Growth Spurts, Awkward Phases, and Why Your Kid Just Got Worse
You've seen it.
Six months ago, your child was finding teammates with their first touch, beating defenders 1v1, and looking, frankly, like the player they'd worked years to become.
Now their feet feel like they belong to someone else. Touches bounce off them. Easy passes go astray. They look slower, not faster. Something looks "off" — and the season feels like it's slipping.
You start wondering: Did they stop working? Did the coach do something wrong? Did everyone else just get better? Should we change clubs?
Usually, the real answer is the simplest — and the most reassuring: they're growing.
What "Growth Spurts and Awkward Phases" Really Mean
Every child goes through a period of fast growth around puberty — known to sport scientists as Peak Height Velocity (PHV), the stretch when a child grows fastest. For girls, PHV typically arrives around ages 11–13. For boys, around 13–15. Both can vary by 1–2 years either side.
PHV isn't only a height story. During this window, bones lengthen rapidly. Muscles, tendons, and the nervous system don't always keep up at exactly the same pace. Limb lengths change, the body's "map" of itself has to be redrawn, and the brain is suddenly trying to coordinate a body that's no longer the one it learned to coordinate yesterday.
Sport science has a more honest name for what parents see in this phase: adolescent awkwardness — a real, documented developmental period in which sensorimotor function temporarily lags behind the body's growth. (Quatman-Yates et al., British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2012.) More recent work using motion analysis backs the same idea up — adolescents control their movements less tightly than adults, particularly during this maturation window. (Wachholz et al., Brain Sciences, 2020.)
In plain language: your child didn't get worse. They got bigger, fast. The skill is still there. The body has just changed underneath it.
Why It Matters
This phase is normal — but how families and coaches handle it has real downstream effects. Two things happen during PHV that parents should know about:
Skill execution often dips. First touches feel heavier, balance is less reliable, dribbling can feel clunky. The same child can look "great one season and lost the next" without a single thing changing about their effort or commitment.
Injury risk goes up. Multiple lines of evidence — including reviews specifically focused on this window — link the maturation period to elevated risk of overuse and sometimes acute injuries, partly because of these temporary sensorimotor changes. (Quatman-Yates et al., 2012.)
What this means is that the "awkward season" isn't a failure to manage. It's a window to understand — to keep development on track, protect a young player's confidence, and reduce avoidable injury.
Common Gaps in Young Players (and Their Families)
The patterns that turn a normal growth phase into a long-term problem usually look like this:
Mistaking growth for regression. Parents and coaches assume the player has "fallen behind" and start pushing harder — more training, more pressure, less rest. Exactly the wrong response.
Confidence damage. A child who used to be one of the best in the room suddenly isn't, doesn't know why, and starts to believe they've lost it. Identity wobble can outlast the physical phase.
Comparison traps. Early-maturing teammates pull ahead, late-maturing teammates fall behind — and both get judged on a single snapshot of "talent" that's really just biology.
Selection mistakes. Tryout decisions made during PHV often misread who the strongest long-term players are. The kids who look least impressive at 12 are sometimes the ones who'll be best at 16.
Ignoring recovery. Sleep, hydration, and rest matter more during growth, not less. Schedules that work fine in a stable year can overload a body that's growing 8–10cm in twelve months.
Naming this phase as what it actually is — growth, not regression — protects the player from absorbing the wrong story about themselves.
How to Approach It at Home
You don't need to be a sport scientist. A few simple habits make a real difference.
Watch height, not just performance. If your child has shot up recently, factor it in. New shoes every six months is a clue.
Reframe the "dip." Tell your player, in plain language: "Your body is changing fast right now. Your skills haven't gone anywhere — your brain is just rewriting how to use a bigger body. This is temporary, and it's normal." Kids handle hard phases far better when they're given an honest story.
Protect technical reps. Don't strip skill work to chase "athletic" training. Touch on the ball — lots of it, in tight spaces, on both feet — helps the nervous system re-map quickly.
Pay attention to recovery. Sleep, nutrition, hydration, and downtime carry more weight during PHV. (See our piece on sleep for young athletes.)
Be alert to pain that doesn't quit. Nagging knee, heel, hip, or back pain in a growing athlete deserves a real conversation with a clinician — not "play through it." Some of the most common youth growth-related conditions (e.g. Osgood-Schlatter, Sever's, growth-plate issues) show up in exactly this window.
Resist big decisions in the middle of the dip. Mid-PHV is the worst possible time to switch clubs, drop the sport, or rewrite a player's identity. Let the body settle before drawing conclusions.
Talk to the coach. A coach who understands maturation will adjust loads, give a player room to figure things out, and avoid using a tough month as a verdict. A coach who doesn't is information too.
A Word on Late-Bloomers
The kids who look "average" at 12 often become the strongest 16-year-olds. Late maturers tend to develop better technical and tactical habits because they had to survive without the early physical advantages. The reverse is also true: early maturers who relied on size sometimes plateau when everyone else catches up. PHV isn't a verdict. It's a window — and it closes.
Parent Tip
Be the calm voice during the awkward season. Your child is going to wonder what's wrong with them. Coaches, teammates, and the scoreboard might wonder the same. You are the person who knows their story. Hold the long view: this is biology, not destiny. Protect their confidence, protect their love of the game, protect their sleep — and let the dip pass.
The Goal
A young player who understands their own body well enough to keep growing through the hardest physical chapter of their development — and a family that knows how to read it as growth, not regression. Awkward phases are temporary. The habits, the identity, and the relationships you build through them last much longer.
Sources:
Wachholz F, Tiribello F, Mohr M, van Andel S, Federolf P. Adolescent awkwardness: alterations in temporal control characteristics of posture with maturation and the relation to movement exploration. Brain Sciences. 2020;10(4):216. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32260555)
Lloyd RS, Oliver JL. The Youth Physical Development Model: A new approach to long-term athletic development. Strength and Conditioning Journal. 2012;34(3):61–72. (journals.lww.com/nsca-scj)
Quatman-Yates CC, Quatman CE, Meszaros AJ, Paterno MV, Hewett TE. A systematic review of sensorimotor function during adolescence: a developmental stage of increased motor awkwardness? British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2012;46(9):649–55. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21459874)