The Effect of Youth Coaching Styles on “Winner, Non-Winner” and “Loser” Scripts in Young Athletes

Purpose and Motivation: Youth coaches continue to be among the most important influences in the lives of children and adolescents. This article looks at four specific youth coaching styles and how three of the coaching approaches evoke poor coping skills and weaken resiliency behaviors in children and adolescents. Problem: The authors present an overview of how youth coaching styles contribute to unconscious powerful Transactional Analysis (TA) life scripts that can negatively impact children into adulthood. The authors examine four unique coaching styles and their effect on the Winner, Loser, and Non-Winner life scripts found in the Transactional Analysis literature. Methods: While the literature is quite limited on this topic, themes and inferences were drawn from previously published professional literature. Results: Findings reflect how specific coaching styles may evoke winner, loser and non-winner scripts in young athletes, and that these scripts can influence children later in life. Conclusion: The authors recommend using the positive-structured coaching style in youth sports to promote resiliency, fun, and improved coping skills in youth playing sports.