Every Child Needs Some Pie (Part 1)

I’m a big fan of pie. My favorite pies are coconut cream, pecan, and sugar cream. I’ve eaten pie at some of the most famous pie restaurants in the United States. I once had an amazing piece of pecan pie at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, CA. It was a huge piece with a double layer of pecans. I have also had coconut cream pie from the Travel-Channel recognized Gray Brothers Cafeteria in Mooresville, IN. In fact, the photo at the beginning of this post is a pie I purchased at that very restaurant. 

While I could go for a piece of that fine dessert about now, in relation to sport skill development for little kids I’m referring to a different type of pie. In this case pie represents an acronym which stands for P-practice, I-instruction, and E-encouragement. In this post I’m going to focus on the “P” of pie, in other words the importance of practice.

The preschool years represents the starting point of “learning” new sport-related skills. But what do we mean when we use the term “learning”? Well, one definition of learning is “a relatively permanent change in behavior”. What that means then is when we perform a skill that has been learned we can execute that skill over and over again with consistency and a definite degree of certainty. For example, if I have learned how to serve a tennis ball I can consistently hit the ball with my racquet when I toss it up in front of me and most of the time it will land in the correct court across the net.

But there are degrees of learning. If I can consistently serve a tennis ball into the correct court across the net 8 out of 10 times I’ve learned how to serve at a certain level. Does that make me equivalent to Serena Williams? Not by a long shot. Can I get better at serving by increasing the speed, power, efficiency, and accuracy of my serve? Absolutely! And that takes practice, often times lots and lots of practice.

In his book “Outliers” Malcolm Gladwell talks about the concept of the “10,000 hour rule”. The 10,000 rule refers to the theory that a top level professional musician or athlete requires at least 10,000 hours of practice to reach their high level of skill. If you do the math then a child at the age of 2 years would have to practice 1 hour a day, every day, until he or she reaches the age of 29 years! Now, in reality, this theoretical concept only applies to the highest level performers. In addition, individuals would start out practicing just a few minutes at a time when they are little children and increase the amount of practice time as they grow older. Most of these high level performers practice several hours a day once they’ve reached their adolescent and young adulthood years.

There are three main points I hope you take away from this post:

Point 1 – It’s important to remember that only a minuscule number of kids grow up to be professional athletes or musicians. But whether you want to help your child be able to make the high school varsity swim team, junior high basketball B team, or play volleyball at church youth group, sport skills are important — and practice is needed to improve sport skills.

Point 2 – You do not need to start hammering your young child with daily rigorous practice routines, but recognize that learning sport-related skills is a long-term endeavor.  

Point 3 – Practice needs to be developmentally appropriate for the preschool age child. For the young child practice shouldn’t be a set block of time focusing on the mechanics of specific sport movements; rather, practice can be embedded in playtime activities which can be either structured or unstructured. For example, having half a dozen inflated balloons lying on the floor of the basement so a young child kicks at them whenever she is playing downstairs – that’s practice. Having a ribbon tied to an inflated balloon and taped to the top of the door frame leading into the child’s bedroom so whenever he goes through the opening he jumps up to swat the balloon – that’s practice. Or while on a walk through a park or hike in the woods, she throws rocks into a pond or creek – that’s practice. Be creative, set up activities as well as your child’s environment to keep them active and practicing the very first steps of learning a variety of sport skills. Hopefully you can gain some ideas by watching the videos provided at the Preschool Athlete website.

In my next post I’ll discuss the “I” of PIE and give you some insight into providing the right kind of “instruction” for your child. As always, don’t hesitate to contact me with questions or comments at john@preschoolathlete.com. I welcome your feedback. Also, if you haven’t already done so please consider joining our community of parents and family members of preschoolers. By registering I’ll keep you updated of any new videos, blog posts, suggested resources, new sports, and other materials when they are added.

Parents and family members… God bless you in the challenging and rewarding experience of raising a young child.

John