10 Ways to Motivate our Young Athletes - Part 2 of 10. There are a few things that transcend age boundaries when it comes to developing athletes from an early age. What is good for 4- and 5-year-old athletes do not always equate to what’s good for their 8- and 9-year-old brothers and sisters. They are vastly different groups, motivated by equally distinctive plans and thingamajigs. Twelve year-olds, though chronologically close in age, are, biologically wired differently than their 13-year-old b