Parenting Mistakes that Cause Kids to Quit Youth Sports

Recently, I wrote a blog that discussed a parent discussing her daughter quitting youth sports and the family not knowing that she was so unhappy playing.  That article was on the website “I Love to Watch You Play.”  I recently read yet another article from that website entitled “Top 6 Parenting Mistakes that Cause Kids to Quit Sports”. The first article was written in the first person and was, in my opinion, a guide to what to look for and how to avoid the burnout that causes children to quit playing youth sports.  This article gives parents a list that they can use to guide themselves to ensure that they are not driving their child away from playing youth sports and in turn, keeping them playing.

            The list is a simple one:

·      We Turn Every Game into a Judgment

·      We Micromanage Their Journey

·      We Overcorrect Instead of Letting Them Struggle

·      We Make Every Decision About the Future

·      We Make the Game Feel Like a Job, and;

·      We Forget That Our Role is to be Their Safe Space

Now, I will reiterate what I have been saying for quite a while, the above referenced list is quite simple and total common sense; but as adults we tend to think of our children as “little professionals” who should be able to manage the pressures of youth sports the same way that adult professionals handle pressure.  Additionally, we want to micromanage everything that our children do in life whether it be school, their social and personal lives or their youth sports journey.  Now, I would like to take a minute to say that as parents, we were no different than most parents in that we wanted what was best for our children and I am sure that on more than one occasion we involved ourselves in our children’s lives more than we should have, making us no different than most other parents.  The reason that I point this out is I do not want to come across as some sort of “perfect parent” who never made mistakes while raising our children.  Actually, we made plenty of mistakes and what I would like to think I am doing now is trying to help parents to not make some of the same mistakes that we made regarding their youth sports journey.

While the list seems self-explanatory I would like to expand on some items.  For example, when we turn every game into a judgment, we ruin youth sports for our children.  The article states “watch any group of kids playing a pickup game at the park, and you’ll see it—smiles, freedom, creativity. No one is tracking mistakes. No one is keeping stats. No one is making them prove themselves every second.”  In other words, they are having fun, playing games, maybe making up their own rules and probably not caring who wins or loses.  Yet, go to a youth sports game and “how many of us sit in the stands with tension in our shoulders, waiting for the next play to validate or disappoint us? How many kids look to the sidelines after every mistake, scanning for approval or frustration? When every game becomes a performance instead of an experience, kids lose the joy of just playing.”

When we micromanage their journey we make the kids “like passengers in their own sports journey—with parents and coaches at the wheel, mapping out their future before they even know what they want.  Nothing kills passion faster than feeling like you have no control or power.  Your successes or failures don’t feel like yours.”  Basically, we need to let our kids decide “what their success looks like” and not to constantly make the decisions for them. As parents we need to be there to support them, but we need to let them make their own mistakes and learn from them.

The last sentence leads to the next point, we overcorrect instead of letting them struggle.  The article states that “sports are supposed to teach resilience. But too often, we don’t let them actually struggle. We step in too soon, analyze, correct, sign them up for extra lessons, and fix them instead of letting them figure it out. What message are we trying to send?  You are not good enough to do this on your own.”  Now, as I stated earlier, as parents we only want what’s best for our children, and in most cases we want better, but I can hardly believe that as kids, we were not allowed to fail and make mistakes and learn for ourselves and I truly feel that we, as parents, need to take a huge step back and allow our children to learn from their mistakes and for them to have fun.

As I have stated in many earlier blog posts, we have turned our children into little mini professionals…travel/select and elite teams now rule the youth sports landscape and parents are being told that if they do not have their children specializing in a sport at an early age they (their children) will be left behind.  The article states “The best athletes in the world are still in love with their sport. Not because it’s their job but because it still feels like play.  Too many kids; however, describe their sport as something they have to do—not something they get to do. If the game feels like an obligation, joy disappears.”  My question is what are we doing to these children? When did parents decide that their children needed to be little “professionals” taking the joy out of youth sports for our youth and making a money-making proposition?

As parents we have to remember that we are our childrens “safe space.”  The article states “No one in their sports world should love them less when they lose or more when they win. However, too many kids feel like their parents act differently based on how they perform. That’s how joy gets stolen—not just from sports but their relationship with us. Make sure they know that nothing about your love is tied to their success. Be the one place they can turn to when everything else feels overwhelming.”  I have seen too many times parents berate their children during and after games for errors or mistakes that were made during a game and many times I thought “what the heck were they doing?”  Were they thinking about what they were doing to their child? How was this going to affect the child at the next practice or game and are they driving the child from the game?  Many times, I felt like going to that parent and asking these questions just to see what their answers would be, but I never had the courage to do so.

I am hoping that writing these blogs, posting these lists and giving my experiences coaching youth sports, a change will start to take place and we can reign in the craziness that is ruling youth sports today and bring back to a better time where youth sports were something that children did for enjoyment and not to be little professionals only trying to please their parents.