The concept of FUN came up in conversation with a colleague and he said that when coaches try to incorporate fun into practice, it often winds up being some form of cutesy ridiculousness. It got me thinking that he’s totally right. The word fun seems to have taken on a connotation of silly and ridiculous and probably to many coaches (and parents) seems counterintuitive to peak sports performance, but it’s not and it is the #1 reason kids play sports.

What is fun

Here’s how I remember fun as a kid – running around an open field playing freeze tag or spontaneously gathering a group of kids from my neighborhood to play football. We laughed. We played. There was nothing else. Fun, play and flow are very similar things but as we get older and sports becomes more serious, we lose our ability to have fun and go with the flow.

Benefits of fun

Fun increases your physical and psychological health. It boosts endorphins which decreases stress and improves our tolerance for pain. It increases our relationships, not only with the people you are having fun with but it helps us feel good about all of our relationships. Laughter releases serotonin which reduces stress and is good for memory, sleep, breathing, heart rate, and mood. Fun increases your life span because it’s positive. It also lifts energy levels. When you take the time to relax, to have fun and to enjoy yourself, you are more capable of dealing better with everything else in life.

The balance

For me, that was then. This is now. Growing up kids learn that having fun has its place (although I’d say there’s less of it) but that fun is different than being serious and working hard. They don’t go together. How can we laugh and goof around and learn, grow, and get better at something? School tends to be hard work now starting in kindergarten. Work is work. Serious. If that’s what a child sees, that’s what they learn as appropriate and they follow course.

And sports! Kids don’t usually have a parent role model in sports. Parents may have played sports but probably quit long ago. The unconscious message is that sports are not meant to be fun. They are meant to be serious and hard work. Serious and hard work is what makes you a better athlete and what will get you into college.

Right? This is what I am seeing and hearing but we are going about this all wrong because this perception is not actually factual.

What’s the outcome

At age 12-13, kids are (already) too serious, playing one sport year round. They are trying to be perfect and are dealing with issues around anxiety and low confidence. It’s no wonder by the time kids are age 13, 70% are dropping out of sport. It’s not only a problem that kids are not having fun, but that they are dealing with adult issues that they don’t have the ability to deal with. These issues are prevalent in their sport but also affect everything else.

Kids are stressed out!

How to incorporate fun

Not only are kids missing out on fun, but they are missing out on learning to develop creativity. As coaches, it’s important to include fun into practice. There are numerous strategies you can use to increase the enjoyment level of practice:

• Help your athletes set a realistic practice focus. It should be something they think they should be focusing on improving. This will allow them to have some autonomy and control over practice and their success.
• Foster a love of challenge. Kids shy away from challenge because they don’t want to fail but they also shy away from it because of how you respond. Respond with positive encouragement and help them set their own realistic goals and acknowledge their effort toward those goals.
• Integrate music even if it’s during warm ups and cool downs. Allow your athletes to choose the music, make recommendations or bring music with them.
• Have a sense of humor and foster laughter.
• Set 5-10 minutes of practice aside for fun. Let your athletes choose what fun activity they’d like to do.

Peak sports performance

These two worlds can absolutely coexist, and they should. It is our job to help kids figure out the balance – life is not all fun but it’s also not all work! As an adult, I try to incorporate fun into my life and am often saddened that it seems so difficult to do. Fun is incredibly important to health and to success.

Every time I talk to a client about what happens prior to the start of their best performance, this is generally what I hear, ‘I remember joking around with my friends laughing. We were having fun and I wasn’t thinking about competing. I didn’t have any nerves that day.’

Fun is an inherent part of childhood. Let kids experience it. Let it be part of the learning, part of the progress. Consciously add elements of fun and don’t make them feel bad for having fun.