Why Isn't My Child Improving?

It’s one of the most common questions we hear from parents.

Sometimes it’s asked directly.
More often it arrives wrapped in other observations.

“She’s been doing lessons for three years now.”
“He’s training twice a week.”
“She’s still losing to the same players.”
“I thought we’d see more progress by now.”

The question is completely understandable. Parents invest significant time, money and energy into their child’s tennis. They drive them to lessons, support them at tournaments and watch them spend hours on court. Naturally, they want to see evidence that all of this effort is leading somewhere.

What often surprises parents is that coaches are frequently asking themselves a very different question.
Not “Is this child improving?”

But rather:

“How are we measuring improvement?”
Because those are not necessarily the same thing.

One Of The Biggest Mistakes In Junior Tennis

One of the biggest mistakes we make as adults is assuming that improvement and results are the same thing.

When children first start tennis, the two often move together. A child learns to serve, and they start winning more points. They learn to rally, and they start winning more games. Improvement is obvious and visible.
As players become more experienced, that relationship begins to change.
A player can improve significantly while appearing to stand still.
In fact, some of the most frustrated parents we’ve encountered have had children who were improving enormously.

The problem was that they were measuring the wrong things.

If a player develops a better serve, moves more efficiently, makes better decisions and competes more effectively, but continues losing to the same opponents, many parents conclude that nothing has changed.

A coach often sees something completely different.

Tennis Is Not School

Perhaps one reason parents become frustrated is that most of life doesn’t work this way.

At school, progress tends to be relatively predictable. Children move through year levels, complete assessments and receive reports that indicate whether they are improving.
Tennis is far messier.

Development is rarely linear.

A player might improve rapidly for six months and then appear to plateau for a year. Another player may struggle with a particular skill for months before suddenly mastering it. Sometimes players even appear to get worse before they get better.

We’ve seen this countless times when making technical changes. A player learns a new service motion or adjusts their forehand. For a period of time, the old technique no longer feels comfortable and the new technique isn’t yet automatic. Results often decline.

Parents become concerned.
The coach is often quietly encouraged because they can see the foundations of future improvement being built.

The New Zealand Reality

There is another factor that is particularly relevant here in New Zealand.
Many families still view tennis as a summer sport.
Children play during Terms 1 and 4 before moving into football, hockey, netball, rugby or other winter sports.

We are strong supporters of multi-sport participation. Different sports develop different skills and there are enormous benefits to children experiencing a variety of sporting environments.

However, we also need to be realistic about what this means for tennis development.
A child attending one lesson per week during Term 1 and Term 4 may receive fewer than twenty coaching sessions across an entire year.
Once school holidays, illness, family commitments and weather interruptions are taken into account, the number may be even lower.

Imagine learning a musical instrument through fewer than twenty lessons annually.
Imagine learning a language that way.
Progress would happen, but it would happen slowly.

One of the reasons some children appear to start every summer at the same level is simply that they haven’t accumulated enough exposure to the sport for improvement to compound.

The Players Parents Compare Their Children To

Another pattern we see regularly involves comparisons.
A parent watches another child improve rapidly and wonders why their own child is progressing more slowly.
What isn’t always visible is the journey that sits behind the performance.
The player dominating a tournament may have been training year-round for five years. They may be competing every month. They may be hitting with parents, siblings or friends outside coaching sessions.
Sometimes they’re simply older in sporting terms.

This is one reason comparisons can be so misleading.
Two twelve-year-olds can appear to be standing beside each other on court while actually being years apart in experience.

What Coaches Notice That Parents Often Don’t

One of the fascinating aspects of coaching is that many of the improvements we value most are almost invisible from the sidelines.
Parents naturally focus on outcomes.

Did they win?
Did they lose?
How many games did they get?

Coaches are often watching something entirely different.

We notice that a player is recovering more quickly after difficult points.
We notice that they’re making better decisions under pressure.
We notice that their movement has improved.
We notice that they’re beginning to recognise patterns in matches.
We notice that they’re solving problems independently rather than looking towards adults for answers.

None of these things produce immediate rankings points or trophies.

However, they are often the qualities that determine long-term success.

The Influence Of Physical Development

Few factors create more confusion in junior tennis than physical maturity.
Parents often become concerned when a child who was previously successful starts losing to players they once beat comfortably.

Sometimes the explanation is technical.
Sometimes it’s tactical.
Often it’s simply physical.
Children mature at different rates. A player who looks dominant at twelve may simply be an early developer. A player who appears to be struggling may be waiting for their physical development to catch up.

Over the years we’ve seen countless examples of smaller, later-developing players eventually surpassing peers who seemed untouchable in the younger age groups.

This is one reason experienced coaches are often reluctant to make long-term predictions based on junior results.

Playing The Long Game

If there is one lesson tennis teaches repeatedly, it is that development takes longer than most people expect.
Parents understandably want reassurance that progress is occurring.
The irony is that progress is often happening long before it becomes visible.
The player who appears stuck may actually be laying the foundations for their biggest breakthrough. The child who is losing now may be developing skills that will serve them for years. The player who isn’t winning tournaments may be learning lessons that will eventually matter far more than a junior ranking.

At The Game, we’ve learnt that the players who ultimately achieve the most are rarely those who improve in a perfectly straight line. More often, they are the players who continue showing up through the plateaus, the frustrations and the periods where improvement is difficult to see.

Because in tennis, development is rarely measured in weeks.

It’s measured in years.