, when you get your own children, you start to see a totally different side to things. So this is where obviously connects with your work. Um, and so I've I've learned a hell of a lot from my children. Um, and so with the book, the main inspiration for this was um my son Elliot. Um, he's a typical young lad growing up, football mad. Um, and he wasn't bad, you know. He he uh he did have scouts looking at him and he got signed. Um, we were living up in Leeds and he we stayed local, had it he had a great experience. He signed for Bradford City as uh an under nine. Anyways, going through going through the years, and he got to about 12, 13, and uh his coaches said to him, Yeah, you're doing okay, but you know, big big year next year, you're gonna need to make sure you keep fit in the summer. So by this stage, I'd work with a lot of different teams, sports, athletes, and I thought, you know, this is perfect for you, son. I'm the I'm the expert, I can uh give you exactly what you need. So I'll take you out uh and show you how to get fit. So I introduced my son to interval training, and very early on in the interval training, um, he said, I'm not doing another one. I was like, you know, typical uh parent. Come on, son, just focus, do you get your breathing right, you'll be able to do it. Anyway, he did it. Um and then he got up when he when he got his breath back, he got up and he said, Um, I'm never doing that again. Um you know, he's a 13-year-old. He's just he like he gets his fun out of running around, kicking a ball, being with his mates. So, anyway, we get back in the car, and I'm sure that you spend a lot of time talking about this the car journey, you know. So this time um it was the opposite way around because I had a chat with my son, um, giving him um my best advice, but then he gave me his best advice. And what and what he said to me, and this is what sticks with me, is that you just don't understand the mentality of a 13-year-old. And I guess I had a choice then, didn't I? I had a choice. I could either say to him, No, you need to think about it like this, or I could actually invite myself to see, well, what does that actually mean? What does it look like? So I stood back from that. I didn't speak to him, and I was at the stage where I had the opportunity to take my academic studies further, and I decided, you know what? I'm actually gonna look at this. Um, I'm gonna look at it through a PhD study. So I didn't do a PhD on my son. He's probably very thankful for that. Um, I decided I wanted to look at the experience of young people. And in fact, that word mentality is an interesting word because you'll often see it in interviews. Um, in high professional, you know, high-performance sport, lots of different coaches and managers, they talk about the mentality of the athlete, the mentality of the player, whether it's a girl or a boy. In actual fact, mentality isn't something that's um measured psychologically. It all that it means is the way that someone interprets and responds. So I was looking to find out, okay, so we've got our perspective on this experience and how it should look, what should be done, but actually, what's that like for the young person? And I had a few sports who were really keen for me to look at it in their sport, but I actually said, no, this isn't actually for the sport, and this isn't about the sport, this is for the young person. Because I I started with a belief that if we can actually get on the same page with a young person and we can understand how they feel, what they think would work for them, how it would be different if they got to have some input into it, then wouldn't that benefit us all? So I actually didn't go with any specific sport. I got a group of young people, um, boys and girls, different sports, and met them. Of course, as soon as they met me, um, they didn't really know me, took them a bit of time to get to know me. Um, but what I had to be really clear to them was look, I'm not doing a study about talent development. I'm I'm doing a study about the experience of the young person in the talent development program. So, actually, I'm not gonna make any judgments about why you're here, how did you get here, how good are you, what's your potential, where will you end up? And I'm actually not gonna even worry about that. We're just gonna see what is it like right now for you in this experience? What are the challenges, what are the disappointments, what really motivates you, who's helping, who's getting in the way? So, um, you know, we talk about a PhD, don't we? And uh, we may think, well, there's obviously a sophisticated methodology going on. Well, I had the idea for a sophisticated methodology, but the kids kind of told me that that wasn't very good. So I went back to the drawing board and said to them, so you tell me what's the best way for me to learn about this? And I got some really simple advice. Why don't you just um come and see what we do and ask us about it? And so that's that's the way it went. And I kind of entered, I was really fortunate in terms of um my my we were in the middle of emigrating, so my family moved over to Australia but left me behind. We thought that'd be a really good plan to help me with with data collection. Um, and so I entered the the world of the young person, which of course is I send an email for them to arrange to meet me. They don't do emails, so I turn up, they wouldn't be there. Um, ironically, ethical approval said you're not allowed to communicate with under 18s on their phones. Um, but if they did open the email, guess what? They opened it on the phone anyway. So uh I must admit, we they started to contact me on the phone, and because what happened is um I'd have say I would have a meeting with them and they'd say, Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, I've got a trial tonight. Um, you know, we were in in one part of the country, might be an hour and a half drive away, and they'd say, Oh, do you want to come? You know, just the young persons, they're thinking, like, this is what happens, this is what we're gonna do. And what I started to do was respond um to these just really quick, dynamic kind of world world that they live in. So it'd be like, Yeah, I'll come, get in the car, off we go. Another time I might have a text on a Sunday morning. Oh, I forgot to tell you, um, I've got a game this morning. It's two hours away, but you can come if you want. I'd I'd be there, I'd say, I'll get on, I'll get in the car and I'll come. So, what I used to do was go along, take a bit of video, um, take some notes, go to different competitions, and then we come back and we'd just have a chat, and I'd be like, Well, what was going on there? And I wasn't trying to um add any expertise to the conversation, I wasn't trying to tell them what they should have done or what they shouldn't have done or give them feedback on what was good. I was just saying, I just want to know uh what was going on there, what was that like? How are things at the moment? So, anyway, I did the PhD, and here's the problem then, because the purpose was I wanted to do something that I felt could have a real impact to help the experience of young people in these programs. So, of course, the main um people who are really influential and support and important are the coaches and the parents. Now, I do a lot of work with coaches. Obviously, I'm a parent myself, spend a lot of time with parents. Um not many of those people are gonna be reading the PhD. So then you come down to well, what do most people do? Well, they come up with a research article, and for a research article, what you have to do is reduce the information. And my actual results in my PhD, it was a bit of an innovative approach. My results were the stories, so they were the the the words of the young people, and I decided that I didn't want to reduce the story, I didn't want to take away from the words of the young people, I didn't want to put it into my own words, and so I left it for a little while, but it ignored away at me, and I thought, you know what? The best way for me to do this is to self-publish. So I looked into that, looked into how to do it. Um that was interesting again. Um, looked how to do it on Amazon, and that's what I came up with. I actually, after going through all the academic process, I then hired an editor, and I said to the editor, I want you to work with me to make sure that this book is not academic because I wanted it to be user-friendly. And the other thing that I would say is the the advice that I got um about a book is be really clear on your target audience, and I have to say that's a challenge for me. Um and that's because I honestly believe that there's great benefit for coaches and for parents in listening to the stories and and and the wisdom of these young people. But but what I also know is because I work with a lot of high performance coaches, if they if some of them thought that actually this was a book that was targeted for parents, they'd think that it wasn't for them. So there's a deliberate effort for me in terms of when you look at the information around the book, I actually asked the question are you supporting or you're are you helping develop a young athlete? If you are, this is this is the book for you. Um, so yeah, that's what that's what led to the book. Um, and it's been out there now three or four months. Um, and I've been really pleased, really pleased with the feedback.

Speaker 1 14:38

Yeah, I mean, I I I really enjoyed the the read, and uh obviously it's it's certainly in my wheelhouse because a bit like you, I'm right in the middle of all of this. And it it's really interesting listening to you know working with young people today. I think the reality for both of us, and I've certainly found this, is the approach that I took with my children in their younger years was severely outdated. It may have worked for me in the 90s and early 2000s as a coach, but actually I was gonna have to change. I was gonna have to refine what I did. Um, I'm always very open actually about the car journey home because after having the expectations on a six-year-old son that I probably had with elite under 18 um players in those early years, my daughter followed behind. And I said to her one day when she was 10, I said, Right, Pippa, dad's taking you to sport today. I'm really excited. And she said, Well, I'm really excited too, Dad. She said, But there's gonna be no car bossing. And she said, I know that you know something about sport, so I'm happy for a few tips, but you're gonna do it nicely. And it was the best thing that ever happened because at that point, a bit like you had with your son when you're trying to churn out your interval running, which quite honestly none of us like to do, even when we were in decent sport either. So, why a 13-year-old would like it? Um, was that I still managed to probably get across some of the things I wanted to get across. I've just had to do it very differently. I've had to had to fit it into the context of her world, do it at the appropriate time, with in her case, with nobody else around. If it's me and her, it's fine. In front of other people, she doesn't like it. And I think the challenge for all of us, organizations, coaches, and parents is how we make sense of this generation of young people, which are different, they're living in a different age through no fault of their own. There's lots of things that you know, in parents' talks crop up all the time about this generation, how we work with them. Um but also I think the challenge for a lot of coaches and a lot of parents is that's fine, but when do we jump in and overall with we know better because we've been there and done it? Because experience, as you know, is obviously a good thing as well. That's the whole point of being a parent, is you hopefully have some ideas. So um, I think all of that, the stuff that you found is is really incredible from a stories point of view. And I love the fact that the kids just said, or just come along, see what we do, and ask some questions, because that's ultimately when they're happiest, aren't they? Anything formal they find more challenging. So from the stories, and you obviously did a range of sports which you can tell us all about. What were the the the biggest takeaways for you from from hearing from the young people?

Speaker 17:37

The biggest takeaway is well, there's this. If I talk about the essence of their experience, there's two things. Like one is it's hard work. And make no mistake about it, once they start to get into that that pathway, talent development environment, obviously the demands increase, the expectations increase, and the young person buys into that. That they, you know, they they have the dream and they say, right, okay, I know this is going to be difficult, but all right, I'm gonna have a go at it. And so they commit to hard work. Um, and I think one of the things that that came out was they didn't they didn't feel as though that it was always recognized how hard they were working, um, because that's not just within the environment when they're training, it's not just during within games, but it's also it comes to influence every area of their life, you know, people are making decisions about um how they spend their time, um, what they do with their education, and trying to balance that against their sport. So the fact that they were committed and it was really hard work. And then the ultimate, this is the interesting thing. Uh, I find anyway, that there's absolutely no rocket science here whatsoever. These are really obvious things um that are just reinforced to us. And so the experience of young people ultimately is determined by the way that they're treated by the adults who run the program. Um, and I again, in terms of that ambition, long-term aspiration, what we know is even if you succeed at the highest level, there's only one thing that's guaranteed for every athlete, and that's it at some stage you're going to exit the program. So, whether it's going to be as an eight-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 25-year-old who's injured, or a 31-year-old who's had a great career and wants to finish at the top. And so the experiences along the way, the memories that are made, you know, let's face it, as we know, not only is it the minuscule percentage that actually make it to be an elite performer, but it's even less of them who go on to win things. So there's so much investment, so much hard work goes into this. You've got to feel as though you've it's been worth it, um, and you've had a good time. And in terms of, you know, there's a there's a lot of talk about the word sacrifice now, and a lot of athletes saying no, it shouldn't be you shouldn't have to make sacrifices. You should you it should be about choice. It shouldn't be that you've got to necessarily give up things that you that you'd like to be able to do. So though those were the the main two things, the hard work and the nature of the experience.

Speaker 1 20:20

Yeah, I think the the hard work one is is really one to bring out. And I I say this a lot to parents that you know this younger generation today, we talk about them about hard work and patience. The reality is to develop in sport, you need both. Yeah, actually, in their lives at the moment, society's telling them, oh no, no, you can have everything instantly. You know, if I want to buy something, I can hit go on Amazon. If I want to uh order a takeaway, I can hit Uber Eats. And I love the one that Simon Sinek came out with. I don't even now need to build posit uh really deep relationships and learn how to do really bad chat up lines because I can just swipe right or swipe left on a dating app. And and he's absolutely right. So we're trying to obviously we understand commitment, hard work, and things, but actually that messaging for young people can sometimes be a difficult thing to sell for parents and coaches. The nice thing to hear is in the people that you found is that they realized that if they were gonna have a go at it, that they understood that if they were gonna have a go at it, it had to look like that. And I had Rachel Vickery, the the New Zealand international gymnast on the podcast recently, and she said this that yes, they've got a choice, yes, they've got a voice, but actually there's a consequence to that voice as well, because that's what we're there to say. So you can decide to do it, but what you can't have is I want to be this or I want to achieve this, and then maybe the behaviors or the things next to it aren't aligned. And that's probably our role, isn't it? Well, how do we have those discussions with them to? Say, well, yeah, that's fine if that's what you want to do, but it might have an impact here, or it might have an impact here. And we think that it's still ultimately their choice, of course. But it's it's a very hard thing for the adults to manage around it. I include parents and coaches in that.

Speaker 22:16

Yeah, for sure. And I mean that that takes me on really to the to the first story in the book, um, which is called split decision, and that is about a young man who, at the age of 16, arguably, was one of the best athletes in the country. Um, and how do I make that assumption? Well, we talk about sampling, and this was a young person who'd been encouraged to do more than one sport, and by the age of 16, he was still at a really high level in two sports. Um, and I remember when I first sat down with him and he said, Yeah, people always say, which one are you going to choose? And he said, I don't know. I'm just enjoying myself doing both. Um, so I think something will probably happen that'll make that choice for me. So he was um, when I say one of the best athletes in the country, he was a rugby player, and at 16, he was chosen um for the England under 16 rugby side. Um, and he was also a discus thrower and one of the best discus throwers in the country. And up until that age of 16, what he'd been doing was he'd been playing rugby during the winter, and as soon as the rugby season were finished, then he'd get into his discus and he'd start throwing his discus. Um, but of course, what he would find is it was really difficult um at the end of the rugby season to get back into discus with it being such a technical sport, you know, it's all being well, being strong and powerful, but it's really technical. So he would find that he'd lose his technique. By the time his technique was coming back, he's just getting back to the end of the season, and actually, it's time to stop again and go with rugby. So he'd been supported by his parents, which is fantastic, I think, uh, to continue with both. And he got to the under 16 year, and he knew that if he went to the UK schools and if he won the discus, he'd be able to represent GB. So his um aspiration at that age was to get the GB vest. So he made the decision, which was tough, you know, because he's at school and working hard as well. Um, I'm gonna continue training for discus all the way through the winter while I'm still doing rugby. Straight away, of course, uh, we're getting into load management and the dangers of doing too much. And ironically, as you'll know all too well, that's the big danger for the athlete for the good athlete. Because quite often, even if they've got one specialist sport or even two, then they've got the school saying, Oh, yeah, but you're really good at this, come and play this for us. Um, you've got your extra training sessions, could you doing well? You get selected, whether it's for county, and then if it's above, so you've got all these demands going on, and of course, perhaps we might say it was it was inevitable. Um, once he was starting to um ramp up the discus and actually came back into preseason training for rugby, then he ends up getting a bit of a groin strain. Of course, he needs to stop the rugby for a while, and the physio is telling him, Well, look, you need to have a break, you need to have a uh a couple of weeks off. Um, and it was close and it was coinciding with when George would need to go um and compete at the discus. So, anyway, George was really focused and said, Well, I'm gonna need to come back a bit earlier than that because I've got this discus event. And uh, it's one of the quotes in the book. The physio said to him, Well, you'll have to face the consequences of that decision. Um, and so George off he went to the discus, and um he was okay, he'd done the rehab, so it wasn't that he was um injured, uh, competed in discus, won the discus, so he qualified to represent GB. And again, in his words, he was absolutely buzzing. So he's really pumped, he comes back, he goes into training for the first time again at the uh rugby club, and the head of um the program called him in, sat him down, and in his words, gave him a bollocking. Um, and it's really I I find it's a really strong uh section of the book to listen to how George felt about that. Um and again, we come back to the point of guidance and choices. Um, he was getting the messages from the head of the the rugby club, you know, you've got a lot of work to do, you haven't made it, you can't. He was George was picking up that he was pretty average, he was getting the message that it was average and thinking, well, if I'm pretty average, I've just got paid for for pick for England now. So, how does that work? But he was getting given a really hard time, and you shouldn't have gone and done that. Are you serious? Because we're serious about investing in rugby players. If you're not going to be serious, then what's gonna happen? Um, and there could have been a totally different approach taken to that. There could have been a supportive um conversation where some guidance was given. But the result of that um conversation was George went home, spent a couple of days thinking about with his parents, went back in and said, Okay, fair enough. I've decided I'm not gonna play rugby anymore. So there's there's someone um with really good prospects. Um, a really I'm sure that the sport of rugby would have been really keen to keep him in the sport, but that's just an example of how when you come to a crossroads, and that that's why this the story is called split decision. Um, and George said it wasn't that he wasn't enjoying rugby anymore, it's just that it was it was being made too hard where he was. Um, and I get it, you know. Um, sports and programs will say, Well, you know, we've got a program to run, we can't be making all these exceptions. But here's here's a point I'd like to make, and I I think this is relevant to young athletes and their parents to keep in mind. You get selected for a program because you stand out. In other words, you're different, you're unique. There's something different about you and what you can do compared to other athletes, and then you get taken into a program, and all of a sudden, there starts to become a uniform set of standards and expectations that you adhere to. And for me, there's always a bit of an irony there because young athletes can lose um track of what their strength is, what their superpowers are, you know, because there aren't many complete athletes out there. We've all got something we're really good at and something we're not. And in that developmental process, we're encouraged to be able to get better at everything. But I've got a real strong message, which is be really clear about what makes you an individual. To the athlete, trust yourself, back to your own judgment, and find a pathway that supports you to be able to develop in that way because you've got you've got to be able to keep standing out to be able to progress. So, yeah, just to answer your question on the examples of um guidance that can be given and how it worked out in in that one scenario. There's an example of where George chose to uh go down the discus route, um, and it might have gone very easily a different way.

Speaker 1 29:25

Yeah, I mean it's uh it's an incredible story. There's always bits that I guess any of us that have been involved in sport, educationalists, people who've worked with young people that it's always very difficult because you think about when, as you say, when you're running programs and you want it to go well and you want your best players, and you try to do, you know, run the program so everybody's in the same boat. But the reality is everybody's different with different context. And this often crops up around athletes and education, doesn't it? And balancing it. You know, some parents have that choice. Oh, well, do we just give up the sport completely? Well, maybe for an odd child, that might be a good idea at that point in time. For a lot of kids, it's also their pressure release, their friendship group, and actually they would be far better continuing with the sport and doing the work alongside it. The thing that does stick out a lot sometimes is why are people not having better conversations? And I say this in the organizations that I work with: why is the communication between the coach, the program, the parent, and the awareness of the bigger picture of the individual that we're working with not brought more into the forefront? And I agree with you around that individuality that you know, we go into programs and you see them expecting to adhere to the same, I don't know, same traits, I guess, or the same things. Now, some of those you can do, some of those are going to be pretty impossible for young people, certainly to to start with, to fit in. And I definitely think there's got to be a certainly feel, and I think it's coming a bit more. I think there's got to be a little bit more give and take and the working on the relationship that we're working with the person in front of us and everybody's individual.

Speaker 31:10

Yeah, yeah, I think some sports are ahead on others, and and ironically, often we say necessity is the mother of creation. Um, and so when there are constraints in an environment, and one that I see in Australia doing a fantastic job at this is women's rugby sevens. Of course, women's rugby sevens in Australia have uh do really well, you know, world champions, um, gold mass at the Olympics. Um, but what what we've seen in Australia and, of course, other places around the world is the growth of opportunities for women and female athletes. Um, and so with what with women's rugby sevens as a sport, because there isn't a national league in Australia, and to get into the the national team and to be on the traveling the world on the World Series, then there's some serious time and effort put into your development, and you're just not going to be going straight into a team as a as an 18-year-old as a rule. And we've got a the landscape in Australia now where you've got women's football, you know, we just had the World Cup, which has been a massive Phillip for the country, so much interest. So you've got professional programs now at the clubs for the for the girls. At the same time, you've got the Australian Football League, the Aussie Rules. Um, we've got the women's competition there, and we've also got the women's uh National Rugby League. And uh it's really interesting because what you can have is you can have a rugby league team that can say to a 16, 17, 18-year-old, you're doing really well, you know, and we'd like you to come and play for our club. You can be playing each week at the stadium, there can be thousands of fans there, your family can come compared to an Olympic sport, um, like rugby sevens, where it there's not going to be the same kind of exposure, um, there isn't going to be such interest from agents and activity, and perhaps um perhaps there's incentives being dangled a little bit earlier. And so, in that example, and I use this because it's a really positive one, rugby sevens is it I've seen it firsthand of the way that they work with their athletes to make them feel really connected as a group, to have a really great experience when they come together when they go away. They've just been to Youth Commonwealth Games um and won the gold medal there, and to really build that that that competence. So, this is this is um basic psychological needs, those three things, you know, to give people the feeling that they're they've got ability to connect them as a group, so they really feel as though they're working at this together and there's that that real team bond, and also the the autonomy to allow them to have some choices, so that if you have got another sport and you still want to, you know, you're still keeping it going, then yeah, we'll we're gonna go with that for much longer because the opposite example, we know that if we force you to try and make a decision, well, very easily that could go the wrong way for us. So, what we're doing is we're working with you, we're obviously um giving you an insight into how well you're doing and where it could take you to. Um, but we're not, we've just been far more receptive to that conversation about how's it going for you, what's the best way to do this.

Speaker 1 34:15

Yeah, and which I suppose leads us nicely on to the next you know question because you've obviously spoken about George's story there, and obviously there are other stories throughout the book. From all of those stories, what would be the big highlights for you in terms of advice for coaches? You've obviously coached in your time as well, and I know I reflect a lot on my last 25 years or whatever that looks like. What would your advice based on what you found today? Because ultimately it's very recent, this it's not 20 years ago. What advice are you giving to coaches on what you found?

Speaker 34:48

Well, in a sentence, I would say treat talent development as a shared relationship, and it's a shared relationship between the coach, the athlete, and the parents from the beginning all the way through. You know, we we know um the worst type of example is when um the coach and the parents are talking because there's a problem. Um, whereas if we can be proactive from the beginning, I don't know where this is your your organization is instrumental in this. How can how can we be proactive in the beginning to set up those practices and processes to look to allow us to have authentic communication um to treat the young person as part of that? And you're you're you're dead right. Um recently I was talking to a Premier League club, and they were saying how they encourage um, whether it's the boys or the girls, to take holidays. Whereas in the past, it might have been, oh, well, we can't go on holiday then because we've got this going on with the talent development program, and you know, if we miss something, is that going to look bad on us? Um, so yeah, that shared relationship, and in terms of those authentic conversations, again, from my from my study and from my experience, there's one thing, regardless of how far you go in a talent development program, there's one thing that a talent development program teaches all athletes to get better at, and that is impression management. They learn to understand what it is the coach values, what the coach believes, the standards that the coach is looking for, and how to react and behave in that manner. Now, what I would say is some of the time the messages that the athlete is picking up from the coach aren't the message that the coach is intending to send. So that can be part of a problem. I mean, one of the stories in my book is about a gymnast who and she says there um, when I was young, my coach thought that I was going to be really good, but I can tell that he doesn't anymore. And that was never something that was specifically said to her, it was just from the behavior of that coach. Now it might be wrong, it might be that the coach has got a different role, it might be the coach has got other things going on and actually does things in a different way, and so perhaps doesn't give as much time as they used to, but yeah, that that would be the key for coaches specifically. Um, because what we've got to try and encourage, because you you you said it there, why don't we have these genuine authentic conversations? It's because there's a fear factor. There's a fear of, well, if I do the wrong thing, or if I say the wrong thing, or if I'm not at the first, or if I'm not looking like again, there's another Rowan in the book. He said, Yeah, um he he had a cousin who was older in the programme, we'd done well, and he said, Yeah, my my my cousin tells me that the coach looks for a good trainer. So I always make sure I'm at the front, you know. Um and the and in this example of Rowan, he didn't even take it further. He knew what coaches were looking for. So when he played, he would be against his uh his opposition, and he he would play the game in a way that would put his opposition in a spot that he knew was a weakness of theirs so that they wouldn't look so good compared to him. Um most coaches are probably gonna see that, but I think, yeah, that's the key. The concept it comes under is self-presentation, in other words, how you impression manage the adults who are running the program because they're the ones who are going to make decisions, you know, the young people learn that straight away. Um, and so they may be sending out the messages. I can I can talk to George, George on the rugby as well when he went um on one of the development squad weekends. Um he said the coaches say that um they're about development, but he said, but they want to win the games, and he said, and that's why I didn't get picked um to to start over over another guy because he's because we're both props and he's heavier than me. Um and again in George's story, he was talking about how they were encouraged to do the reflections in the Doris. And I said, Okay, so did you put did you put that down? How you felt that actually technically you're a better player? Um, and he said, Oh no, you don't you don't put things like that down.

Speaker 1 39:03

Um yeah, yeah, and hey, look, we've all been there, haven't we? I mean, I I speak to parents who worry about speaking up about something that actually is a genuine concern and would be really valid, and they're worried about their child being blackmarked and talked about and the negative ramifications for that, which we're trying obviously trying to avoid. I think those authentic dialogues for me, and you know, I'm caught up in the middle of all of them between organisations and coach, coach and parent, parent and child, channel back to the coach, channel back to the parent. I can understand why there is maybe some fear then. I certainly, when I speak to coaches, they're worried that if they let parents in too much, that they'll always be bothering them and taking too much, and they give the children too much voice. It's like, well, that means I've got absolutely no power anymore. And I know there is a fear amongst coaches that they're put, they feel like they're they're sort of sometimes just really isolated and alone now. And actually, we need to have some really strong leadership and people that understand how we connect the the pathway, the organization, the coach, the parent, and the kid together. And to do that, you've got to understand kids, you've got to understand coaching, you've got to have some understanding of being a parent, you've got to have some understanding of, you know, running sports programs because there's got to be plenty of give or take, but it's not all give or take from one of those four parties. You know, I always say everybody has a role to play, and I include the kids in that. You know, the kids are an integral part of this, and and we want them involved. And yeah, making sense of that, you can see the fear, but work we've seen, work we've done in some environments, it certainly can be done, and it's not as scary as it as it actually looks. It just needs it needs somebody to make it all right almost as you're going through that.

Speaker 40:58

Yeah, and for the coach, um, I totally understand that. And of course, it's it's relative to the age and stage of the athlete and that in with regards to how much autonomy or choice you're going to give them. Um, in actual fact, the research that's been done looking at this has shown that if you give choice too soon to young athletes, then that's actually stressful for them because they'd much rather have guidance at particular stages. So the way to bridge that gap is to actually um give young athletes um a choice between choices. So, in other words, you've got two good options, which good option would you like to take? You know, so that there's less danger there. Um, but the other thing that I think about with coaches is often when a coach is doing their best to help develop in a young person, they want to want to see what's going on in the head of a young person, they're usually um asking questions that they know the answers to. So the coach will ask a young person and they're actually trying to see if the young person can get it right to give them the answer back. And what I always encourage coaches to do is ask a young athlete a question you don't know the answer to. And can you actually um listen to a young person with a view to having your mind changed? Um, because you're dead right, obviously, uh as an adult, whether you're the coach or the parent, you've got a different set of experience. Um, and you've got a duty of care, you've got a responsibility to guide and support, also to challenge and to push, and you're in that position. Um, because especially if you're in a professional sporting environment, you you you've got the credentials and you've got the experience to do that. Um, but in terms of encouraging and doing the best for the young person, well, the best you can do for a young person is teach them how to be the best learner. Because however long they're with you for, whether they've learned things or not, when they leave you, they're still going to need to learn to do things, whether it's to learn to get better or whether it's to learn to play in a different way. That's that's the crux. So that's a key for a key for coaches. How yeah, you're you're teaching things, you're you're helping young people to get better at the way they train, the way they perform, but how well are you doing it enabling them to understand how they learn? And in terms of making mistakes is a key one, you see, because what we know is deep sustained learning is messy. You cannot make mistakes. Yeah, you cannot make good learning unless you make mistakes. Absolutely. Um, and so in terms of that wanting to look good, showing the coach how it should be done, well, that's where we're on the wrong side of that communication with an athlete. If they think, oh, I need I need to make sure that I don't make a mistake all the time. Yeah. Um and that guidance for a young athlete that no, that's all part of the process. You know, we you we use the term nonlinear development, you're going to get Better, you're going to take a step back. Um, yeah, so that that's key for me with regards to the coaches and how it all fits in.

Speaker 1 44:07

And I think that learning one's fascinating because you, you know, I think of the work you do with parents, guidance for parents, because when parents see the kids making a lot of mistakes, it's the world's worst thing that we've ever seen, ever. And actually, it's our ability to accept, no, that's how they're learning. They're the moments that they're going to get better. How are you going to handle those conversations now? Not these mad panics that, oh my God, this is the worst thing in the world. You know, it it you, you know, that that's a difficult thing for them to understand and work with. Tell you what's interesting. Recently, when I've shown young people what their journey should look like and the reality of that non-linear journey, the ups and downs. The number of teenagers that have sat in workshops with me and have just looked at me and gone, oh, thank God somebody's told me it's all right for me to mess it up. Thank God somebody's told me it's all right for me to get it wrong. Thank you. And it's almost been the biggest takeaway from them. So I don't know whether these elements of perfectionism, whether that's through the world of media these days and social media, whether that's coming from unrealistic expectations from the people around them. But but definitely that understanding of sports journeys, how we learn the things that are going to go on, we we've got to bring to life for everybody. Um which brings me on to the next bit. I mean, we talked about coaches there, advice to coaches. I guess five, let's do final questions today, conscious of time. So, what's your, as most of our audience are generally parents, what do you think your best bit of advice is to sports parents based on what you what you found in your stories?

Speaker 45:48

Yeah, well, I'll tell you what I did. I looked in the mirror, um, and I decided, you know what? The best way to help my children is to model the process. So to actually share with them what I'm trying to achieve, what I'm really working hard at, what's not going so well for me, what I'm finding difficult, mistakes that I've made. So rather than um telling them how it should be done, actually becoming an example of trying to do it myself. Um and that's you know, that that's different. I th I think we do see coaches do it do this more now in high profile examples. Um I think the more that they can do that in at the right time in the right environment with the right athlete, it's just again, it's it's modeling the behavior themselves. So as a parent, if you're trying to send a message that you need to work really hard if you want to achieve things, then are you are you walking the walk? You know? And what I would say about that is of course, not every parent wants to be a CEO or to be a top executive, and so a lot of parents or a lot of people in their work um are really happy with the level of challenge they're at and the work that they're doing. And it's really positive to acknowledge that, it's really positive to actually celebrate success at whatever particular stage it is. And so again, if we're if we're encouraging uh young athletes to be holistic and work hard in different parts of their life, you know, then it's not just about whether it's the parent at work or whether there's parents who's doing a bit of study, it's how balanced is the parents' life. You know, what are most parents doing during the time that they're at their training session with their athletes four or five times a week? Are they are they sitting down and having a chat? Or are they actually looking after their own well-being and themselves? Now, don't get me wrong, sometimes having a chat is good for your well-being. But in but um, like with me, if I make an excuse that, well, I haven't got time, I haven't got time to keep myself physically active because I'm running my kids here there and everywhere, and then I'm and then actually when training is going on, I just sit down for an hour each time, um then I'm not really talking the talk. Well, I am taught in the talk, but I'm not walking the walk, I should say. So that that would be the big one for parents, you know. Um, if you really want your children, boys and girls, to do as well as possible, um, and to find happiness in the right place that works for them, model it yourselves to them.

Speaker 1 48:39

Yeah, without a doubt, we we are the ultimate, the ultimate role models, and we've got a uh a major part to play. Uh Graeme, what an absolute pleasure to have you on the uh Parents in Sport podcast. Thank you for sharing uh the amazing work you've done, the stories that you've told. It makes it really authentic, it's brought it to life uh for lots of people, and and hopefully we'll get an opportunity uh to do this again in the future. Yeah, brilliant. Thanks, Gordon.

Speaker 49:06

I've really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 49:08

Thank you for listening. Check us out at parentinsport.co.uk.