ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with psychosocial development of children and how it affects their perceptions of and participation in sport. Personal and social development are identified as two important elements of the process of children’s progress to adulthood. The idea of how people see themselves, self-concept, is the central focus of the chapter and the way in which children use different sorts of information to describe and evaluate themselves in a sport situation is explained. The development of mature social behaviour is a critical part of being able to take part in many sports, especially games, and the way in which children learn the rules and roles of groups is explained in order to help coaches understand the difficulties faced by children when they first begin to play games. Finally I make a few suggestions for how coaches can reduce the demands on children in group situtations.
