A young talent leaving home: moving to a club at sixteen

At the airport his mum hugs him a little too long. He wriggles free, smiles, says “it’s not that far” and, sports bag over his shoulder, walks through security. He doesn’t turn round. In the car his dad tells her it’s a good sign — it means he’s ready. She looks out of the window the whole way home.

For the next few weeks the same message arrives every evening: “all ok”. Sometimes with a picture of the pitch, sometimes without. Only when he comes home for the holidays after three months does his mum notice that he has lost weight, sleeps until noon and shuts down whenever the club is mentioned. “All ok” meant “don’t ask”.

This post is for young athletes who, at fifteen, sixteen or seventeen, move to a club, an academy or a sports school far from home — and for the parents who stay behind. I write from the perspective of marriage and family therapy, in which I am a therapist in training under supervision. Not from the perspective of sport psychology: coaches and sport psychologists know more than I do about how a young athlete develops their talent. What interests me is what happens during this time to the young person, and to the family they have left.

Two transitions at once

When a young athlete abroad starts a new life, they go through two big transitions at the same time. The first is developmental: adolescence is the period when identity takes shape, when the relationship with parents slowly changes and when the brain is particularly sensitive to the approval of peers. The second is a life transition: a move, a new school, perhaps a new language, new rules, people they don’t know. Either of these would be demanding enough on its own. Together they can be heavy even for a very mature sixteen-year-old.

Added to this is a finding worth knowing. In a large American study, Ronald Kessler and colleagues found that half of all mental health disorders people experience in their lifetime begin by the age of 14, and three quarters by the age of 24. This does not mean that moving to a club causes mental health problems. It does mean that leaving home often happens precisely in the period when a person is most vulnerable — and when they are least likely to say for themselves that they are not doing well.

The date of departure is often dictated by the rules of the sport. In football, for example, FIFA rules restrict international transfers of minors in principle, but within the European Union they are possible under certain conditions from the age of sixteen. In Slovenia many leave even earlier, but within the country — to a boarding house next to a secondary school with a sports programme, a few hours from home. That is leaving too. It is quiet there in the evenings as well.

A loneliness that doesn’t show in the videos

From the outside, the life of a young talent looks glamorous. The shirt of a well-known club, clips from training, posts under which relatives write how proud they are. From the inside it is often different: a small room in a boarding house or with a host family, dinner at the same time as every other day, a phone on which, back home, they are just sitting down to eat without you.

This is called homesickness, and it is far more common than people admit. Christopher Thurber and Edward Walton, who wrote about homesickness for the American Academy of Pediatrics, describe it as distress and impaired functioning caused by an actual or anticipated separation from home — and stress that it is very common among young people. Homesickness is not a sign that a young person isn’t mature enough or committed enough. It is a sign that they have a home they are attached to. That is good news, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

The trouble starts when homesickness becomes a secret. In an environment that prizes toughness, and where the coach assesses everything including “the head”, a young athlete quickly learns not to show sadness. Not in front of teammates, because they are also rivals. Not in front of the coach, because it might affect selection. Not in front of parents, because they don’t want to worry them — or because they are afraid of being called home. So they stay alone with a feeling that could have been shared. You will find a short explanation of loneliness, and why it isn’t the same as being alone, in the knowledge base.

The academy isn’t family — even when it says so

Many clubs and academies talk about themselves as a family. And many of them really do take great care of young people: they have house staff, teachers, doctors, sometimes psychologists. But a club has a different aim from a family. A family loves you even when you don’t play well. A club keeps you as long as you are good enough — and every year it decides afresh whether you are.

This difference is not an accusation against clubs. It is simply a fact a young person needs to understand, so that they don’t place their entire need to belong in a place that cannot return it unconditionally. The relationship with the coach is especially sensitive: at sixteen, the coach is often the most important adult in daily life, someone whose praise warms and whose silence hurts. I write about when the relationship with a coach becomes more than professional in The coach as a parent: when the relationship with your coach is more than professional.

This matters too: when a young person is far from home, the adults around them are the ones with power. Most use it responsibly. But if someone abuses that power — through humiliation, threats, physical or sexual violence — a young athlete often stays silent, because everything is at stake. Parents who know this can open the door: “If anything ever happens to you that isn’t right, you can tell us, and nobody will send you home as a failure for it.”

Parents at a distance: being a secure base over the phone

Attachment theory, developed by John Bowlby, talks about a secure base: a relationship from which a child sets out to explore the world and to which they can return when things get hard. A teenager who leaves for a club is exploring the world in a very literal sense. A secure base doesn’t help by keeping them at home, but by remaining available when it is needed.

At a distance this isn’t simple. Parents have only a screen and a few minutes of conversation, which the young person often has while tired, in the corridor of the boarding house, with teammates in the background. Two temptations pull at parents here. The first is to bombard them with questions about the game, the minutes and the coach. The second is to start rescuing: calling the club, offering to bring them home, solving problems they didn’t ask to have solved.

Both come from love and worry. But a young athlete of sixteen needs something third: someone who asks how they are and can bear the answer without immediately fixing it. In family therapy we describe this as parents staying in contact without taking on the child’s distress as their own — something closely linked to differentiation. If you recognise your own reactions in one of the attachment styles, you may find this post helpful: Attachment styles: the four patterns we learn closeness by, and how to spot your own.

A phone call (composite, not a real person)

This is how an evening call between a mother and her son, who has been at an academy abroad since September, might sound.

“How was today?”
“Fine. Training, school, training.”
“Did you play at the weekend?”
“No. It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you want Dad to call the coach?”
“NO. Mum, please. No.”
(a pause)
“All right. He won’t call. It’s just … you sound tired. How are you, not at training, just in general, in the evenings?”
(a long pause) “Nobody here knows who I am. They only know what position I play.”

In this conversation the mother nearly missed twice. First when she asked about the game, then when she offered that Dad would sort it out. The third time she asked something different and bore the silence — and her son said the sentence he had been carrying for weeks. This isn’t a recipe that always works. But it is an example of how parents at a distance can make a space that a young person steps into by themselves when they are ready.

What happens at home when a child leaves

When a young talent leaves, it is not only their life that changes. The whole family changes. A younger brother or sister may feel that all the attention has moved to another country; conversations at the table revolve around matches that aren’t on television and results that arrive by text. The parents may have invested, financially and emotionally, in a dream that isn’t only the child’s. Sometimes it is only after the departure that it becomes clear how much the child’s sport was also holding their partnership together.

In relational family therapy, in which I am training, we see the family as a system: a change in one member shifts all the others. A sixteen-year-old leaving is a kind of early empty nest for the parents — I wrote about how a couple finds their way when the children leave in The empty nest: when the children leave and two strangers remain. With a young athlete the experience is even more tangled, because the departure is joy, pride and loss all at once.

It also matters what the family allows itself to feel. Parents may find it awkward to admit they are struggling, because they “should be happy”. The child may find it awkward to admit they are scared, because “they’ve invested so much”. When nobody says what they feel, everyone ends up alone. For more on what a child’s sport means to parents, and how easily love becomes entangled with results, see Young athletes and parents: the pressure we don’t see.

When the answer is “no”

Most young people who go to academies will not become professional athletes. That isn’t pessimism; it is the nature of a pyramid. Every year decisions are made about who stays and who doesn’t. In a qualitative study with young footballers who had been released by their academy, Grant Brown and Paul Potrac described how deeply that moment shook them: they lost not only their place at the club, but their answer to the question of who they were. Many described shame, anger and a sense of having let down everyone who believed in them.

For a young person who left home at sixteen, returning home after being released can be especially hard. Classmates have moved on, friendships have cooled, school is different. And the people around them often don’t know what to say, so they say nothing. If, after coming back, a teenager withdraws, avoids company, sleeps badly or is irritable for weeks, it helps to know what to watch for — this post may help: Teenage depression: telling it apart from ordinary mood swings.

A plan B is not a betrayal of the dream. It is the net beneath the tightrope a young person is walking — and because of it, they walk more boldly.

Exercise: a weekly call with three questions

Parents and a young athlete can do this exercise together, once a week, in a call that is not for logistics but for connection. Agree on it in advance, so it doesn’t feel like an interrogation.

1. Choose a fixed time. One evening a week, fifteen minutes, when nobody needs to be anywhere else. Short and regular is better than long and rare.
2. The first question isn’t about sport. “What was good this week?” It could be a lunch, a classmate, a walk. The parent answers too — connection goes both ways.
3. The second question is about what was hard. “What tired you out most this week?” The parent listens and doesn’t fix. They might simply say: “That sounds exhausting. Thank you for telling me.”
4. The third question is about need. “Would you like me to do something, or is it enough that you know I know?” This way the young person learns to say what they need, and the parent doesn’t take over.
5. End with a sentence that doesn’t depend on results. For example: “I’m proud of you for who you are — not because of a match.” If it feels awkward, say it your own way, but say it.

If a young athlete can’t answer the first question for several weeks in a row, that is information worth taking seriously.

The distance in kilometres can’t be shortened. But the distance in a relationship can be shortened by two people who, once a week, tell each other how they really are.

Where this doesn’t apply — and when someone else is the right person

Not every young athlete who leaves home suffers. Many grow through it, find friends for life and learn an independence that serves them well later. This post doesn’t want to present leaving as a mistake. It only wants distress, when it is there, to be visible. A few limits:

• For performance and competitive pressure, the right person is a sport psychologist, whom many academies have. I am not a sport psychologist.
• For body and mood — weight loss, sleep problems, injuries that don’t heal, long-lasting low mood — the first port of call is a doctor and, if needed, a psychiatrist. Abroad, that means the club doctor or a local doctor.
• When it is violence or abuse, don’t wait. In Slovenia, the SOS helpline for women and children who are victims of violence is 080 11 55, the police 113, and in an emergency 112. Young people can also call the TOM helpline for children and adolescents on 116 111 in Slovenia. Abroad, contact the local police and the welfare officer at the club.
• When suicidal thoughts appear, call the crisis line Klic v duševni stiski on 01 520 99 00 (from 7 pm to 7 am) or the Samaritans helpline (Zaupni telefon Samarijan) on 116 123 (24 hours a day), both in Slovenia.

Something practical too: my sessions take place in person in Ljubljana, in Slovenian or English. For a young athlete living abroad, it is therefore often better to find support where they live. Parents who stay at home can come on their own or together — in family therapy a lot can shift even when one family member isn’t in the room. I described how family therapy helps when a teenager goes quiet in When a teenager goes quiet: how family therapy opens the conversation.

What therapy can offer

With a young athlete who has left home, therapy rarely revolves around sport. It revolves around questions that sport only sharpens: Who am I when I’m not in the shirt? Who can I tell that I’m struggling? What do I owe my parents, who invested so much? What if I don’t make it?

With parents another layer often appears: the fear that they lost their child too early; guilt, because they let them go or because they encouraged them; the question of what to do now with the time and energy they used to put into lifts, training sessions and matches. Separation anxiety isn’t only a childhood thing — you will find a short explanation of separation anxiety in the knowledge base. When parents find a place for their own worries, they pour less of them into phone calls with their child. And that may be the most they can do for them.

What to remember

• A young athlete who leaves home at sixteen goes through a developmental and a life transition at once — that is a lot even for a mature teenager.
• Homesickness is common and not a sign of weakness; it becomes dangerous when it stays a secret.
• An academy can take great care of you, but it isn’t family: its goodwill is tied to success; a family’s must not be.
• Parents at a distance help most when they are a secure base — available, able to bear the answer, and not fixing things on the child’s behalf.
• For form, the right person is a sport psychologist, for the body a doctor, in the case of violence the police; therapy is for the person and the family who are changing through all of this.