Follow up to an Earlier Blog

A few weeks ago, I wrote a few blogs discussing children quitting sports and the mistakes that parents make that cause their children to quit playing.  In both articles I posted informational lists I felt would be helpful for parents to keep an eye on to ensure children get the most of their youth sporting experience.  Following the posting of the second article a friend responded and added a few things that may cause a child to quit youth sports that were not in either article or that I had not thought of until she sent them to me, but ones I definitely knew about.  The additions to the original list are as follows:

·       parents living vicariously through their children

·       parents prioritizing sports over family functions and experiences

·       parents prioritizing sports over academics. i.e., homework, study, tournaments during the school year.

My friend went on to state “there has to be a happy medium and often, there is. Eventually kids start to "get it" and say...I don't want to miss these things anymore. it creates an enormous amount of stress on them to choose and unless they are in the 1%

who move onto MLB, NFL etc. they themselves make the decision.” 

I cannot agree more with what she wrote.  As I have written in the past, too many parents are living vicariously through their children, whether that is because their own youth sports career did not live up to their expectations, they did not play youth sports, or for some other reason they are pushing their children to get that “possible” college scholarship and the professionalizing of youth sports and this is causing many children to quit playing at younger and younger ages.  In past blogs I have quoted many sources stating children tend to quit youth sports by the time they reach 13 years old.  This is the age when many children start to face the pressures of increased competition and specialization (if they have not encountered these pressures at an earlier age).  This specialization leads to burnout, loss of interest or simply they have shifting priorities  as they enter adolescence.

Many times, when I was coaching, families were caught between family events and youth sporting events. Children were forced to miss one or the other putting them at odds with either their family or the team. In some cases, if the family/child picks the family event over the sporting event it leads to ramifications for the child relating to the team, something that no family/child should face. No family/child should ever be in the position of having to choose one or the other. I believe if a child joins a sport they need to understand the commitment to the sport and the need to show up to practices and games; however, children should not be missing events with family, grandparents, aunt and uncles and cousins as they are important milestones and they make lasting memories.

I can remember a few times my family faced this dilemma, one of the kids youth sporting events or a family outing….what to do?  Sometimes we were able to split the difference and do both events, even if one parent went to the family event while the other did the sporting event and we met later and other times the family event took precedence and to the consternation of my child the family event won out and the sporting event was missed.  As both a parent and a former youth sports athlete myself I always felt terrible when one of my children had to miss a game because, as I stated earlier, we taught our children that when you joined something, you were obligated to see it through but at times as the parents, we had to make a decision that was best for our family.

Finally, many parents are focusing on youth sports over the more important part of their child’s development….their education.  I have a number of teacher friends who are constantly telling me stories about how children in their classes are missing school to attend tournaments/showcases/trainings and my first question is “can these children afford to miss that much school” to which I usually get an “eyeroll” which indicates to me the answer is a resounding NO….  The research indicates that for most sports the odds of a youth athlete making it to the professional level are usually less that 1% so again my question is why are parents possibly sacrificing their child’s education for a less than 1% of the same child getting a college scholarship or going pro?

I hate nothing more than seeing a child quit a sport because they are feeling that it has become a job instead of being fun and they feel they are missing out on their childhood, losing things that they will never get back.  Growing up, I feel we had a great sports/other world balance, granted we did not have pressures on us relating to youth sports that kids have today and we spent much more time just “playing”, whether it was youth sports, or some other activity and while I realize the world moves forward and we will never go back to the carefree days of yesteryear I would really love to see parents and youth sports leagues reexamine what we are doing to our youth as it relates to their youth sporting/family balance.