ABSTRACT
Last night on television I saw a young man graduate with an honours degree in Science. The only thing that made that story ‘newsworthy’ was the fact that he was just 13 years of age. We don’t expect achievements like this from young boys. We expect teenagers to be experimenting, searching for their identity, rebelling against their parents/caregivers. Graduating from university just does not fit our picture of what young people should be doing at age 13. Similarly when we coach a team of 5-year-olds in football we do not expect them to be executing finely honed passing, dribbling and kicking skills, positioning themselves strategically on the field or engaging in complex tactical play. We expect them to cluster around the ball like bees to a honey pot because ‘that’s the stage they’re at’. Both of these expectations arise from developmental assumptions. In this chapter I outline what I mean by ‘developmentalism’. Next, I explain why thinking about children ‘developmentally’ in coaching situations can be problematic. Finally, I sketch some alternatives that may help coaches to practise in less ‘developmental’ ways.
