Youth sport activity build habits that last into adulthood. Through enabling youngsters to develop the necessary skills of building strong and healthy lives, PYD outcomes become self-perpetuating behaviors. Habits become traits, and traits become personality characteristics (Hamilton & Hamilton, 2004). This positive effect is multifaceted, which leads to enhanced professional skills required in occupational settings to instilling self-awareness. Both results affect youth by initiating the intrinsic motivation required for self-reflection. By focusing on youth’s strengths and optimizing them through a human developmental approach, they begin to tap into their own innate potential. Using the NRCIM’s framework and constructs affecting PYD, positive occurrences relative to physical, psycho-social, emotional, and intellectual outcomes through sport activity are discussed.
2.1.1 Importance of Physical Development
The adolescent experience is one of the most complex and fascinating transitions in our lifetimes. Certainly, youth being physically active is a major prerequisite during the growing years if normal growth and development are to be maintained (Bar-Or, 1983). As the onset of puberty begins, the rate of changes occurring in the body are surpassed only by the infancy stage in the human lifespan. Characterizing this duration of time are intense biological processes taking place, in which interactions between the brain, pituitary gland, and the gonads are all incredibly sensitive and reactive to each other (Sallis & Patrick, 1994).
With youth obesity on the rise (e.g. Segel, 2011), coupled with physical inactivity being associated with a variety of adverse outcomes — increased hypertension, risk of heart disease, increase risk of cancer, and doubling the effect of obesity (e.g. Thompson et al., 2006) — means supporting and encouraging active lifestyles takes a front seat in the discussion of PYD. Boding well for active youth sport activity increases cardiovascular fitness and enhances muscular strength, stamina, and stable bone structure (Sallis & Patrick, 1994). In addition, deposited physical gains during the highest growth spurt period (i.e. peak height velocity) during adolescence increases an individual’s ‘ceiling’ for muscle growth, strength, and performance capabilities (Borges et al., 2017). Furthermore, this perpetual benefit of health continues into their adult lives as youngsters who develop physically active lifestyles early on in life reduce the likelihood of developing physiological related diseases (just mentioned above) in later ages (Sallis & Patrick, 1994).
Interestingly, as Sherar and colleagues (2010) posit, as growth and maturation occur, although rooted as biological processes, the fundamental concept of physical activity is rooted at the behavioral level. This suggests that physical activity is required for learning basic motor-mechanical skills. With increases in physical activity through movement, neuromuscular maturation is propelled forward. Then, perpetual motor-mechanical skills become salient (i.e.
first we learn how to craw, walk, and then run), and eventually this process lends itself towards executing more complex movements and behaviors (e.g. joining a gymnastics team and learning to do cart wheels). Thus, enabling youth to become physically active through various experiences in sport opens the door to other facets of their development that affect other PYD outcomes (i.e. psycho-social development).
2.1.2 Positive Psycho-Social and Emotional Development
If sport is fashioned correctly by sport directors, coaches and parents, youth may build healthy habits that leave lifelong tracks. These become noticed not just through physical traits, but also in personality and psychological ones as well. One’s personality and emotional stability becomes enriched through higher self-esteem (Harter, 1999), self-concept (Gilman, 2001), and self-mastery (Rosenfield, 1992). Furthermore, research posits that higher satisfaction with one’s own life is more salient amongst sportive children (Gould & Weinberg, 2015). Notably, youth who participate in less structured extracurricular activities (e.g. the arts and music) also deposit psychological/emotional development in their lives through reducing stress and increasing well-being (e.g. Gilman, 2001).
Socialization is a lifelong journey, which dramatically speeds up during adolescence. During this time, youngsters start developing self-concept, self-identity, and individualistic behaviors (Côte & Hay, 2002). Through the vehicle of sport and physical activity, social development begins as we learn to interact with each other and become acquainted with the social world around us (Coakley, 2009). Within a team or group-oriented environment, irrelevant of competitive or structural levels, youth become acquainted within different peer groups as they learn the social skills necessary to interact with others (Bailey, 2005). In addition, within the sporting environment, they learn moral competence through obeying rules and ethical behaviors set by their coach. This has overlapping effects, as it fosters understanding of how to function in a law-abiding society (Seefeldt & Ewing, 1997). Therefore, being involved in sport allows youth to feel support from their peers and coaches while learning how to build and maintain strong peer relationships, mentor skills, and leadership behaviors (Evans et al., 2015;
Wright, 2003).
2.1.3 Intellectual Development
Larson (2000) argues that in the Western cultural contexts of today, youth must learn to develop their own initiative skills. This requires the ability to activate one’s internal will, and engage upon a task with concerted effort over an extended period of time in which they face obstacles along the way. Within the sport setting, youth learn to develop this type of initiation as they are routinely presented with new challenges. As Fraser-Thomas et al., (2005) argue, youth learn to incorporate initiative skills within their social settings when they become adept at overcoming personal challenges that are commonly presented through sport.
While showing initiation certainly helps one overcome difficult social moments, it also teaches one how to network and understand the social world around them. This expands youth’s capacity to relate with others, foster intergroup relationships, and embrace community integration while navigating through social status and mobility (e.g. Wankel as cited in Fraser-Thomas et al., 2005). Without any question, the potential for transferable social skills (i.e.
initiation) orientated from sport is great (e.g. Marsh, 1993).
When it comes to scholastic ability, as Dwyer and colleagues (2001) found, sport participation enhances academic performance. This is evidenced through biological processes being spurred on by physical movement. As active children exude greater stimulation in physiological processes of the brain — cerebral blood flow increases — stimulating growth of inter-neuronal
connections. After increases of physically activity, children’s physiological response enables a fertile ‘after-effect period’ where improvement in memory and verbal functioning is aroused (Bidzan-Bluma et al., 2018). Thus, more active children have more ‘stimulated’ brains than their more sedentary peers (Shephard, 1997). The interplay between increased levels of being physically active reflect positive correlations with increased cognitive functioning of the brain.