The Teen Years (ages 13-18)

The Teen Years (ages 13-18):
Identity Development, Independence and Achievement

As our teens ride the emotional highs and lows of success and failure, we as their parents are often taken along for the ride. We hold our breath, hoping they will not become discouraged by failure, endangered by the wrong group of friends or experiment with drugs and alcohol. We hope they survive adolescence in one piece, embrace their success, and march confidently toward adulthood. But the uncertainty along the way can be taking and painful for all involved.

Many of us can honestly say that we would never want to relive our adolescent years. Pimples, puberty and peer pressure are a few of our most cited pains. Some of us remember feeling rejected after being dumped by a first love or cut from the school team. Others recall a pass we dropped in a devastating loss to a school rival or a test that we failed which caused a drop in our GPA. Adolescence is also a time when many or our teens blossom and shine: making a critical play in a hockey game that leads to a huge win, acing a challenging chemistry exam during Jr. year, or being elected captain of the varsity team after years of hard work and dedication.

Adolescent children are preoccupied with two, all-consuming, essential tasks: discovering their identity and establishing their independence. Joining teams, participating in community service groups and becoming engaged in school politics all serve their self discovery. At the same time, adolescents begin to assert their independence. They will pull away from us and rely more on friendships, romances and relationships with teachers and coaches for emotional support.

Sports intelligence, or an athlete’s capacity to understand field play, game strategies and coaching instruction, may come into bloom during this stage of development. By contrast, some athletes who are physically gifted may lack the sophistication, game smarts or confidence to excel. Some skills cannot be taught and, during adolescence, athletes may discover the mental talents and abilities such as concentration under pressure, not previously experienced. As our teens mature, they are still quite fragile emotionally, sometimes surprising us by how ill equipped they are to handle seemingly manageable setbacks on the athletic field. As they move toward middle and late adolescence, the stakes rise. Making the team and playing are becoming harder to do. Some teens will have to face the reality that they cannot compete with their peers in the realm of sports; this may lead them to quit or change sports. So how do we help teens develop emotionally and perform to their best ability while providing enough distance to allow them to establish greater independence from us?

Essential Skills for Children ages 13-18
Because adolescence is often unpredictable, it is difficult for many parents to identify what is normal and healthy behavior in the content of sports. Despite this uncertainty, there are core traits that we hope our adolescents develop by the time they reach age 18.

Confidence: Adolescence marks the period in which boys and girls learn about their strengths and weaknesses, and important aspect of self discovery. Teens must learn to manage negative feelings and setbacks caused by their weaknesses – which may be hard to acknowledge. Discovering strengths and confronting weaknesses can be both rewarding and painful, particularly in sports. Failure for adolescents offers an opportunity to learn from mistakes or setbacks and improve so that they are better prepared for the next opportunity; however, watching our adolescents fail is painful for us as parents as we worry that our children will become discouraged and despairing. Developing confidence during adolescence is a dynamic process with many highs and lows. Ideally, as parents, we look forward to seeing our teens take chances in sports and other arenas such as the arts and academics, making decisions about what activities they like and don’t like, and gain the strength and experience to manage success and failure as they progress toward adulthood.

Interests: Many of us may recall adolescence as a time of a huge influx of new interests and passions. Sex, preoccupation with their bodies, parties, time with friends away from parents, and identification of academic, athletic and professional goals make up teens’ major interests. These changes demand much of adolescent’s attention, often distracting them from participation in sports. Adolescents must learn to balance interests wisely, so one does not eclipse another. Parents of adolescents want to ensure that their children have a variety of interests, including relationships, sports and academic activities, while maintaining a balance.

Relationships: It should come as no surprise that adolescents devote much of their energy away from parents and toward their peers. When not texting, Facebooking or IMing, adolescents can develop particularly strong friendships with teammates on the athletic field. For example, boys on a lacrosse team develop a tremendous bond as they weather the physical and emotional challenges of preparing for each game. Relationships with coaches also play a critical role. As our kids get older, they look more to their coaches and teachers for advice and guidance, a process that can be uncomfortable and surprising to many of us parents, but necessary if our teens are to become independent.

Judgement: Providing adolescents the space to make decisions on their own can provoke anxiety for us as parents. We fear that without our input and direction, our children will make poor decisions; perhaps they will quit the sport that would have led to a scholarship or, even more frightening, they will try that harmful drug, take a risk such as going to a late-night party in a dangerous part of town or having sex impulsively. Although as parents we will always want to protect our children, it is precisely this freedom to make mistakes that teenagers need in order to learn and grow. The key is to reward our adolescents with more freedom and independence as they demonstrate the capacity to learn from these mistakes and act in responsible ways.

Emotional Control: It is hardly a challenge for many of us parents to remember the emotional roller coaster of adolescence. We will watch as our adolescents scream incessantly, cry uncontrollably, punch a wall or verbally lash out at others when failing to manage strong feelings. Even though our adolescents are becoming more sophisticated intellectually, often their thinking has not caught up to their emotions. Frequently they don’t understand why they feel angry, frustrated, sensitive or agitated. This uncertainty can make them feel out of control or lost at times. When faced with setbacks, especially in sports, they are challenged to find ways to manage their feelings, get back on their feet, and keep moving forward. As adolescents approach the age of 18, they should start to get a better handle on their feelings so that setbacks and disappointments do not incapacitate them. Even when they become overwhelmed with feelings, they recover more quickly and use their own resources to do so.

Sports–Related Skills: During adolescence, most athletes come into their won. The fully developed, well-rounded athlete possesses a composite of physical and mental skills, and abilities that are influenced by the genes inherited from parents and the environment that helps to shape their athletic identity. Some athletes struggle in high school with a certain degree of clumsiness or limited strength, but later turn out to be superior athletes when their bodies fully mature. Ideally, by age 18, our adolescents will reach most of their growing capacity, develop greater hand-eye coordination, and have enhanced ability to understand the more tactical, complex aspects of sports, including individual performance and team strategies. Confidence in their ability is also crucial as they play at higher, more-challenging levels.

Useful Tips:

It is natural for our adolescents to pull away from us. This will be hard for the entire family but important for our kids' growth.
Teens want us to attend games and be there for them when they need help and support.
Coaches and teachers can play a crucial role in helping adolescents become stronger and more independent.
The brains and bodies of our adolescents are developing at a frantic rate. Just because they may look and act like adults does not mean adolescents are adults.
Physical growth and mental maturity are unpredictable. Talent as a young adolescent does not guarantee talent and success during adulthood. Some teens are late bloomers. Keeping them engaged in sports with reasonable expectations is the best formula to promote their athletic development.
To play at the higher levels demanded in high school, kids really have to love their sport. If they play primarily for parents or for others, they will experience less enjoyment and perform worse.
Quitting a sport isn’t always a cop out. Sometimes it means that adolescents are coming to terms with their strengths and weaknesses or seeking the right sport.
Few adolescents will get sports scholarships or play for a Division I program. Intense pressure to achieve this goal will likely have a negative impact on adolescents' athletic performance.
If our teens are naturally talented, it is wise for parents to remember that teens play their best when they feel supported by parents, feel relaxed and enjoy their sport.
Adolescents may take different paths in sports than their parents did. This is not a problem as long as they are engaged in sports of some kind then it is likely that they will remain physically active throughout adulthood.