“I do not care about the best” – Bjarte visits new podcast about children's sports
In the first episode of the podcast Pappatrenerne, early specialization as a trend in Norwegian children's sports is discussed. Bjarte says clearly from what he thinks about that versatility and play lose to pointiness and adult seriousness.
These days, Pappatrenerne, the first Norwegian podcast about sports for children and young people, is launched. The podcast is aimed at all adults who are in various ways engaged in sports for ban and youth. It is a deep dive into how participation in sports affects both children and adults. The dad coaches make no secret of the fact that they are critical of parts of the development we see in sport.
“In the first episode, we focus on specialization. The trend we are seeing is that children and young people at an increasingly younger age are being encouraged to choose which sport to bet on. We see that the amount of training is increasing and that more and more sports are being run throughout the year, which makes it more difficult to be versatile and experiment with different sports. We ask whether this development takes place on children's terms, or is driven forward by adults' aspirations and performance pressures. We simply ask if we adults are about to ruin sport for children,” says Eirik Øiestad, who together with Martin Blekkerud makes up Pappatrenerne.
In episode 1 of Pappatrenerne, Bjarte Myrhol is a guest. The national team captain is himself an example that early specialization is not the only way to go to reach a top international level. Bjarte combined football and handball until the age of 16, which he himself believes is a key to success.
“Play and versatility have been a prerequisite for my development as an athlete, and in particular for the motivation to put in the hard work that is ultimately required to reach the top. I fear that the game is getting less and less of a place in the sport offering to children and young people, and that we are not giving children good enough conditions to be versatile. Early specialization and result focus, in my opinion, create dropouts, which in turn come at the expense of both breadth and excellence in sports,” says Myrhol.
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The first episode of The Dad Coaches is out now and the handball is well represented. Bjarte's national team colleague Magnus Abelvik Rød tells his story, about a startlingly short and versatile path to the top of international handball. Magnus started with handball at the age of 12, doing both taekwondo, swimming and football on the road. Only six years after his first handball training, he made his debut for the German champion team Flensburg Handewitt and the Norwegian national team.
In the next few episodes, Dad Coaches will delve into topics that interest all the hundreds of thousands of adults who are engaged in sports for children and young people, whether as coaches, managers or parents.
“We think children's sports are a wonderful arena for development and joy. At the same time, sport as a movement is a massive experiment with the physical and mental health of children, in which the adults set the premises. 97 percent of all children stop by organized sports, but from the age of 12 we have a drop-out rate of 50 percent. Why is that so? In the podcast, we look at the latest research, keeping practice in Norwegian sport up against new knowledge about sports and children's development. In the next episodes we talk, among other things, with one of the world's foremost sports psychologists, Jean Coté. He has shown that play promotes better development and is more performance-enhancing over time than traditional training, but shows that we still train children as if they were adults. We believe this is knowledge that will create reflection in many with coaching roles in children's sports. We want to contribute to a broader and more nuanced debate about developments in sport than the one we see today,” says dad coach Øiestad.
