How Do You Develop A Kid With Talent?

It would be nice if there was an exact blueprint to follow when trying to maximize athletic talent.  

We have seen literally thousands of families over the last 20+ years take a variety of tracks to help their kids succeed. 

Some have worked very well, some have not.

Using this experience as our guide, combined with emerging research on this topic, here are our top suggestions your child get the most from their talent:

Identify Your Primary Needs 

What does your young athlete need to succeed at the next level of their sport?

• Do they play slower than their top competition?

• Do they need a better understanding of the game? 

• Do they get pushed around by stronger kids?

• Do they fatigue earlier than kids as good or better than them?

• Are their sport skills not as sharp as they need to be for the next level?

Through observations from your sport coaches, parents, the athlete themselves, and outside analysis from experts, you can dig deep to honestly determine what specific areas must be improved for your kid to be successful one level up from where they are now.

Prioritize Your Time Around Those Primary Needs

Armed with knowledge of their primary needs, the next step is to make working on them the top priority. This may include focused practice on their own, hiring a sport coach to build skills, or a trainer to accelerate their physical development.

This is by far the biggest mistake we see sports families make. 

Kids play on 2 or 3 teams at a time almost year-round, regardless of whether it’s all advancing their primary needs, then are ‘too busy’ to address the things they most need to improve. 

Progress stagnates, and that talent is never fully realized.

A proactive approach to budgeting your time around the limiting factors in your kid's game puts them in the best position to succeed when they move up and face tougher competition.

Revise & Adapt The Plan On A Regular Basis

Doing this once doesn’t mean your work is done! Kids are in a constant state of adaptation, and your plan should be too.

The kid who was fast enough at younger levels may fall behind as they get older. 

Tactics within the sport may become more complex, making extra time with a sport coach a bigger priority than it used to be. 

Primary needs are not static. To maximize an athletic career you should use feedback from coaches, scouts (if they're reached a high enough level) and other expert analysts once or twice per year to find your child's greatest current need.

So many times we've seen a very skilled middle school athlete fall behind as they get older because the need that should have been addressed years before continues to hold them back.

Many other times, we've seen kids that were once less highly regarded shoot up the talent scale by filling in their weaker points over time.

So...I guess there kind of is a blueprint to developing a kid with talent!