The Ways Youth Sports Have Changed Throughout The Years and At What Cost To The Children Playing Them
Playing youth t-ball or joining your first soccer team when you were 9 years old used to be fun, beginner level experiences for children to experience the fun of learning how to play a particular sport. You used to join a rec league for a season and then if you wished, could try a different sport the next season. Youth sports have changed dramatically over the past 20-30 years and now children are beginning to play organized team sports as young as 3 or 4 years old and picking a sport to specialize in and play year round by the end of elementary school with special private coaching and using the best pitching machines and batting cages during the winter, for example. The level of intensity for youth sports is the same as it was for high school and even some college athletes 25 years ago and this is leading to a host of new problems.
One of the biggest changes is the age at which children are now signed up for sports. Not long ago, the youngest age usually, was around seven or eight years old to try soccer and ten or eleven years old to try basketball. Now it is sometimes still in diapers for soccer and kindergarten for basketball. Most of the kids at these little ages don’t have neither the physical coordination nor the mental capacity to be able to get through an hour long sports event. Because of this, kids give up on a sport earlier because it was too hard for them.
Kids are also being told that they should specialize and focus on one sport by the time they are 10 years old in order to get a sports scholarship for college. This has increased stress related injuries in a lot younger kids as a result of overdoing it on their still developing bodies. The overuse on the kids physically and mentally has created an entire generation of youth to completely burn out by the time they reach middle school or high school which is so sad.
This increased intensity of athletics at a younger age is also seen by the coaches and the parents too. There have been so many parents that got caught up in their children’s games or competitions that they cause problems with their inappropriate behaviors and have to be kicked out. Because of this, the majority of schools and youth leagues now require parents to sign a contract for acting in a well mannered way. Coaching has also become much more intense for kids. In the past a parent would volunteer to help coach a team and that was much appreciated. Now parents are hiring private coaches and personal trainers to get their child to to be the best athlete ever. The Financial investment parents put into their children’s athletic endeavors is huge.
Perhaps, people will realize that children need to be children and don’t need the physical or mental stress that is being placed upon them athletically by their coaches and parents.
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