Scoreless kids’ sport contests ‘breeding out resilience’

At best, the trend for not keeping score in junior sport is ineffective, at worst, it may be detrimental.

Swifts coach and former Diamond Briony Akle with her boys. Picture: Adam Yip

NSW Swifts’ premiership-winning coach, netballer and mother of four Briony Akle says the practice of not keeping score in junior sport is “breeding out resilience”.

Her sons, aged from four to 11, play soccer and she’s frustrated that scores aren’t kept, despite there being goals at either end of the field. She adds her kids are always keeping score in their heads.

“I think they are breeding out resilience by not having scoring in junior sport,” Akle says.

“There’s no disappointment. Everyone is a winner. I just think these kids are not learning disappointment. Even at the end-of-season presentation, everyone gets a trophy. Success is not at the forefront. In the end, why have goals? Why not just kick a ball around a field, then?

“My kids will play semi-finals at 12 for the first time this year. I worry for this generation of kids who don’t know how to lose.”

Her view is backed by one of the nation’s greatest sporting coaches, AFL Hall of Fame legend Kevin Sheedy, who says not keeping score in kids’ sport is robbing children of some essential life lessons on how to handle adversity.

Sheedy, who was ­involved in eight premierships and more than 1000 games during his career, says there is much to be gained from a loss on the footy field.

“It can make you stronger for those more difficult times off the field,” he says. “Losing in sport teaches people to sometimes handle the loss of relationships, health issues or your job. It’s good to understand how to lose. And sometimes your disappointments become your strengths.”

Where’s the research?

With the junior footy seasons just around the corner, hundreds of thousands of children are heading into another year without scoreboards or the chance to play finals. Best-and-fairests in the winter footy codes are out. Everyone gets a medal and trophy.

The AFL’s mini-version of the game, Auskick for ages five to 12, doesn’t record the scores, have ladders or finals. Soccer’s junior game, Mini-Roos for kids aged four to 11, is the same. Most junior versions of rugby league don’t record scores, have finals or ladders and are trialling this in Queensland competitions all the way up to under-12s this season. Junior rugby union doesn’t have scores until age 10.

Sheedy is surprised that junior Australian sporting codes have turned away from having scoreboards and adds that losing is also about learning teamwork, empathy and “supporting others”.

“The VFL footy education department taught me a hell of a lot about how to coach kids and train kids but I do not agree with what people sometimes do,” Sheedy says.

“Have these sporting codes got their hands on a survey they did 30 years ago that said: ‘Hey, we’ve mucked up here, we’ve got to do things different and have no scoring?’ Is there any research that tells us today, parents today, that this has got to be done, it’s urgent?”

Leading child and adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg says he has never seen a “double-blind controlled peer-reviewed” study — the research gold standard — to support dumping scoring and finals from junior sport.

“If there was hard, peer-reviewed evidence that this was the right thing to do, I would shut up, but there isn’t,” he says. “Where is the evidence? As a child psychologist who is concerned with the mental health of young people today, (I know) one in four teenagers, one in seven primary school kids, have mental health problems. How is this doing any good? Show me the evidence. That’s all we want.”

Carr-Gregg thinks the scoring bans deny children the chance to learn how to deal with defeat.

“My view is that life is full of ups and downs,” Carr-Gregg says. “We’ve got to build resilience. We’ve got to allow kids to experience adversity. The definition of success is to face, overcome and be transformed by adversity.

“What these codes have done with this edict — we are going to make sure these kids don’t feel sadness and disappointment. It’s not just scoring. They don’t keep ladders, there’s no finals, this is the wussification of an entire generation of children.”

He thinks children should be allowed to take part in a competitive environment from the get-go.

“If you change the structure of sport, then you are denying them the opportunity to learn in a functional way. (We want them) to learn how to cope with the knockdowns, learn how to be satisfied with the contribution they made on game day and learn how to accept that you are not always going to be at the same level or capability as your peers, and that’s OK as long as you are enjoying it and giving your best.

“That’s a skill for life, not just for sport. We are never going to get what we want in all circumstances.”

Enjoying competition

Ruth Anderson, head sports psychologist for Australia’s 2008 and 2012 Olympic teams, is surprised major sporting codes have gone this way with their junior formats.

Over her career of more than two decades she hasn’t seen a peer-reviewed study which suggests that having no score and no finals is better.

“The responsibility of junior sport is to encourage athletes to focus on developing their skills and learning how to enjoy competing against each other and not focus on the scores,” Anderson says. “What is critical in kids’ sport is to learn functional ways of managing competition.”

So why do the major sporting codes not have scoring, finals or ladders?

The AFL says it’s all about enhancing a child’s experience of the game. “Through NAB AFL Auskick, children are introduced to the game in a fun and safe environment focused on developing motor skills and building confidence,” an AFL spokesperson says.

No-scoring “enhances the experience for participants and maximises the enjoyment, accessibility and inclusivity” so “all participants, regardless of their ability, can be part of the game”.

Former Matilda Sarah Walsh, a naturally competitive person, had to educate herself when she first started working at Football Federation Australia about why not having ladders and keeping scores was important for junior soccer.

Now FFA’s head of game development, Walsh was swayed by anecdotal evidence suggesting parents were better behaved and kids had a better experience when the ladder was removed.

“Removing the ladders, in our view, doesn’t remove the kids’ capability of keeping score,” Walsh says. “It’s actually used as a mechanism to remove that competition from parents and coaches. From my experience, kids still keep score, we encourage that, because the game is about winning and losing. Let’s be honest, at the end of the day it is about putting a ball in the goal.”

Fun environment

FFA has been influenced by Sport Australia’s physical literacy framework, which encourages equal game time for all to build children’s physical and social strengths. “It’s about us creating a fun environment,” Walsh says. “You can still create a game that delivers on the physical, cognitive and social part of sport. I think that whole winning and losing is in the psychological bracket — but they still keep score.”

The National Rugby League’s head of football participation, pathways and game development, Luke Ellis, says removing premiership points takes away the detrimental “win at all cost” attitude.

“The common misconception is that no recorded scores or ladders means a non-competitive environment,” Ellis says. “This is definitely not the case. Delaying the introduction of premierships is a mechanism for removing the ‘win at all costs’ attitude that is widely reported, across all sport, as detrimental to player development and, importantly, retention.

“The development approach, at our younger ages, removes the temptation to compromise a child’s experience in the process of trying to win games with a trophy in mind, because at that particular time in that child’s life, someone may feel they cannot contribute to achieving that win.”

Here’s the research

Community Rugby general manager James Selby says he has seen “significant research” — including Canadian professor Jean Cote’s research and University of Queensland professor Cliff Mallett’s work — that supports focusing on fun rather than keeping score. This research has convinced the rugby hierarchy not to have scoring until kids reach age 10.

Selby also cites Sport Australia’s junior sport guidelines, established last decade, as encouraging sporting codes to do away with the scoreboard and focus on retaining kids and having “fun”.

“That Sport Australia study talks about the psychological development of the kids, and their readiness to deal with pressure on them, the external pressure from parents,” Selby says.

“People say we are taking the competition out of sport, but that is not what we are doing. It is the emphasis on winning we need to think about — how much time after a game those kids spend thinking about that, and the pressure that is placed on them by adults.

“We know there are a lot of issues around ugly parents syndrome on sidelines. Sometimes that comes from parents wanting the best for their kids and to be successful, but what it can also lead to is parents on the sideline thinking that the score is the most important thing. What can happen is that kids develop a risk aversion and don’t want to try things and make mistakes, which they can learn from. They don’t want to get in trouble for failing.

“Adults play sport like third grade rugby for the social reasons. Now of course they try to win but it is not the end of the world (if they lose) because they’ve had a good time with their friends.

“Sometimes I wish adults would remember that’s why the kids are there as well.”