Dr. Richard Lerner, a PCA National Advisory Board Member, is the Director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. Lerner has more than 650 scholarly publications and is known for his research about the relations between adolescents and their peers, families, schools, and communities. His work often focuses on positive youth development and youth contributions to society.

Teaching kids the connection between lessons learned in sports to the rest of their lives can be challenging. As Lerner says here, it is important to recognize that every kid is different. While some youth athletes may understand the link between sports skills and life skills right away, some may need more concrete examples. Try coming up with creative ways for kids to understand this link!

Lerner suggests that if a young athlete is struggling to learn that sports skills and life skills are connected, sometimes the coach can give an example or let the kid come up with an example in order to learn the connection themselves. No matter your approach, coaches should do everything they can for kids to understand that the skills they learn at practice and in games, have bigger implications for life success.